Meta threatens to reduce access about fines

People in Nigeria can lose access to Facebook and Instagram after the parent company Meta said it was confronted with large fines and “unrealistic” regulatory demands of the Nigerian authorities.

Last year, three Nigerian supervisory agencies imposed fines on the social media giant-based social media giant of a total of more than $ 290 million (£ 218 million) for violating various laws and regulations.

Meta was not successful in a recent attempt to challenge decisions in the Federal Supreme Court in Abuja.

“The applicant can be forced to effectively close the Facebook and Instagram services in Nigeria to limit the risk of enforcement measures,” the company said in the court papers.

Meta also owns WhatsApp, but it did not mention the message service in its statement.

The Supreme Court gave the company until the end of June to pay the fines.

The BBC has asked Meta to outline what the next steps will be, but has not yet received a response.

Facebook is by far the most popular social media platform in Nigeria and is used by tens of millions in the country for daily communication and sharing news. It is also an essential tool for many of the small online companies of Nigeria.

In July last year, Meta was asked to pay three fines:

• The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has imposed a fine of $ 220 million for alleged anti-competitive practices
• The advertisement supervisor has imposed the company a fine of $ 37.5 million for non -approved advertisements
• And the Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC) claimed that Meta had violated data privacy laws and fined $ 32.8 million.

FCCPC Chief Executive Officer Adamu Abdullahi said that investigations that were conducted between May 2021 and December 2023 in collaboration with the data committee revealed “invasive practices against those involved/consumers in Nigeria” but was not specific about what they were.

In the submission of the court, Meta said that her ‘primary care’ was with the data committee, which she accused of ‘misjunging’ of data privacy laws.

In particular, the Commission has demanded that Meta will seek prior approval before transferring personal data from Nigeria – a condition that Meta called “unrealistic”.

The data committee also set other requirements.

Meta was told that it should offer an icon that should provide a link to educational videos about risks for data privacy. This would be content created in collaboration with the government approved educational institutions and non-profit organizations.

The NDPC insisted that these videos emphasize the dangers of “manipulative and unfair data processing” that can expose Nigerian users to health and financial risks.

Meta described the requirements of the NDPC as unfeasible and said that the agency did not fail “to interpret the laws correctly that guide the privacy of the data”.