After at least 207 people were killed and over four hundred more were reported wounded after a series of bombs went off at Easter services in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan government has moved to block access to Facebook, TechCrunch reported on Sunday.
After at least 207 people were killed and over four hundred more were reported wounded after a series of bombs went off at Easter services in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan government has moved to block access to Facebook, TechCrunch reported on Sunday.
In a brief statement, presidential secretary Udaya Seneviratne said that the government has “decided to temporarily block social media sites including Facebook and Instagram” to combat “false news reports,” and that services would return after investigations had finished. Various reports suggested that both Facebook and its subsidiary WhatsApp were affected by the outage, though some users reported still being able to connect to WhatsApp, TechCrunch wrote. According to the Washington Post, some people in the country also said they were unable to access Instagram (another Facebook-owned property) and YouTube.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Facebook wrote that it was aware of the ban and stated that it was “committed to maintaining our services and helping the community and the country during this tragic time”:
This is not the first time the Sri Lankan government has ordered Facebook shut down. In March 2018, authorities there ordered internet and mobile service providers to block Facebook and its subsidiaries, as well as messaging app Viber, after members of the majority Sinhalese ethnic group were reported to have launched deadly mob attacks against Muslims in Kandy district. Sri Lankan government officials and human rights activists said Facebook had done little to rein in rampant misinformation, hate speech, and propaganda circulating on the service, with Sinhalese nationalist groups reportedly using the platforms to scapegoat and spread rumors about the minority Muslim population.
