The newly promulgated ARCON Act warns digital media players of severe sanctions, including fines and imprisonment of relevant officials, for further contraventions. The Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, backed by the Ministry of Information and Culture and the National Assembly, will begin rolling out sanctions to erring advertising practitioners from March 1, 2022.
These sanctions will cut across primary digital space owners such as Meta, Google, Twitter, and others, down to secondary digital space owners such as content creators, skit makers, and influencers responsible for marketing communication on these platforms.
According to ARCON Director-General Olalekan Fadolapo, the regulatory body does not seek to regulate social media and clamp down on free speech, but to ensure that promotional content communicated via digital media conforms to standards as prescribed by the ARCON law. The law requires all advertising messages on the digital media to conform to the four cardinal points of legality, decency, truthfulness, and honesty. Advertisers in the digital media space are now required by law to forward all advertising messages to the council’s Advertising Standards panel for vetting before exposure or publication.
Failure to comply with these requirements may lead to a minimum penalty of N500,000 or one year imprisonment, as specified by the vetting code. ARCON filed a suit against Meta Platforms Incorporated and its agent AT3 Resources Limited at the Federal High Court, Abuja Judicial Division, seeking a declaration that the continued publication and exposure of various advertisements directed at the Nigerian market through Facebook and Instagram platforms by Meta Platforms Incorporated without ensuring the same is vetted and approved before exposure is illegal, unlawful, and a violation of the extant advertising law in Nigeria. ARCON also demanded a N30bn sanction for alleged violation of the advertising laws and for loss of revenue as a result of Meta Incorporated’s continued exposure of unapproved adverts on its platforms. The case has been adjourned to sometime in March 2023.
