Senegal blocked TikTok

Amid political unrest, Senegal temporarily blocked access to TikTok and several other social media services in early June 2023. However, OONI data suggests that TikTok blocking resumed in Senegal between 2nd August 2023 to 17th February 2024.

The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from the OONI Probe testing of TikTok (www.tiktok.com) on 6 networks in Senegal between 1st June 2023 to 30th April 2024.

As is evident, OONI Probe testing of www.tiktok.com in Senegal increased significantly from 2nd August 2023 onwards, which is also when the testing started to present a spike in “anomalies” – providing a signal that ISPs in Senegal may have started blocking access to TikTok again (following the temporary block between 5th to 7th June 2023). The measurements continued to present a relatively large volume of anomalies until 17th February 2024, suggesting that the TikTok block lasted 6 months. As of 18th February 2024, most OONI measurements show that TikTok is accessible, suggesting that access to the website was unblocked on that day.

A per-ASN measurement breakdown shows that the vast majority of anomalies occurred on Sonatel (AS8346), which also received the largest measurement coverage between June 2023 to April 2024. It’s worth noting though that on other networks which received relatively large measurement coverage (such as on AS37649), we do not observe a large volume of anomalies. This suggests that the TikTok block was not implemented by all ISPs in Senegal. OONI data primarily shows signs of TikTok blocking on Sonatel (AS8346).

By looking at the anomalous measurements, we observe that the blocking of TikTok in Senegal was implemented by means of TLS interference. Specifically, OONI data shows the timing out of the session after the ClientHello message during the TLS handshake. Recent OONI data suggests that access to TikTok was unblocked in Senegal on 18th February 2024.

If you are in Senegal, you can contribute measurements by running OONI Probe.