Twitter returns to Nigeria

Twitter returns to Nigeria

Author: BBC World Service January 19, 2022 Duration: 46:40

After 222 days the social media platform is back up and running in Nigeria. The country suspended Twitter after it deleted a tweet by President Buhari and Nigerians have been accessing the platform via VPN, but now Twitter has agreed to the government's demands which include opening a local office, paying taxes, and being respectful of Nigerian laws. Abubakar Idris, the reporter for tech site Rest of World, joins us on the show. We are waiting on a response from Twitter.

100 years of the BBC The BBC Historian Robert Seatter joins us live to talk about some of the tech innovations that the BBC developed over the last 100 years. He’s behind these amazing websites - Objects of the BBC - BBC 100 www.bbc.co.uk/100 and even more will be revealed throughout the year. He will be discussing the first OB in 1924 (The Cello and the Nightingale), the development of the first ribbon microphone by BBC engineers (as the BBC could not afford those designed in Hollywood), the fully digitised audio archive, and many other marvels of tech innovation.

Ban on online education classes in China A few months ago, we reported on the Chinese government’s ban on online video gaming in children, where it restricted it to three hours a week. That was followed by a new set of regulations on private tutoring that has hit some of the biggest tech companies in China. While the new rules will certainly give young people more leisure, there’s a lot more to it than children’s well-being. On the show today we have science and technology journalist Yuan Ren to explain one of the biggest shakeups in Chinese education.

The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson.

Studio Manager: John Boland Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

(Image: Pius Utomi Ekpei /AFP via Getty Images)


Every week, the team at Digital Planet from the BBC World Service takes you beyond the headlines to explore how technology is reshaping lives, cultures, and economies across the globe. This isn't just a rundown of gadget releases or corporate earnings; it's a grounded conversation about the real-world impact of our digital choices. You'll hear from engineers in Nairobi, policymakers in Brussels, and coders in São Paulo, offering a genuinely international perspective that challenges the usual Silicon Valley narrative. Each episode digs into the human stories behind the innovations, examining both the promise and the peril of our connected age. We tackle questions about ethics, accessibility, and the unintended consequences of progress, making sense of complex issues with clear, thoughtful reporting. Tune in for a nuanced and curious exploration of our technological moment, where the focus is always on the people designing, using, and living with these tools every day. This podcast provides the context you need to understand not just what's new, but what it actually means.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Digital Planet
Podcast Episodes
Big tech platforms to protect women online [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:46
Four of the world’s biggest tech platforms are adopting a new set of commitments to tackle online abuse and improve women’s safety online. This is the first time there has been cross-industry collaboration on ways compan…
YouTube’s rules silencing human rights activists [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:33
Why did YouTube take down video testimonies from family members of people imprisoned in China’s internment camps? To ensure the credibility of these videos, people show proof of identity. Now, YouTube says it has concern…
Bias in AI – what next? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:03
Our own bias is becoming engrained in computer code. There is a huge amount of evidence showing that human bias and ignorance is encoded into our digitally driven world. The impact of this is unsurprisingly impacting the…
Bitcoin’s environmental cost [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:54
El Salvador has voted to recognise bitcoin as legal tender, and there is a great deal of interest globally in digital currencies that provide an alternative to cash. However mining bitcoin, the intensive computation need…
NFT? That’ll do nicely [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:46
‘Non-fungible tokens’ are a kind of digital asset that can be bought and sold. They have captured the imagination of many artists. Art pieces can be given a digital identity as an NFT. However, they have also been used t…
WhatsApp v Indian government [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:01
India has brought in stringent new laws that WhatsApp says will force it to break its end-to-end encryption. In a social media chat that’s been forwarded by multiple users, the new rules require the person who originated…
The first African voice assistant [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:43
Speech smart assistants currently do not support any African language, but now Mozilla’s Common Voice project is building a dataset for Kiswahili which is spoken by more than a 100 million people in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzan…
WhatsAppening with pandemic misinformation? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:47
More than 100 million people worldwide have interacted with Covid-19 misinformation since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a new study in PLOS One. We speak to Professor David Nemer, from the University of Vir…
Urgent calls for mandatory recycling of e-waste [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:11
Pascal Leroy, Director General of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Forum joins us live to discuss their report on a proposed recycling framework for critical raw materials – CEWASTE – and why recycling criti…

«1...678910