https://medium.com/the-diplomatic/sri-lankas-challenge-to-silicon-valley-5356b7de8a52

Sri Lanka was hit by a well-coordinated and highly lethal terrorist attack on Easter Sunday. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the country made an unusual and unprecedented decision to shut down access to all social networks nationwide, a ban that was lifted only today.

In the name of national security, and to prevent the spread of false information while the government was investigating the attacks and trying to track down perpetrators, platforms like Facebook, Viber, and WhatsApp were off limits to nearly everyone for more than a week in the island country of 20 million. It’s not the first time the country has shut down social media: in 2018, in the wake of anti-Muslim mob violence spun up over Facebook and Twitter, the government blocked access to the platforms.