The social networking page of the Telegram application in Ethiopia has not been working since early morning of Wednesday, July 26, 2023.
It is estimated that the restriction was imposed in connection with this year’s 12th grade exam which starts today.
However, the government has not yet given information as to why it has banned Telegram, and the application is running on a VPN.
Following the conflict in related with Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the Oromia region, Ethiopia has banned some social networking applications for five months.
Accordingly, people have been using VPN (virtual private network) to access social media such as Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, Instagram, YouTube and others.
NetBlocks, a technology institute, has announced that Ethiopia has lost eight billion birr in revenue due to a ban on certain social networking sites for five months.
Many local and international human rights institutions, including the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, have been urging the government to lift restrictions on the Internet.
