TheCable

Twitter has withheld a tweet by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo for copyright violation.

On March 8, the vice-president posted a video in commemoration of International Women’s Day. Beyonce’s song ‘Run the World’ was used as the video’s audio.

Quoting the tweet that same day, a Twitter user @olayknowless, had asked Beyonce to report Osinbajo’s account for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).

“Ma’am @Beyonce, Nigeria’s current Vice President who has never properly done his job has used your song without permission, ask Jack your good friend to take care of his account In accordance with DMCA violation penalties,” the user wrote.

Ma’am @Beyonce, Nigeria’s current Vice President who has never properly done his job has used your song without permission, ask Jack your good friend to take care of his account In accordance with DMCA violation penalties. https://t.co/IvTeWUoQ0n

— Ólayinka🇳🇬 (@OlayKnowless) March 8, 2021

The microblogging site took down the tweet afterwards, though the exact day this was done is not known.

“This tweet has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder,” Twitter said on the post.

The removal of the post went viral on Wednesday, shortly after the user who made the complaint discovered that action had been taken.

In June, Twitter deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet where he threatened to treat Nigerians “misbehaving” in “the language they understand”.

In the tweet, Buhari cited the civil war and threatened to deal with those “bent on destroying” Nigeria through “insurrection”.

“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” he had said.

The microblogging site deleted the message the next day after a public outcry.

The government on June 4 announced the indefinite suspension of Twitter in Nigeria afterwards.

The government, however, said the suspension had nothing to do with the deletion of the president’s tweet.