Why is #RIPTwitter trending across Africa?

Twitter users in Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana are currently using the hashtags #RIPTwitter and #GoodbyeTwitter the most because they believe the social media platform will be shut down.

The news that the company's new CEO, Elon Musk, has "temporarily closed" the company's offices, effective immediately, appears to be the cause of the trending hashtags.

A further worry is that the platform's closure will significantly affect how citizens and activists can raise their voices to hold the powerful accountable and establish coalitions with like-minded people throughout the world.

By making African issues a hot topic on Twitter, the hashtag feature has been crucial in raising awareness of these issues among a worldwide audience.

On the day of the Lekki tollgate shootings, the #EndSARS hashtag, which trended at the top of the global list with more than 1 million tweets, raised attention to police brutality in Nigeria.

A video of Cameroonian soldiers killing women and children went viral on Twitter in 2018, sparking a BBC Africa Eye investigation that led to the soldiers' arrest and imprisonment.

In 2014, Michelle Obama, the former first lady of the United States, tweeted a photo of herself holding a piece of paper with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls written on it to draw attention to the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria.

There is hope that an app called Dikalo, developed in Africa, could be an option for the continent since many people online are currently looking for an alternative to the social media site.

Alain Ekambi of Cameroon founded the business, which takes its name from the word for message in the Douala language. Its goal is to establish itself as "Africa's best social network." In the weeks after Elon Musk took control of Twitter, they also assert that there was an increase in the number of new users.