Nigerians have dragged Buhari’s Social media Aide, Lauretta Onochie, for indiscriminately posting ‘child pornography-related’ content.
Several Nigerians on the microblogging platform (Twitter) said they have reported Lauretta to the Twitter Help center for the illicit pictures of some kids she posted on her profile on November 23, 2020.
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Lauretta posted a picture of seven kids (2 girls and 5 boys) using cartons as improvised mask. One of the boys appeared totally naked. She captioned the image with:
“WEARING A MASK IS NOT A POLITICAL STATEMENT. ITS NOT PUNISHMENT BY GOVERNMENT PROTECT YOURSELF. Stop signWear oneStop sign. These have made efforts with masking where those of us who are more vulnerable & susceptible to COVID-19 are still swearing that it’s a scam. God bless their efforts”
Does Lauretta’s tweet Violate the Child Sexual Exploitation Policy?
According to the Twitter rules and policy on child sexual exploitation. The policy states categorically that:
“Twitter has zero tolerance towards any material that features or promotes child sexual exploitation, one of the most serious violations of the Twitter Rules.”
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Below is an excerpt from the rules and policy:
What is not a violation of this policy?
- Discussions related to child sexual exploitation are permitted, provided they don’t normalise, promote or glorify child sexual exploitation in any way;
- Conversations about help-seeking behaviour of individuals who may struggle with an attraction to minors;
- Advocacy against illegal or harmful activity involving minors provided there is no sharing of, or linking to any material featuring child sexual exploitation; and
- Depictions of nude minors in a non-sexualized context or setting may be permitted in a limited number of scenarios (e.g., art works by internationally renowned artists that feature minors, news media reportage, media created and shared for scientific or educational purposes). Curled from Twitter Rules and Policy.
It’s evident that her post falls in the fourth category listed above, hence, her tweet does not violate the Child Porn rule as far as Twitter is concerned. This is because the image of the nude minor shown is in a non-sexualized context and the purpose of the post is to inform the general public on the need to use the mask.
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Nigerians Explain the Figurative Meaning of the image to Lauretta It is not surprising to everyone including Lauretta that her posts attract negative criticisms from Nigerian youths using the social media. This could be the reason she restricts comments on her posts to those she follows and mentions in her tweets.
Aside the number of persons that stated that they had reported Lauretta’s account for violating the Child Sexual Exploitation Policy. Several Nigerians have raised their concern and expressed that it is a ‘shameless and disgraceful act’ to post such image.
Some have written that, she didn’t understand the in-depth meaning of the image. Which shows a satirical ridicule of the impoverished state of some families in the nation.
Adesua Etomi-Willington, Nollywood actress, reacted to Lauretta’s tweet:
“You are a disgrace. Both home & abroad. You should be ashamed that these children have to do this with cardboards. Instead of talking about how to tackle poverty so they can be protected adequately against the virus, you are sleeping this nonsense.”
See other comments below.
