Pacific nation’s Facebook blackout tied to content ‘control’ experiment

Meta’s Facebook and Messenger remained inaccessible to users in Papua New Guinea on Tuesday, over 24 hours after mysteriously going offline

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PNG did not provide details of how the police tested “control systems” to regulate use of content on Facebook. Photo: Zuma Press Wire/dpa

Published: 12:32pm, 25 Mar 2025Updated: 12:47pm, 25 Mar 2025

Pacific nation Papua New Guinea opened an investigation on Tuesday after losing access to Facebook during a police test of “innovative technology” to regulate online content.

Meta’s Facebook and Messenger platforms remained inaccessible to users in the country more than 24 hours after mysteriously going offline on Monday.

The government said it had instructed the country’s technology regulator to investigate the “root cause of unsatisfactory access to Facebook during this period”.

Meta had indicated there was no outage at its end in the past 48 hours, the communications minister Timothy Masiu, said in a statement.

Earlier, the country’s information and technology regulator said the cause of the outage was “unclear”.

But the authority’s chief executive, Kila Gulo-Vui, said his body had become aware of a police media release on Monday lauding a “successful” test to regulate content on Facebook and other online platforms.

Gulo-Vui said his body “was neither consulted nor involved in the testing”, despite police saying they had acted in partnership.

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