Togo blocked Facebook, Telegram, Signal, YouTube, and DuckDuckGo amid protests

Last week, Togo started blocking access to several social media and instant messaging apps amid anti-government protests.

Along with the eruption of protests on 26th June 2025, OONI data suggests that access to Facebook, Telegram, and Signal was blocked on at least three networks in the country. This is not the first time when we see instant messaging apps being blocked in Togo. We previously documented the blocking of instant messaging apps in Togo during the country’s 2020 presidential election.

Additionally, starting on 28th June 2025, the OONI Probe testing of YouTube started to result in anomalies on the same three networks (AS24691, AS36924, AS37229), as did the testing of the DuckDuckGo search engine (on AS24691 and AS36924). While the Google Transparency report shows ongoing YouTube traffic originating from Togo, a slight dip in YouTube traffic is visible in late June 2025 (in comparison to the past month), indicating that access to YouTube may have been interfered with on some networks in Togo.

According to OONI data, DuckDuckGo was unblocked on 4th July 2025, while YouTube and Signal appear to be accessible after 27th July 2025.

The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from the testing of Facebook, Signal, Telegram, YouTube, and DuckDuckGo domains on multiple networks in Togo between 15th June 2025 to 6th August 2025.

From the above chart, we can see that all five domains were previously mostly accessible on tested networks in Togo, while the testing of Facebook, Telegram, and Signal domains only started to present persistent signs of blocking (through a spike in anomalies) from 26th June 2025 onwards. This correlates with the timing of the protests in Lome, which started on 26th June 2025. Many measurements collected from TogoTelecom (AS24691), GVA Cote d’Ivoire (AS36924), and Atlantique Telecom (AS37229) resulted in timeout errors after the first write operation during the TLS handshake, suggesting that access to these domains was blocked by means of TLS interference.

As can be seen from the chart, measurements pertaining to DuckDuckGo show that access to it was restored on July 4th 2025. Similarly, measurements pertaining to Signal and YouTube show that they likely became accessible starting 27th July 2025.

Beyond the blocking of domains, OONI measurements suggest that access to the Signal, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram apps was interfered with on some networks in Togo as well. The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from the testing of the Signal, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram apps.

As is evident from the chart, measurements pertaining to all three instant messaging apps present a spike in anomalies from 26th June 2025 onwards, which correlates with the timing of the spike in anomalies from the testing of their domains and the start of the protests. Altogether, this gives a strong indication of intentional censorship of Facebook, Signal, and Telegram services on the tested networks (TogoTelecom (AS24691), GVA Cote d’Ivoire (AS36924), and Atlantique Telecom (AS37229)).

The measurements pertaining to Signal also corroborate with the testing of signal.org described above, confirming that the blocking was lifted on 27th July 2025 on all tested networks.

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