As a former broadcast administrator, I sighed it off as a failure of supervision at that station and monitoring by the regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission .
How then does the NBC want to regulate the internet as it recently announced? It is unclear how the NBC intends to assess the multitude of social media accounts, and evaluate their use of language, music, percentage of local content, knowledge, to mention a few of what it would be looking out for. I agree with many who say that this new policy is a deliberate attempt to frustrate digital inclusion and diversity. And I want to wear my woman cap here. Edison Research and Triton Digital statistics in its 2019 Annual Social Media Study showed that women constitute the largest users of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. They use social media to sell their businesses and services to their friends and family.
Those who lack the financial wherewithal to place programmes on traditional radio and TV are falling back on mobile devices to share their productions. We have seen sheer ingenuity since the Covid-19- inspired lockdown in Nigeria. But for the activities of citizens on social media, many would not have survived the pandemic thus far. Even traditional radio and television stations are benefitting from internet-based broadcast activities because they are experiencing more engagements.