Sri Lanka's government has blocked social media, including Facebook and its WhatsApp and Instagram services, to combat misinformation in the wake of terrorist attacks on the country’s Catholic community.
Last Updated Monday, April 22, 2019 8:48PM EDT
In "one way, it's good because so many rumours and so many things, everybody gets scared," said Devadas, whose family runs a restaurant named after the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, in a tiny strip of New York's Staten Island borough known as "Little Sri Lanka." At the same time, she hoped it wouldn't be in place for long, since "people like to see what's going on and happening.
That made sense to Devadas. The government doesn't "want to get new rumours, they don't want to get riots," she said. It wasn't the first time Sri Lanka has blocked social media. The government imposed a weeklong ban in March 2018 because of concerns that WhatsApp and other platforms were being used to fan anti-Muslim violence in the country's central region.
"If I were Facebook and WhatsApp I'd take a moment to ask myself where I'd gone wrong," he added. "Cannot think of a clearer signal for lack of platform trust."
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