Three major global technology platforms—Google, LinkedIn, and TikTok—deactivated over 28 million accountswithin the last one year for engaging in fraud, impersonation, and spreading harmful content, according to the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Abdullahi. Many of the deactivated accounts were reportedly linked to Nigerian online actors.
Mr Abdullahi made the disclosure on Monday in Abuja during a symposium on digital innovations in crisis communication organised by the Centre for Crisis Communication. The DG warned that the scale of abusive activity exposes the growing weaponisation of social media in Nigeria’s digital space.
According to the figures presented, LinkedIn, a platform primarily reserved for professionals, removed nearly 16 million accounts, a figure Mr Abdullahi described as “outrageous.” He questioned: “So why are people using it to cause crises and other things? They use it for impersonation and for social engineering to defraud organisations and individuals.” He added that Google alone shut down 9,680,141 accounts, while TikTok also carried out high-volume suspensions.
Beyond account suspensions, Mr Abdullahi disclosed that the big tech platforms collectively removed more than 58.9 million pieces of harmful content linked to Nigeria in the same period. At least 420,000 posts were restored following appeals or internal reviews. He explained that these actions were part of a strengthening collaboration between the Nigerian government and global technology giants to curb disinformation, online scams, extremist propaganda, and coordinated digital abuse. However, the NITDA DG cautioned that governments must not be allowed to weaponise takedown systems to silence critics or suppress minority voices.
