President Maithripala Sirisena has instructed the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) to lift the temporary restrictions imposed on social media website Facebook, with immediate effect.
“On my instructions, my secretary has discussed with officials of Facebook, who have agreed that its platform will not be used for spreading hate speech and inciting violence.”
“As such, I instructed TRCSL to remove the temporary ban on Facebook with immediate effect,” the President tweeted.
The President has given this instruction following a detailed assessment of the decisions taken during the meeting between the Secretary to the President and the representatives from Facebook, held at the Presidential Secretariat, today (15).
The Government took steps to restrict access to some social media platforms temporarily during the last few days, in order to curtail the attempts to spread communal violence across the country, misusing the social media in a manner detrimental to the national harmony.
“This initiative paved the way to contain the situation and the Government is taking steps to allow access to social media while implementing the necessary monitoring and surveillance methods to ensure the public safety,” the PMD said.
