Nigerian government’s decision to block Twitter in the country means the country loses N90.7 million ($2250,600) every hour the microblogging platform stays shut down.
This is according to estimates from the Netblocks’ Cost of Shutdown Tool (COST). A total shutdown would cost the country N2.3 billion ($5,593,819).
Nigeria would also lose N48.5 billion ($134,251,654) for every day the social media platform stays blocked by the authorities.
The Netblocks COST estimates the economic impact of internet disruption, mobile data blackout, or app restriction using indicators from the World Bank, ITU, Eurostat, and the US Census. Also important to note that the exchange rate the platform uses is as of November 2019.
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“This tool estimates the economic impact of a single hypothetical internet disruption of the specified type, location, and duration. Internet shutdowns and blackouts which impact entire populations are rare and typically last on the order of a few hours,” Netblocks noted on its website.
The order by the Nigerian government may however last more than hours and stretch to days given the plan to have all OTTS and social media operators registered.
Although Twitter has said it is working to have all Nigeria who uses the platform back, it may not want to be pressured into doing the bidding of the President Buhari administration. Nigeria is not the only country where Twitter is blocked. In fact, it is about the 17th country in Africa to enforce a blackout and one of the nearly 70 countries in the world to do so.
There are many Nigerian businesses that leverage Twitter for their operations. These include influencers, social media service providers, tech startups, and many others who are likely to be affected by the Twitter blackout.
“Twitter is a business channel for perhaps millions of Nigerians, the larger implication of the Twitter ban on the economy is not limited to these users but also includes several other macroeconomic implications including negative tonality which would discourage much-needed development and Foreign Direct Investments into our economy by eroding investor confidence in Nigeria, the Nigerian ecosystem and Nigerian startups,” Innovation Support Network, a civil society group of technology and innovation hubs said in a statement on Saturday.
