Contextualising the precarities of social media influencership in Nigeria

This study draws on and extends Duffy et al.’s framework of nested precarities of visibility by conceptualising platforms, brands and the Nigerian state power geometry through the situatedness of Nigerian X influencers’ digital labour and entrepreneurship experiences. I argue that platform algorithms, markets and ecology operate within contexts that disproportionately affect Nigerian influencers. First, algorithmic suspensions cause influencers to lose their accounts for opaque and discriminatory reasons, particularly along capitalist, cultural and political lines. Second, the X creator revenue-sharing programme does not reward influencers equally because of its geopolitical and discriminatory criteria for earnings. Third, the exploitative, bureaucratic and gendered nature of the Nigerian influencer entrepreneurship industry drives up the cost of campaigns and forces micro-influencers to do more for less. Fourth, the state’s restrictive policies, such as the 2021 Twitter ban, and ambiguous taxation laws, including the 2025 Nigeria Tax Act, significantly affect influencers. These findings, engaging Africa’s scholarship on creative labour and the digital economy, contribute to de-westernising media and communication studies, as Nigerian influencers’ experiences serve as a normative critique of platforms, brands and the state’s hegemonic power. I rely on in-depth interviews of 15 influencers and representatives of corporate organisations and PR agencies.