Facebook and TikTok have been suspended in Gabon “until further notice” after the Central African nation’s media regulator accused social media platforms of publishing content that stokes conflict and divisions in society.
AFP news agency reported on Wednesday that the two social media platforms were no longer available in Gabon. It wasn’t immediately clear if other platforms were still operating or not.
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Gabon’s media regulator on Tuesday announced the suspensions, citing the risk of “conflict-inducing excesses”. It did not specify any social media platforms included in the ban.
The decision came amid a wave of social unrest with teachers on strike and other civil servants threatening to walk off their jobs, less than a year after President Brice Oligui Nguema was elected.
Teachers began striking over pay and conditions in December, and protests for similar demands have since spread to other public sectors, including health, higher education and broadcasting.
The High Authority for Communication imposed “the immediate suspension of social media platforms in Gabon”, its spokesman Jean-Claude Mendome said in a televised statement.
He said “inappropriate, defamatory, hateful and insulting content” was undermining “human dignity, public morality, the honour of citizens, social cohesion, the stability of the republic’s institutions and national security”.
The spokesman also cited the “spread of false information”, “cyberbullying” and “unauthorised disclosure of personal data” as reasons for the decision.
Mendome said that although freedom of expression was guaranteed in Gabon, it “cannot be exercised in flagrant violation of the national and international laws in force.”
“These actions are likely, in the case of Gabon, to generate social conflict, destabilise the institutions of the republic and seriously jeopardise national unity, democratic progress and achievements,” he added.
In August 2023, President Ali Bongo Ondimba was ousted from power in a military coup. It was one of several on the west coast of Africa in recent years, including those in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
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