Gabon says it has lifted a ban on social media imposed eight months in the past – a transfer that triggered widespread criticism at the time.
The High Communication Authority (HAC) announced the U-turn on Saturday in a televised assertion. The BBC has approached the nation’s media regulator for remark.
The ban had been launched on 17 February, with the HAC saying that online content material was fuelling battle and deepening divisions in the nation.
The transfer came as a shock to the central African nation of about 2.5 million people, where social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram have been notably common with youthful people who use it for business as nicely as pleasure.
Many turned to VPNs in order to proceed accessing social media websites following the ban.
The ban had been imposed at a time when the Gabonese President Brice Oligui Nguema was dealing with a wave of social unrest less than a yr after his election.
Teachers and civil servants had staged strikes over what they said were low pay and poor working circumstances.
The opposition said the suspension was an abuse of energy.
Nguema won last yr’s elections with more than 90% of the vote, two years after his coup had ended more than 5 many years of rule by the Bongo household.
At the time he pledged to reform Gabon, a small, oil- and timber-rich nation, where digital blackouts were used by the earlier governments to control info.
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