SIR: American billionaire and Tesla founder, Elon Musk is currently contributing and widening tribal war, fake news, indecent behaviour in Nigeria with his X (Twitter) monitisation scheme.

In one sense, Elon Musk has gotten exactly what he wanted. For all his talk about free speech, his primary motivation for sinking $44 billion into buying Twitter last year was clearly an unquenchable desire to be the centre of attention but that attention has made him pay less attention to safety on the platform.

In February 2023, Elon Musk announced Monetisation on the platform, stripping celebrities, journalists, business owners, leaders and those with authentic identity off blue check, the mark that shows that a person is genuine, reliable and has a valid identity or a valid means of identification.

The South Africa born billionaire during the announcement of the feature explained that the revenue sharing was an initiative set up to incentivize and support content creators who have built substantial followings and engagement on the platform by offering a potential source of income for them.

For users to be eligible to participate in the X revenue-sharing programme, they will need to subscribe month or yearly for the verification badge, but that scheme has led to tearing Nigeria fragile peace apart, creating more division among citizens.

The spread of misinformation and disinformation using social media platforms such as X or Meta is not new but Monitisation on X has increased the trend as users rival each other for visibility and impression, throwing caution to the wind.

While, it is a good initiative to reward creators, it is a nightmare for fact-checkers, journalists, security experts and those using the platform for news and information.

The 2023 Presidential election in Nigeria can be taken as a case study as there was an increase in the use of social media to spread fake news. People would weaponise the desire for quick spreading of misinformation, and opening up a new challenge for fact-checkers.

In August 2024, the Lagos State Government distanced itself from the hate comments against the Igbo ethnic group posted by Lagospedia, an X handle claiming to be proclaiming the virtues of Lagos.

The government only disowned the handle months after operating for months and only after former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar raised an alarm over the implications of the harm the faceless individual could cause. But despite condemning and disowning the individual, the state government failed to bring the handler to justice.

After the Lagospedia‘s reckless, divisive and a dangerous rhetoric, other handlers continue to trend tribal sentiments.
Eniola Daniel is a media

The handler behind @VoiceofIgbos continues to threaten the Yorubas and saying negative things about them while the handler of @NoNonsensezone continues to trend abusive language towards the Igbos. X has failed to take down negative posts by the individuals or bring down their accounts despite reports.

These individuals only surfaced and became prominent on Twitter (X) after Musk started monitisation. Unlike Meta which discourages negative tribal rhetoric and responded complaints quickly, X has ignored so many tribal attacks.

A popular handler, PST Ekezie @Onsogbu has also been left to trend negative and fake news despite being fact checked. Recently, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) called him out after trending fake news but that has not deterred him.

Before the introduction, X was a reliable source of news and income for known influencers who built a solid brand for themselves through the platform. Also, the absence of X presence in Africa has led to the trend.

Musk sacked all Twitter staffers in Africa after taking over the company and X has been without a presence in Africa after that.Musk entered Twitter’s office making countless decisions, big and small, all of which have made the platform significantly less viable and less worth spending any amount of time on.
Now, it’s time for Musk to learn from others and restore X to how he met it.
Eniola Daniel is a media personality, brand influencer and social commentator.