Government spokesman Getachew Reda said the ban was meant to prevent almost 300,000 students who are sitting exams until Wednesday from being “distracted” from academia.
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A prominent Ethiopian blogger has said he was considering legal action relative to the decision by government to block some social media platforms to prevent leakage of examination questions.
Even though internet is said to be functioning normally, blocked social networking sites would be made accessible by Wednesday after being blocked since last Saturday morning.
Twitter, Facebook, Viber, and Instagram are among the social media networks affected by the national shut-down.
After university entrance exams were cancelled because the questions were posted online, Ethiopia’s government has responded by blocking access to social media.
Ethiopia isn’t the first African country to censor certain websites or the internet entirely. Although social media sites have previously gone down for a couple of hours in time past with the government denying involvement.
An Ethiopian journalist who has covered the story, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, told the BBC that the clampdown “was just the beginning”.
The United Nations in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. A group supporting protests for greater rights for Ethiopia’s Oromo people claimed responsibility for the leak.
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The move has been criticized by more liberal commentators who have accused the government of unconstitutionally using extreme measures without invoking a state of emergency.
