Meta Takes Down FIJ’s Facebook Page

Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, has taken down the official page of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), citing alleged violations of its cybersecurity standards.

On Sunday, FIJ received a pop-up notification informing the newsroom that its page, “FIJ Nigeria,” had been unpublished for going against community standards on cybersecurity.

FIJ immediately denied the allegation, stressing that Meta’s cybersecurity rules had no bearing on its operations.

The newsroom confirmed that it has filed an appeal for the restoration of the account, with Meta expected to issue a decision by Thursday.

At the time of filing this report, the Facebook page remained inaccessible.

The organisation described the suspension as part of a broader pattern of attempts to silence its reporting.

FIJ recalled that on August 21, its website was forced offline after what it traced to coordinated cyberattacks launched from the headquarters of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

The Facebook takedown also came at a time when the newsroom faced growing pressure from Nigerian security agencies.

Earlier this week, the Nigeria Police Force intensified a crackdown on FIJ staff members.

On Wednesday that the Ekiti State Police Command had summoned Fisayo Soyombo, FIJ’s founder and editor-in-chief, for interrogation over allegations of conspiracy, criminal defamation, cyberbullying, and blackmail.

According to FIJ, the invitation to Soyombo came barely an hour before the release of its senior reporter, Sodeeq Atanda, who had been detained and grilled by the police for about 11 hours on Tuesday.

Atanda had previously been invited on September 1 to answer questions bordering on “malicious misrepresentation” and related allegations.

In a fresh letter addressed to the newsroom, Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of the State Intelligence Department (SID), Musa Hadi, directed Soyombo to appear at the state headquarters in Ado-Ekiti on September 15, stating that his name had come up in an ongoing investigation.

FIJ noted that the police probe was tied to its series of investigative reports exposing sexual misconduct allegations against the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) Prof. Abayomi Fasina.

Fasina, who is currently on leave, was accused of harassing Folasade Adebayo, a serving director at the university.