Guinea blocked Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube

Over the last few days, Guinea started blocking access to social media… again. Amid protests and political instability, Guinea blocked access to several social media platforms in May 2023, and then again in November 2023 (lasting until February 2024).

Now, OONI data suggests that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Guinea have started blocking access to Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. This was reported by OONI Probe users in Guinea, as well as in local news.

The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from the testing of Facebook (www.facebook.com), TikTok (www.tiktok.com), and YouTube (www.youtube.com) on 8 networks in Guinea over the past month.

As is evident from the above chart, all three domains were previously accessible on tested networks in Guinea over the past month, only starting to present a spike in anomalies from 27th July 2026 onwards. The volume of anomalies for TikTok and YouTube increased on 27th July 2026, while the volume of anomalies for Facebook increased on 28th July 2026, suggesting that access to those sites was blocked on those days.

A per-network measurement breakdown for each of the Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube domains shows that an increased volume of anomalies emerged on several networks during the same period. Specifically, all three domains were tested on 8 ASes in Guinea over the past month, and they all presented the largest volume of anomalies on Orange Guinée (AS37461), which also received the largest measurement coverage overall (while other networks received limited testing coverage). OONI data, therefore, provides the strongest blocking signal for Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube on Orange Guinée (AS37461).

Meanwhile, all recent anomalous measurements from the testing of Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube domains presented signs of TLS interference because we observe the timing out of the session after the ClientHello message during the TLS handshake. Even though DNS resolution is consistent and TCP connections to the resolved IP addresses are successful, the connection times out after the ClientHello during the TLS handshake, suggesting the use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology. This is consistent with how we observed and documented the blocking of social media platforms in Guinea in May 2023 and November 2023.

Moreover, the blocking of YouTube is further suggested by the Google Transparency Report, which shows a drop in YouTube traffic originating from Guinea, starting on 27th July 2026 – which correlates with the timing of when OONI data shows that the YouTube block started. In addition, the Google Transparency Report does not show a total drop in YouTube traffic, suggesting that the site is still accessible on some networks in Guinea – which is also suggested by OONI data.

Beyond the main domains, OONI data shows that Facebook endpoints are also blocked, indicating that the blocking is not limited to the Facebook website but extends to their mobile application. The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from the testing of Facebook endpoints (edge-mqtt.facebook.com, lookaside.facebook.com, staticxx.facebook.com, web.facebook.com), illustrating that they presented signs of blocking starting on 28th July 2026, similarly to www.facebook.com.

Quite similarly, the OONI Probe Facebook Messenger test (which measures the reachability of the Facebook Messenger app endpoints) also presented a spike in anomalies on 28th July 2026, as illustrated below.

The blocking of Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube appears to be ongoing. If you’re in Guinea, you can contribute more measurements by running OONI Probe.