Cyberbullying Has Become a Money-Making Venture
When I joined X (formerly Twitter) in 2018, it was in the midst of its golden era, which was mostly full of light-hearted banter. I remember everyone in the room I squatted at the time also found it hilarious.
I also had tons of screenshots in my gallery from Twitter of tweets I found really inspiring and motivational. This was the Twitter I knew. Good vibes, light-hearted jokes, beautiful communities. On this same Twitter, Nigerian youths came together as one to demand an end to police brutality. If anything, it showed how much could be achieved when a nation dwells together in love and unity.
Things began to go south when Elon Musk decided to monetise Twitter. With this, we saw a rise in the number of fake news, Twitter became a deeply unkind place. False accusations and all kinds of despicable things you can think of in order to go viral and earn money from X revenue.
The monetisation model essentially created a perverse incentive structure. The more engagement a post generates, the more money the creator earns. And what generates more engagement than outrage? Suddenly, tearing people down became more profitable than building them up. Fabricated stories about public figures, doctored screenshots, and malicious allegations spread like wildfire because controversy pays. Young Nigerians who once used the platform to organise for justice now find themselves navigating a minefield of character assassination and coordinated attacks.
The damage this has inflicted on our national narrative cannot be overstated. Reputations built over decades are demolished in hours by faceless accounts chasing revenue. Small businesses have been destroyed by false reviews and coordinated harassment campaigns. Mental health crises have been triggered, and in extreme cases, people have been driven to despair. The platform that once united us for #EndSARS now divides us along every conceivable line, with influencers deliberately stoking tribal, religious, and political tensions for profit.
Some perpetrators have faced consequences. We’ve seen cases where individuals were charged to court and locked behind bars for defamation, cyberstalking, and spreading false information. Yet for every person prosecuted, dozens more emerge, emboldened by the profit potential and the anonymity the internet provides. The legal system struggles to keep pace with the volume of offences.
Looking ahead to upcoming elections, this trend poses an existential threat to our democracy. If monetised misinformation continues unchecked, we risk elections determined not by policy or competence but by whoever can afford the most elaborate disinformation campaign. Foreign actors and domestic bad actors alike can exploit this system to destabilise the nation, knowing that enough money can make any lie trend.
The law must evolve to address this crisis. We need stronger digital identity verification without compromising privacy, faster judicial processes for cybercrimes, and meaningful penalties that actually deter offenders. Social media platforms must be held accountable for the ecosystems they’ve created. Perhaps most importantly, the monetisation model itself needs scrutiny. If profit is the root cause, then removing the financial incentive for harmful content must be part of the solution. This might mean stricter criteria for monetisation eligibility or demonetising content flagged for misinformation.
The internet gave us a voice. We cannot allow greed to turn that voice into a weapon against ourselves.
