In a bid to crack down on fake accounts and also to research the effects of the world’s largest social network on the population, Papua New Guinea has decided to ban Facebook for one month. The country’s communication minister Sam Basil has said that the one month ban will enable the communication ministry to “filter” fake accounts and pornography, adding that the move will help people with real identities to use Facebook responsibly.
Basil explained the ban by saying that the time Facebook is inaccessible in the country will allow “information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed.”
He pointed to the recent data misuse scandal that Facebook was ensnared by as well as the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and said that these cases involving Facebook “show us the vulnerabilities that Papua New Guinean citizens and residents on their personal data and exchanges when using this social network.”
The country has even been mulling the possibility of creating a social network for its citizens to use with “genuine profiles,” though with experts saying that since the vast majority of people in the country don’t use Facebook to begin with, this ban isn’t going to have a major effect on the population.
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