The government of Bangladesh has extended its social media embargo to cover Twitter, Skype and imo.
Operators have been ordered to restrict access to the app immediately and until further notice. Despite recently unblocking access to Facebook, the BTRC (Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission) shows no sign of lifting bans on other messaging services such as Viber, WhatsApp and Line.
The regulator blocked these services on November 18 following the Bangladeshi High Court’s decision to uphold the death sentence of 2 men convicted of war crimes committed in 1971, while the country has fighting for independence from Pakistan.
The addition of new services to the restricted list suggests that the ban is set to continue and possibly expand further. Indeed, BTRC chairman Shahjahan Mahmood stated that the updated ban was “nothing new. It is the continuation of the previous instruction”.
These instructions reportedly involved monitoring the services to ascertain whether users changed IP addresses, port addresses or application signatures.
