Meta threatens to reduce access to fines

People in Nigeria may lose access to Facebook and Instagram after the Meta mother said she is confronted with major fines and “unrealistic” regulatory demands by Nigerian authorities.

Last year, three Nigerian supervisory agencies imposed fines on the US -based giant for social media totaling over $ 290 million (£ 218 million) to violate various laws and regulations.

Meta was unsuccessful in a recent attempt to challenge the decisions in the Federal Supreme Court in Abuzha.

“The applicant can be effectively forced to exclude Facebook and Instagram services in Nigeria to mitigate the risk of implementation measures,” the company said in court documents.

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

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

The BBC has asked META to outline what its next steps will be, but it has not yet received an answer.

Facebook is the most popular social media platform in Nigeria and is used by tens of millions in the country for daily communication and news sharing. It is also a vital tool for many Nigeria’s small online businesses.

Last July, Meta was asked to pay three fines:

• The Federal Commission for Consumer Competition and Protection (FCCPC) has imposed a $ 220 million fine for alleged anti -competitive practices
• Company Advertising Fines $ 37.5 million Due to Unapproved Advertising
• And the Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC) claims that META has violated data privacy laws and fined $ 32.8 million.

FCCPC CEO, Adam Abdullahi, said investigations conducted jointly with the Data Commission between May 2021 and December 2023.

In his proposal, Meta said his “basic concern” was in the data committee that accused the “misinterpretation” of data confidentiality laws.

Moreover, the Commission requested META to seek prior approval before transferring personal data from Nigeria – a condition that Meta called “unrealistic”.

The Data Commission also imposed other requests.

It was said that it should provide an icon associated with educational videos about the risk of data privacy. This would be content created in collaboration with government -approved educational institutions and non -profit organizations.

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

Meta described NDPC’s requests as impossible, saying that the agency failed to “correctly interpret the laws of the privacy of the data.”