Social media blockage to be lifted on Saturday

The blockade imposed on Facebook and other social media networks will be lifted by Saturday, said State Minister for National Policy and Economic Affairs Harsha de Silva in parliament, today.

He said that false and malicious content are spread through social media as anything can be said or spread through social media.

‘Trolls and bots manipulate social media sites to spread false and inflammatory news in an apparent effort to stoke political and ethnic divisions on a large scale. Hence it is difficult to control social media as news is spread so fast’ the Minister said.

 ‘We needed to block social media temporarily to stop the spread of this malicious and inflammatory news. Now the situation is settling,’ he added.