Sri Lanka attacksSri Lanka attacks: government’s social media ban may hide the truth about what is happening

By Meera Selva

Published 23 April 2019

Sri Lanka has temporarily banned social media and messaging apps in the wake of the coordinated Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels across the country, which killed at least 290 people. The ban is ostensibly to stop the spread of misinformation – but in Sri Lanka Facebook and social media platforms generally have created a positive space for public conversation that did not exist before. Shutting down social media, leaving its citizens reliant on state messaging and a weak and beaten down form of journalism, the government now risks preventing Sri Lankans from finding out the truth about what is happening in their fragile and delicately balanced country.

Sri Lanka has temporarily banned social media and messaging apps in the wake of the coordinated Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels across the country, which killed at least 290 people.

The ban is ostensibly to stop the spread of misinformation – and the move feeds into the wider debate about how Facebook and other platforms are used to incite violence and spread hate speech. In Myanmar, for example, Facebook was heavily criticized for allowing groups to use its pages to incite violence against the Rohingya community. In New Zealand, it came under fire after it was used to live-stream the Christchurch massacre.

But in Sri Lanka, as in many other countries, Facebook and social media platforms generally have created a positive space for public conversation that did not exist before.

The country has a long history of censoring the press, by killing journalists, blocking websites and using draconian laws to fine and imprison reporters. The media that remained was divided by language and geography – there were no outlets used and trusted equally by the Sinhala-speaking majority in the south and west of the country and the Tamil speaking minority in the north and east.

Social media, therefore, became a way to share stories and comment on current affairs. This hasn’t always been positive – it has also been used to spread ethnic and religious chauvinism, echoing the language used by politicians and mainstream media over the decades. Nevertheless, it has been crucial for promoting intra-ethnic dialogue in Sri Lanka.

During, and indeed after, the country’s long civil war there have been few opportunities for young adults from different communities to talk to one other and exchange views. Facebook and Twitter were beginning to provide a space for this. Websites such as Groundviews also publish citizen journalism from across the island and have used social media to reach audiences within Sri Lanka and overseas.