Following this afternoon’s ruling by the High Court of Zimbabwe that the directive by the Minister of State Security to block access to the internet at large and even to social media was illegal, normal service has been restored.
Early on Tuesday morning last week, social media access was blocked for Zimbabweans and around mid day that same day there was a total shut down of the internet. It later emerged that the warrant and directive to do this had been issued by the Minister of State Security, Owen Ncube.
Connectivity to the internet was briefly restored 30 hours later but social media remained blocked. After an extra 15 hours without the internet, service was restored again but again social media access was not possible. Zimbabweans resorted to using VPNs and to using alternatives such as Telegram.
Not everyone is back on social
So far Econet, the biggest provider of connectivity and ZOL the provider of fixed home internet have lifted the block on social media access. However, the state owned fixed voice and internet operator, TelOne has not yet lifted the block at the time of writing.
The second biggest mobile network operator by subscriber numbers, NetOne has also not yet lifted the restriction to social media access.
We will update as more services get restored fully.
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