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Twitter declared a free and open Internet to be "an essential human right in modern society" Saturday morning after the Nigerian government banned access to the social media giant following a dispute with its president even as critics say it suppresses conservative content and bans its own users.

Twitter deleted a fiery tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari that many perceived as a veiled threat against violent separatists in the nations southeast then his governments information wing responded by banning the social media platform from the country.

ETHIOPIAS AMHARA ETHNIC GROUP ACCUSES BIDEN OF IGNORING ATROCITIES

"The Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria," the countrys Federal Ministry of Information and Culture tweeted Friday night.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Nigerias Minister of Information and Culture, also announced that the government would begin licensing social media platforms and "OTT," or over-the-top, operations, which offer content directly to viewers via the internet.

"We are deeply concerned by the blocking of Twitter in Nigeria," Twitters Public Policy division tweeted in response. "Access to the free and #OpenInternet is an essential human right in modern society. We will work to restore access for all those in Nigeria who rely on Twitter to communicate and connect with the world. #KeepitOn."

The declaration immediately drew responses from Twitter users who noted that the social media giants own policies allow for suspending and banning users including former President Donald Trump.

"Access to the free & #OpenInternet is an essential human right in modern society... unless youre Donald Trump. Or reporting on Hunter Bidens laptop. Or discussing the biology of gender. Or the murderous dictator of Iran. Or a Chinese Communist Party peon lying about COVID," conservative author Liz Wheeler wrote in response to Twitters tweet.

Another user tweeted the meme of a comic book hero sweating over which button to choose "Access to Twitter is a human right," or "Ban these accounts for saying things I don't like."

Several other users weighed in with similar sentiments.

The company has also been accused by Republican lawmakers of "shadow-banning" conservatives, or using an algorithm that suppresses the visibility of their tweets.

Twitter also restricted the New York Post's account over a story about Hunter Biden just days before the 2020 presidential election, then backtracked after the story checked out.

PRO-IRAN TWITTER ACCOUNTS GOT ANTI-SEMITIC HATE TRENDING AMID ISRAELI-HAMAS ESCALATION

And yet FOX Business reported last month that a network of pro-Iran Twitter accounts got numerous anti-Semitic hashtags trending as violence between Israel and Hamas broke out at its highest levels since 2014.

Twitter Headquarters building in San Francisco (iStock)

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Buharis deleted tweet came in response to arson attacks on government offices and police stations and appeared to threaten ethnic Igbo militants believed to be behind them.

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"Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War," he wrote in the now-deleted tweet. "Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand."

The Nigerian president was a military officer in the fight against Igbo separatists who wanted to establish an independent Biafra nation in the countrys bloody civil war. More than 1 million people died in the conflict between 1967 and 1970.

Twitter rules prohibit tweets promoting or threatening violence.

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Twitter declares access to its platform a 'human right' amid censorship of conservatives - Fox News

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, argued on "Sunday Morning Futures" that "it now is clear" that Facebook was "utilizing their monopoly position to censor on behalf of the government" regarding information related to COVID-19 and its origins.

Cruz made the comment reacting to Facebook saying on May 26 thatit would no longer ban posts suggesting COVID-19is man-made amid mounting calls from President Biden and other officials for further investigation into the pandemics origins.

The announcement marked a reversal for the social media giant. In February, Facebook said it would remove posts claiming the virus was man-made or manufactured "following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization" who had "debunked" the claim.

"These latest breakthroughshave real consequence becauseit now is clear that Facebookwas operating at the directionof and in the direct benefit ofthe federal government andoperating as the government'scensor, utilizing their monopolyposition to censor on behalf ofthe government," Cruz told host Maria Bartiromo.

He then called it "a very dangerous admissionthat is now out there for Facebook," explaining that there could be legal ramifications for anybody "whosespeech was censored byFacebook" on the topic.

"If you went out andposted the facts that led a yearago to the very stronglikelihood that the COVID virusescaped from a Chinesegovernment lab in Wuhan, China,if you posted that a year agoand they took it down, I thinkthere's a very good argumentyou have a cause of actionagainst Facebook," Cruz said.

"Facebookwould ordinarily say, Were aprivate company, were not liable," he continued.

"Well, you know what, when they act atthe behest of the government, when theycontact [Anthony] Fauci, when they say, 'Should we censor this?' and Faucisays, 'Yes' and they censor it for thefederal government and then magically when thegovernment changes its mind, and say, Oh, allthose facts that were there a year ago,now you're allowed to talk aboutit, they stopped censoring it with aflip of a switch, that lays a very strong argument thatFacebook is operating as a stateagency and that opens verysignificant legal liability."

RAND PAUL GIVES 2-WORD RESPONSE TO FAUCI'S UNEARTHED EMAILS

A Facebook spokesperson did not respond to Fox News request for comment to Cruzs statements on Sunday.

However, in a statement late last month a Facebook spokesperson said, "In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps."

"Were continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge," the statement continued.

Politico was first to report on the policy change.

Cruz told Bartiromo that he "unfortunately" doesnt expect that the Biden administration "will doanything to hold them [Facebook] to account."

Public calls for further investigation into the pandemics origins intensified in recent days after the Wall Street Journal reported that three researchers at Chinas Wuhan Institute of Virology displayed symptoms severe enough to seek hospital treatment. A previous State Department fact sheet noted the researchers had "symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness."

In a statement last month, Biden said he had directed his national security adviser to develop a report on the virus origins, including the possibility that it emerged after a laboratory accident, shortly after he became president. Biden said he has called on intelligence officials to present a report on their findings within 90 days.

Facebook and other social media platforms have faced pressure from both sides of the aisle regarding their COVID-19 content policies. Democratic lawmakers have pressed platforms to crack down on the spread of misinformation, while Republicans, including Cruz, have accused the companies of stifling open debate, including discussions on the lab leak theory.

Cruz also reacted to the trove of recently released emails to and from top government epidemiologistAnthony Fauci, which sparked fierce backlash against him from someRepublicans, including Cruz.

"I got to saythis e-mail dump that came outmakes clear that this is notjust being sloppy, it issystematic, and it is systemically aneffort to mislead the Americanpeople," Cruz told Bartiromo.

Cruz added, "He[Fauci] wasn't doing it alone, but he wasdoing it with much of the U.S.government behind him and withFacebook and Big Tech operatingas an extension of the U.S.government in order to silenceany views that disagreed, notwith the science because hewasn't looking for the science,he was suppressing the science,but rather trying to silenceanything that disagreed with thepolitical narrative that wasconvenient that he was pushingat that moment."

The emails Cruz was referencing were obtained first by BuzzFeedvia a Freedom of Information Act request.

The emails reportedly show that Fauci apparently took seriously questions about whether the virus leaked from a lab early in the pandemic before laterdismissingthe possibility.

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A spokesman for Fauci and TheNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases(NIAID), where Fauci serves as director, did not respond to Fox News request for comment.

Fox Business Thomas Barrabi and Fox News Tyler Olson contributed to this report.

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Sen. Cruz argues Facebook was censoring COVID-19 content on behalf of the government - Fox News

CensorPhoto: Magnolia Pictures

Long ago, before the internet, it was easy to be shocked, dazzled, and surprised by some random nightmare that you or your family brought home to watch behind closed doors. Even the best advertising campaigns couldnt rival the word of mouth passing across playgrounds and campfires, the whispers of something wicked you could rent down the street. Legendary among these home-viewing horrors were the so-called video nasties, a loose aggregation of weird and extreme genre films whose content (and accessibility) so incensed the status quo that they were eventually banned in the U.K. by the British Board Of Film Classification. You could go to jail for carrying them.

A subtle (until it defiantly isnt) British mood piece, Censor makes horror films, and the emotions they evoke, feel dangerous againmaybe as dangerous as they felt during that era of moral panic. The film, directed and co-written by Prano Bailey-Bond, is set in 1985, at the height of the video nasty hysteria. It follows Enid Baines (Naimh Algar), one of the most motivated and meticulous censors at the BBFC. Enid has a visceral antagonism towards splatter thats linked to a childhood tragedy the film thankfully discloses up front. The mysterious loss of her sister has left her sensitive to the why of the content she snips and bans, and every step she takes through life winds the spring tighter. Algar, best known perhaps for her regular role on Raised By Wolves, is staggeringly good here, whether wielding a notepad or an axe. She has the best horror movie hair since Greta Gerwig in The House Of The Devil: disciplined, but with meticulous unruly strands that imply repression and a shift in power dynamics.

B+

Prano Bailey-Bond

Niamh Algar, Sophia La Porta, Adrian Schiller, Michael Smiley

Select theaters June 11; VOD June 18

Professional drive as a primary character trait is a regular trope of the kind of films that Enid, a workaholic herself, makes a living evaluating. Its a dark comic irony that colors much of the films first half. Enid cant see those patterns in the movies she studies; shes capable only of expounding in great detail on the many atrocities depicted, which she does at one point when trying to infiltrate an underground video store. Reducing horror only to acts committed, she has the tunnel vision of The Wicker Mans Sergeant Howie. Its not for entertainment, she tells her mother. I do it to protect people. Of course, to modern viewers, for whom actual snuff is but a few clicks away online, the BBFCs infamous efforts to shield the public from B-movies can seem rather quaint and nave.

The opening credits, a tightly constructed tour of Enids workplace and the films shes tasked with cutting, have an echo of Dario Argentos The Stendhal Syndrome, a similarly upsetting take on the process of metabolizing trauma. Both films feature heralded works of art as a continuum in which their own stories will unfold. Whether its Renaissance portraiture, Abel Ferraras Driller Killer, or todays most immediate meme, what we watch breaks out of the background to touch the lives and the art surrounding it; it plants unseen seeds. And for Enid, these gory films become the engine driving a quest to find her long-lost sister, and she enters the horror industry as an investigative subject instead of distanced adjudicator. Every bootleg banned tape is a clue to the family-wrecking question mark that plagues the Bainses. The path of destiny aligns with the narratives of a renegade cult director, Frederic North (Adrian Schiller), whose work Enid first encounters on the job.

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Horror fans will get the most out of this film, though its no formalist homage or Mad Libs pastiche. Censor is about the emotional situation that horror brings about in its characters and viewers, and its refusal to pile on specific references or indulge in any nostalgia whatsoever may keep audiences at arms length. But it gets at the patronizing, reactionary malice of Thatcherism without underlining that subtext, and demonstrates how trauma is absorbed and weaponized by conservatism in a fashion that will fuel grad school theses for the foreseeable future. Censors meticulous, insidious structure sticks to the subconscious; this is an auspicious debut in modern genre cinema.

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Censor goes back to the cult 80s, and makes horror feel dangerous again - The A.V. Club

Niamh Algar in CensorPhoto: Maria Lax (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing via Ginsberg Libby)

The climactic scene of Prano Bailey-Bonds new horror film Censor features an image that will be familiar even to filmgoers who watch horror movies with their hands clasped over their eye: a bloodied young woman running through the woods. But the way said character, Censor protagonist Enid (Niamh Algar), gets there is unlike any previous filmEnid is a film censor in mid-80s England whose work is starting to merge with her reality in hallucinogenic proportions. Not only does Censor provide a unique take on meta-horror, its uncommonly thorough in its excavation of its protagonists psychology.

Theres a language in horror that the audience understands, Bailey-Bond told Jezebel this week from London via Zoom. With the hardcore fans, you can have another conversation going on within the horror genre that youre referencing. I really enjoy that. But also creating female characters that maybe feel a little bit more real to me...you want to kind of update these things and keep them fresh.

For the record, Bailey-Bond, who co-wrote Censor with Anthony Fletcher, is a horror fan whos loved the type of movies that her protagonist is on a mission to protect the public from. Censor takes place in Thatchers England during the era of the video nasties, a uniquely U.K. cultural moment in which violent and gory exploitation films of the 70s and 80s were being bandied about in the press as cause for specific crimes and, more generally, societys ills. This led to the cutting and (in most cases, temporary) banning of several films, including well-known genre entries like The Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave. The list of the 72 films that were prosecuted (or for which prosecution was attempted) became an infamous trove for horror fans. The closest United States counterpart is the grindhouse flick, but those were largely available on this side of the Atlantic uncut.

Personally, I dont think that film is going to make someone throw their moral compass out of the window and go and do something really horrible to someone else, said Bailey-Bond. If somebody does that its because theyre unbalanced. We need mental health support. I think its about looking at how we look after those people who need help. Its an easy fix and easy blame to say that a movie or a type of music or video game is going to make somebody do something horrible to someone else. I just think its more complicated than that.

And complicate is something Censor does prodigiously. For one thing, the movie does not suggest that entertainment has no bearing on ones psychestill reeling from the childhood loss of her sister, Enid starts to fill in the fuzzy details of the disappearance when shes reminded of it in a movie shes tasked with reviewing, Dont Go in the Church. (Thats one of several convincing nasties-esque movies within the movie that Bailey-Bond dreamed up.) Its not that the character isnt influenced by what shes seeing; its that her experience is so singular and so obviously also informed by her own mental health issues that by exploring said experience, Censor is able to lay bare the ridiculousness of scapegoating art as directly responsible for peoples behavior. The aforementioned wild third act development, in which Enid breaks the film-viewer continuum and enters an alternate cinematic reality, functions as an ad absurdum argument. This is what it would look like for films to dictate peoples behavior, says Censor, as its protagonist wields an axe in a cabin in the woods. A deceptively sunny resolution that, via video glitches, calls bullshit on itself, imagines what the world would look like if the censors got their way and were right all along about art bearing all social responsibility for human behavior. It is accordingly ludicrous.

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The video nasty era is so rich, said Bailey-Bond. Its such an influential period for my generation of filmmakers. Also when you look back objectively at what happened, you can see things with a different set of goggles. You look back and go, wow, Were we all overreacting? Was this something else that was going on politically and the video nasties were a very convenient scapegoat for something else?

Elsewhere, Bailey-Bonds film suggests that not only was the moral panic illogical, it was also misplaced. Enid endures sexism and harassment at work from her fellow censors and a morally bankrupt film producer. While tabloid writers were wringing their hands about imagined movie-influenced violence, a very real exploitation was underway. To Jezebel, Bailey-Bond also pointed out that some of the video nasties, like Ruggero Deodatos infamous 1980 vomitorium Cannibal Holocaust, also depicted very real animal cruelty.

I love horror but there has to be a line in terms of the way we treat each other when were making it, the writer-director said. Nobody needs to get hurt while were making itanimals, women. Theres no need for that. So thats certainly where I draw a line. But thats doesnt have to stop the joy of watching horror and experiencing this fun, cathartic genre.

The vast majority, if not all, of the video nasties were directed by men. In contrast, along with herself, Bailey-Bonds crew featured several women in key roles (cinematographer Annika Summerson, production designer Paulina Rzeszowska, costume designer Saffron Cullane, composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch). This, however, was not an intentional answer to the historical male domination of the genre, according to Bailey-Bond, who says her hiring was slightly circumstantial and based on whom she thought was right for each role. Nevertheless, she says: Its nice to be able to claim something that I guess people dont necessarily naturally fit with a woman director. I like the idea that we can create [beyond] what people expect from us.

Enid works at a fictional agency thats loosely based on the British Board of Film Classification, which was responsible for the censoring and banning of video nasties. While writing their script, Bailey-Bond and Fletcher visited the BBFC (really helpful) and spoke to people who worked as censors during the time Censor takes place. One woman said the rooms were so dark and small and she didnt like horror very muchother censors I spoke to did like horrorbut she said sometimes it felt like really seedy and she was just sat in this poky dark room watching soft porn and like, you know, shed leave work and its night time and you havent seen any daylight, said Bailey-Bond. And those kinds of things really inspired me in terms of thinking about the space and the atmosphere of the censors office and this idea that it felt like a kind of underground rabbit warren. You know, down the ends corridors, youve got like the screams of people dying in horror films.

I wondered if any of the censors Bailey-Bond spoke with had regrets in line with her films reassessment goals. They didnt, but Bailey-Bond found evidence of such reconsideration nonetheless.

I remember reading the file for the Evil Dead, she said. [The BBFC] had cuts made whenever it first got reviewed and then about seven years later, they were looking at it again. There was this little note from one of the examiners whod seen originally saying, I cant believe we reacted like this because theres nothing harmful about this film but the atmosphere at the time made us all more cautious.

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Censor Cleverly Reinterprets the Impact of Exploitation Horror - Jezebel