Gabon restores social media after eight-month ban

• The High Communication Authority (HAC) pulled the plug on social networks, including Facebook and TikTok, on February 17, blaming content posted online for stoking conflict and division in society.

Social media icon applications appear on a mobile phone. (Photo by AFP)

Gabon restored access to social media on Saturday, its media regulator said, after an eight-month suspension that sparked widespread criticism.

The High Communication Authority (HAC) pulled the plug on social networks, including Facebook and TikTok, on February 17, blaming content posted online for stoking conflict and division in society.

The crackdown came as Gabonese President Brice Oligui Nguema faced a wave of social unrest less than a year after his election.

"The HAC has decided to lift the suspension of social media platforms," spokesman Jean-Claude Franck Mendome said in a statement read on television.

Facebook and TikTok, the most-used platforms in the central African nation, as well as YouTube and Instagram were shut down, while WhatsApp was on and off.

Some people still managed to access social networks via a VPN, with provider Proton reporting a 60,000-percent increase in downloads of its VPN tool the day after the ban came into force.

The HAC said the suspension aimed to "allow the government to adapt its legal framework to better regulate social media".

The government now requires social media users to provide formal identification, effectively ending online anonymity.

The HAC said it was working with Meta -- which owns Facebook and Instagram -- as well as TikTok and YouTube to "improve content moderation" on those platforms.

Gabon's opposition had slammed the social media ban as an abuse of power, and it faced a string of legal challenges -- all rejected.

Former prime minister Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who has been in prison since April over alleged abuse of trust and fraud dating back to 2008, was one of the policy's most vocal critics.

Critics have cited the social media ban and Bilie-By-Nze's arrest as examples of a repressive climate in Gabon, shattering hopes that President Nguema's rise to power would lead to democratic change.

The 2023 coup that brought the military general into office ended 55 years of rule by the Bongo family, sparking scenes of jubilation, and he was elected president in April last year.