Bangladesh blocked Facebook amid student protests

Between 16th July and 8th August 2024, OONI data suggests that Facebook is inaccessible on AS24432 (Axiata) and AS24389 (grameenphone) networks in Bangladesh. The timing of the block coincides with the protests against a quota system for jobs in the public sector in Dhaka.

The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from the testing of www.facebook.com on the AS24432 (Axiata) and AS24389 (grameenphone) networks in Bangladesh between 10th July 2024 to 5th August 2024.

As can be seen on the chart, most measurements for www.facebook.com result in anomalies (signals of potential censorship) on 16th and 17th July 2024, the days of the protests in Dhaka. While the number of measurements from these networks from the previous days is very limited, most measurements from both networks on 16th and 17th July 2024 result in failures (timeout errors and connection reset errors) during the TLS handshake, suggesting the presence of TLS level interference.

Quite similarly, OONI data suggests the potential temporary blocking of WhatsApp on 17th July 2024 between 7:00 to 9:00 am UTC. More specifically, OONI data from the testing of WhatsApp in Bangladesh on 17th July 2024 shows that while most connections to WhatsApp endpoints succeeded, attempted connections to WhatsApp’s registration service and WhatsApp Web failed, resulting in connection reset errors. However, the limited volume of measurement coverage during this period limits our ability to confirm WhatsApp blocking with confidence.

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