Twitter announced a new service in two countries, got shut down in third

Nigeria
Nigeria’s government has indefinitely suspended twitter in the country. The suspension orders came two days after the social media company deleted Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweets. The President’s account had also been suspended for 12 hours as the company said the President’s tweet had violated the company’s ‘abusive behaviour’ policy.

The country announced the suspension on Twitter through its Information Ministry’s account.  The statement said, ‘The Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria,” In the statement, the country also accused Twitter of allowing its platform to be used “for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”

Reuters quoted a ministerial aid saying ‘Wait and see how things turn out’. Twitter said in a statement on Friday that it was investigating the “deeply concerning” suspension of operations, and would “provide updates when we know more”.

Twitter faced some backlash from Nigeria’s Information Minister back in April after the company chose to open its first office in Ghana. The Nigerian Information Minister accused the company of being influenced by the media’s misrepresentation of Nigeria. It is not clear when exactly will the suspension go into effect. Users could still access the website, and many reacted to the Government’s statement saying they will use VPS to access the website. The suspension has not been received well, with some even mocking the Government for using Twitter to announce its suspension.

Canada and Australia
The micro-blogging website announced the launch of its first paid subscription service in Canada and Australia on June 3^rd. The new service is called Twitter Blue and costs $3.49 CAD or $4.49 AUD. The subscription will allow users to access premium features that have long been requested by those who use the website. Twitter is known to take feedback seriously. The term tweet was coined by one of its first users and the little ‘+’ mark now appears when you tweet, was added after twitter threads started becoming more popular.
The current subscription plan gives the following services

• Bookmark Folders: Bookmark Folders will let users organise their saved Tweets  by letting them manage content. It will make it easier for users to find it easily.
• Undo Tweet: Twitter users have been requesting an edit button for a long time. Twitter has denied the request claiming this might lead to people participate in malicious activity by simply changing their tweet. The undo is a close answer to those requesting an edit button. This feature allows you to set up a customisable timer of up to 30 seconds to click ‘Undo’ before the Tweet, reply, or thread you’ve sent posts to your timeline. Correct mistakes easily by previewing what your Tweet will look like before the world can see it.
• Reader Mode: Will provide users with a cleaner slate to read long twitter threads to create a more seamless reading experience.

Smaller subscriber perks include customizable app icons for your device’s home screen, colour themes for the Twitter app, and access to dedicated subscription customer support.