I listened to a lecturer discussing, or rather describing, the situation of things in the country in a packed lecture hall. Her lecture had something to do with economics but, somehow, it delved into politics and, of course, the issue of the president’s competency became the focal point. I became keen on what was going on in the class when some students began to debate on the conspiracy theory surrounding the Buhari/Jibril saga. I was actually enjoying the whole thing until the lecturer, who was regarded as the authority in the class, broke into the debate to take sides. Immediately she sided with one group, the class broke into a series of “what did I tell you?” and “I told you so” comments. At that moment, the lecturer stopped the students from being critical and imposed her ideology on them. At that moment, she made the students from the opposing side believe their opinions aren’t important or true. At that moment, the lecturer became subjective instead of objective.

One of the major problems we have in Nigerian academic setting was exhibited by this lecturer. During my university days, you need to find out how each lecturer wants his exam questions answered if you want to make good grades. There are some lecturers that want you to bring in new ideas into your writings while some want you to copy and paste their lecture notes or textbooks. There are those that need citation from scholarly works for each idea you introduce. There are those that insist you must condemn what they condemned and agree with what they accepted. If you decide to ignore this key aspect of your schooling and provide answers based on your own volition, well, you might be shocked at what you will see on the score sheets.

Apart from these, many Nigerian lecturers do not give students the opportunity to challenge existing knowledge. Many don’t even believe their students can extend knowledge as a result of their experiences or predict new outcomes in situations. Honestly, many Nigerian students are not allowed to ‘think’ until they have gone deep into their PhD programmes. There is always this “humble submission” mantra that hover around students each time they want to move deeper into ‘unsafe’ grounds. If you ask me, I will say that the major problem with our education system is that students are treated as machines, which must only produce expected outputs.

But the focal point of this essay is the subjectivity in our academic world. Of course, it will be a fallacy to assume that academic works, including empirical researches, are not biased. But truth remains that each research is based on facts, which must be published alongside the results. However, when empiricism anchors on and collects facts from conspiracy theories, problems emanate.

Academic setting has always been a place where people with different beliefs and values freely express their ideas and opinions and back them up with viable sources. Academic environment is a free domain for people to think outside the box and describe situations based on their experiences. Academic world is a safe haven for people to reject the existing status quo and query the essence of its existence in the first place. In summary, the academic world is the only world where arguments and counterarguments exist and are not condemned.

But what do we have in our education system today? It is a pity to see our lecturers telling students, “Shut-up, what do you know?” It hurts when students are not free to argue because they don’t want to be victimised by their lecturers. It is sad that lecturers do not allow their students to be free-thinkers. This can explain why we have graduates that cannot defend their certificates. This may explain why we have more dreamers than executors. Maybe this is why ideologies that do not conform to public opinions are condemned and attacked. Maybe this will explain why we have a lot more followers than leaders in this country. This actually explains a lot of things.

Dear lecturers, your duty is to moderate students’ arguments and not to take sides. Yes, your years of research must have revealed a lot of things the students know nothing about. But those years of experience should have taught you that knowledge cannot be monopolised. You should have known by now that different researches conducted on a particular key concept produce different results because of the varying experiences of the respondents. This should have let you understand that every student has vital information to pass on from his viewpoint. Always remember that because a student’s ideology differs from yours does not mean he is wrong. Give students the chance to observe situations critically and project their opinions freely. We need more thinkers and executors in this country.

Last week, Facebook got caught in the web of South Korea’s regulator for sharing users’ private data with different companies, thus increasing the number of countries where the social media giant has got into trouble with the authorities.

South Korean information watchdog, the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), thus fined Facebook 6.7 billion won ($6 million) for sharing the information of not less than 3.3 million South Koreans with other companies without their consent.

The move marks the first crackdown on the social media platform in the Asian country.

The PIPC said the incident took place between May 2012 to June 2018, and it violated the country’s personal information rules.

The regulatory body which was launched in August this year said Facebook was sharing users’ information when they logged into other companies’ services using their Facebook accounts, and the personal data of their Facebook friends was also shared with those companies without their consent.

According to PIPC, the personal information shared with other companies includes users’ names, their addresses, dates of birth, work experience, hometowns and relationship statues.

The regulator said Facebook was not being honest during inquiry and failed to provide relevant documents. Therefore, the amount of information it shared with companies is not certain.

But considering that information could have been shared with almost 10,000 companies, a considerable amount of information could have been shared, said PIPC.

It added that it will refer Facebook Ireland Ltd., which was in charge of Facebook operators in South Korea from May 2012 to June 2018 to the prosecution for a criminal investigation.

As part of the penalty, the commission levied separate 66 million won on Facebook for not being honest.

Facebook denied the allegations and said “we cooperated with the investigation in its entirety,” and “we have yet to closely review PIPC’s measure”.

The development was as a result of an investigation that started in 2018 by Korea Communication Commission, South Korea’s telecommunication regulator, and handed over to PIPC after it was formed earlier this year.

South Korea’s action against Facebook underscores its escalating personal data controversy. The Silicon giant has been enmeshed in spats with different governments over how it handles personal data.

The 2018 Cambridge analytica data case, where the information of over 50 million users was exposed, was the major data breach that revealed what the social media company is up to with the personal information it is harvesting from users.

A political consultancy hired by US president Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign as well as Leave EU, a pro-Brexit group in the UK improperly obtained the personal data of 87 million Facebook users, leading to the investigation and consequently the fine by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Facebook has been, since then, in lawsuit tussle to fight off complaints of stolen individual data. In 2019, the US regulator, FTC, handed Facebook a $5 billion fine in what was known as the largest fine imposed by the Commission.

Critics said the fine was inadequate as Facebook easily paid it and continues with the practice of selling people’s data to the highest bidder.

In 2019, Facebook made $70 billion from ads, accounting for about 98.5% of its global revenue. However, 2020 has seen the California-based company contending with an avalanche of antitrust concerns that have extended to moral issues.

Facebook was accused of aiding hate by allowing promotion of hate campaigns on its platforms for the money. In the wake of racial charged protests over the death of George Floyd, an American killed by the police earlier in the year, the concern over how the company uses people data for targeted ads heightened.

Since then, regulators around the world have stepped up their regulatory oversight on Facebook activities. South Korea’s decision signals a shift in the freedom that Facebook has enjoyed in the region.