Gabon’s media regulator, the High Authority for Communication (HAC), has announced the immediate and indefinite suspension of social media platforms nationwide. In a televised statement on Tuesday evening (February 17, 2026), HAC spokesman Jean-Claude Mendome cited the “recurring dissemination of defamatory, hateful, and insulting content” as the primary driver for the digital blackout, which he claimed was necessary to protect national security and social cohesion.
The suspension comes as the transitional government, led by General Brice Oligui Nguema, faces its most significant wave of domestic resistance since the August 2023 coup. For over two months, schoolteachers have been on strike over unpaid wages and poor working conditions, a movement that has recently spread to the health and broadcasting sectors. Analysts and opposition leaders, including Alain-Claude Billie-By-Nze, have condemned the move as a “digital curfew” intended to stifle dissent and prevent protesters from mobilizing or sharing images of civil unrest.
While the regulator did not specify every platform affected, internet monitoring groups confirmed that access to TikTok and Facebook, the most popular apps in the country, began dropping early Wednesday. The shutdown is expected to have a severe economic impact; Gabon currently has over 850,000 active social media users, many of whom rely on these platforms for small-business sales and marketing in an economy already strained by high inflation and a liquidity squeeze.
This latest move mirrors tactics used by the previous Bongo administration during the 2023 elections, a parallel that has not been lost on the Gabonese public. Despite the HAC’s insistence that “freedom of expression remains a fundamental right,” the open-ended nature of the ban has sparked international concern from human rights groups who warn that such blackouts often precede more aggressive crackdowns on civil liberties.
