Bangladesh briefly blocks Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and other social media platforms amid protests

As the protests against Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government continue, reports are emerging that the country briefly imposed restrictions on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, YouTube and Facebook.

According to Global Eyes News, the move was implemented on August 2 and effectively restricted users from accessing any of the aforementioned social networking sites across Bangladesh. Interestingly, the decision came shortly after Turkey announced that it was banning Instagram after one of the country’s lawmakers called out the kind of information that was being shared on Instagram about the death of Hamas’ chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Amid the chaos, Bangladeshi news outlet The Daily Star reported that several mobile internet users in Bangladesh are complaining of Facebook and Messenger outages.

Not the first time

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This is not the first time people in Bangladesh have been unable to access the internet. On July 31, the government unblocked social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube only after the curfew restriction was relaxed with a longer daytime break.

The internet services were disrupted amid the nationwide protests which were triggered after the Hasina administration proposed a controversial quota system. The proposal aimed to provide reservations in government jobs to individuals whose family members participated in Bangladesh’s liberation movement.

According to The Daily Star, an agency under the Ministry of Home Affairs instructed mobile operators by text message to enforce a new ban. A source close to the matter told the news outlet that Telegram, a messaging platform that allows users to send large files, has also been blocked for the first time.

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Services restored? 

Meanwhile, another Bangladeshi news outlet The Dhaka Tribune reported that the users in Bangladesh regained access to their Facebook and Messenger accounts nearly six hours after the outage. Officials of mobile service operators confirmed that they were instructed to resume mobile data on Friday evening.

Sources told The Dhaka Tribune that the ministry was conducting a “filtering process” which took time to be fully restored. Because of this process, the users faced internet issues.

With inputs from agencies.