As certain services remained unavailable on Thursday, Gabon’s president has justified a move earlier this week to suspend Meta’s platforms by pointing to the company’s lax content regulation.
Late on Tuesday, the government of Gabon stopped many online sites, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, in an effort to address a labor strike.
AFP journalists reported that WhatsApp was operating sporadically on Thursday, but Facebook remained unavailable. The suspension also applied to YouTube and TikTok, neither of which is controlled by Meta.
The opposition condemned what it called an abuse of power, while media regulator HAC raised security concerns when it announced the ban, claiming that internet statements were inflaming tensions.
Jennyfer Melodie Sambat, a spokesperson for the presidency, said that Meta’s platforms had been targeted in an interview with France’s TV5 Monde on Wednesday night.
“Defamatory publications that have been reported multiple times and which undermine social cohesion” in Gabon were the source of the blame, according to her.
She stated that Meta had since been in contact to start discussions.
“We have been warning them for more than a year and a half, including flagging these different publications,” she continued.
“It is unthinkable that the group does nothing following multiple warnings from the government.”
Less than a year after his election, Gabonese President Brice Oligui Nguema is dealing with his first wave of societal upheaval, which coincided with the online crackdown. Other civil personnel are threatening to join the walkout by teachers.
Following a two-year transition from military administration, Oligui won the 2025 presidential election after toppling then-President Ali Bongo in 2023. Bongo’s family had controlled the small central African nation for 55 years.
