IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON NATIONAL SECURITY: NIGERIAN PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT This research work is on the Impact of social media on national security: Nigerian perspective with reference from Maiduguri Metropolis. Four objectives with their corresponding research questions guided the study. Relevant literature on the subject were reviewed to establish the gaps to be filled. Survey research design was adopted and data were collected using a questionnaire, coded and analysed using frequency count and percentages. Result were presented using pie-chart, bar-chart and histogram. Result revealed that the most frequent social media platform used are facebook and whatsapp, social media have less positive impact on national security in Nigeria, social media have affect national security through the use of hate speech and rumour attacks, informant is the best way for utilizing social media for effective management of national security. The study recommends that individuals (citizens) should stop spreading, and promoting offensive, abusive, fake news (information), which advances social hatred, and terrorism attack rumours on social media platforms. The Nigerian government and individuals should stop drawing conclusions from the information they see and read on social media. Furthermore, government security agents should deploy proactive mechanisms to gather information through news (printed and online), and online surveillance to counter any misuse and abuse of social media comments and postings. All the participants use Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp, and therefore it is recommended that they use these platforms devoid of abuse on anyone or the general public. Then, government and its security agents should implement effective enlightenment programmes to educate the public on how to be responsible while using social media platforms. In future, researcher/s should study to determine the perception of government security agents on the impact of social media on national security situations.