Digital Colonialism and the Governance of Nigerian Social Media Platforms: Power, Resistance, and Regulatory Theory

This study develops an original theoretical and empirical analysis of digital colonialism as it manifests in the governance of social media platforms operating in Nigeria, examining how global platform companies exercise power over Nigerian digital publics and what forms of regulatory response and civil society resistance are available. The concept of digital colonialism describes how powerful technology companies from the Global North extract data from, impose algorithmic governance on, and shape communication norms in Global South markets without adequate accountability or reciprocity. Nigeria, as Africa's largest social media market, represents the most important African case for examining these dynamics. This study employs a critical political economy methodology combining analysis of platform terms of service, moderation policies, and Nigerian content governance incidents with interviews of 32 digital rights advocates, tech policy officials, academic researchers, and government regulators from Nigeria, Kenya, and the United States, alongside analysis of policy documents from the Nigerian government's regulatory initiatives including the Social Media Bill debates and the National Broadcasting Commission's OTT regulations. The theoretical contribution synthesises digital colonialism theory with platform governance theory and African digital rights scholarship. Findings reveal systematic patterns of algorithmic discriminatory treatment of African political speech, data extraction without revenue redistribution, and moderation opaqueness that disproportionately affects Nigerian users. Government regulatory responses are characterised by both legitimate public interest objectives and authoritarian impulses that create complex interventions. The study contributes an original Nigerian digital colonialism regulatory theory.

Keywords: digital colonialism, platform governance, Nigeria, social media regulation, digital rights.