Gabon blocked social media

Yesterday, Gabon started blocking access to social media platforms. Two days ago, Gabon’s media regulator – the High Authority for Communication – reportedly ordered the suspension of social media platforms “until further notice”, citing fake news, cyberbullying, and data violations as reasons for the decision. The blocking of major social media platforms in Gabon appears to be corroborated by OONI data.

As of 18th February 2026, OONI data collected from Gabon shows signs of blocking affecting WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from the testing of WhatsApp on several networks in Gabon over the last month.

While the OONI Probe testing of WhatsApp in Gabon presented a few anomalies over the past month, we observe a spike in anomalies on 18th February 2026, correlating with the timing of the social media blocking order. When looking at the measurements that presented anomalies, we see that attempted TCP connections to (some of the tested) WhatsApp endpoints and to WhatsApp’s registration service failed, and that the testing of WhatsApp Web resulted in timeout errors as well. These patterns indicate attempts to block access to both the WhatsApp mobile app and WhatsApp Web.

It’s worth noting though that some WhatsApp measurements on both 18th and 19th February 2026 were successful, suggesting that access to WhatsApp was not blocked on all tested networks in Gabon. Moreover, the overall measurement volume is rather low, presenting a limitation to the findings.

Quite similarly, OONI data from Gabon shows a spike in anomalies in the OONI Probe testing of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, as illustrated below.

As is evident from the above chart, the aggregated OONI Probe testing of Facebook (www.facebook.com), Instagram (www.instagram.com), TikTok (www.tiktok.com), and YouTube (www.youtube.com) presented a spike in anomalies on 18th February 2026 (similarly to the testing of WhatsApp), suggesting that access to these platforms was blocked. The ongoing presence of anomalies on 19th February 2026 suggests that these blocks remain in place.

The blocking of YouTube is further suggested by the Google transparency Report, which – on 18th February 2026 – shows a drop in YouTube traffic originating from Gabon. It’s worth noting that the OONI Probe testing of both Facebook and TikTok also presented anomalies previously over the past month (as demonstrated through the above chart), suggesting potential earlier attempts to interfere with access to these services.

The blocking of Facebook, in particular, may have started around 12th February 2026. The following chart shows that most measurements from the testing of Facebook endpoints started presenting anomalies from 12th February 2026 onwards.

Earlier attempts to block Facebook are further suggested by OONI Facebook Messenger measurements, which also present a more consistent spike in anomalies from 12th February 2026 onwards.

Analysis from the OONI Pipeline v5 shows that the blocking of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube is primarily implemented by means of DNS tampering, as DNS queries return NXDOMAIN errors.

Overall, the consistent observation of DNS interference – manifested through anomalous NXDOMAIN responses for some of the world’s most widely used domains – on the same days that authorities publicly instructed the blocking of social media platforms provides strong evidence that access to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube was intentionally restricted in Gabon.

It’s unclear how effective the social media blocks are, as publicly available datasets suggest that people in Gabon are turning to the use of censorship circumvention tools. This, for example, is suggested by Google trends data which shows that “VPN” searches surged in Gabon yesterday, as well as by the Proton VPN Observatory which shows a major spike in Proton VPN use in Gabon.

If you are in Gabon, you can test social media further and contribute more measurements by running OONI Probe.