The government of Uganda has finally unblocked American multinational technology company, Meta Platforms, Facebook after six years of it’s ban by the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), Chairman President Yoweri Museveni.
In post shared on his X platform on Saturday, Minister of Local Government, Barugahara Balaam Ateenyi, thanked Mr Museveni and the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, for restoring the social media platform.
“Thank you Principal for unfreezing Facebook. I urge all users to use this platform responsibly by avoiding violations, misinformation, and disrespectful posts that undermine our leaders, fellow citizens, national security, and the economy” he posted.
Minister Balaam further urged the public to use social media to promote the country’s goods and services, “Foster constructive engagement, and mobilize communities for national development not for demobilization”.
Several netizens have since taken to their socials to share the news of the freeing of the app by the government, however a number of netizens revealed that they moved on from the app and unblocking it now, would do little for them to reuse it.
“I haven’t used Facebook in years, now going back there feels like….🤷🏾♂️😢 Twagivako dah we moved on. Anyway we welcome the news of its re opening after years of blockage” Douglas Lwanga, the Purple Party CEO posted on his X account.
In January 2021, with only days to the national polls, President Museveni at the time revealed that Facebook, had been blocked by Government after hundreds of National Resistance Movement (NRM) supporter’s accounts were pulled down.
He noted that Uganda didn’t need lectures from anybody, since there is nothing Ugandans didn’t know and that Facebook had decided to target NRM message senders by blocking them.
Ms Janet Chepkosgei Kemboi is the Communications Manager for Eastern Africa at Meta (formerly Facebook), at the time revealed that the affected NRM members used fake and duplicate accounts to manage pages, comment on other people’s content, impersonate users.
“Re-share posts in Groups to make them appear more popular that they were. Given the impending election in Uganda, we moved quickly to investigate and take down this network” Kemboi stated at the time.
