Less than 24 hours after being blocked by order of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), access to social networking and video calling services Twitter, Skype and Imo were restored yesterday.
All net-based networking and messaging sites including Viber and WhatsApp, which were blocked along with Facebook on November 18, have now been unblocked, as per the instructions of State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim.
The state minister said she did not direct the regulatory body to block the three services on Sunday night, barely three days after Facebook was unblocked, calling it a “misunderstanding.”
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The exact sequence of events leading to Sunday’s brief temporary suspension of access to the services remains hazy.
Although the country’s international internet gateways and mobile operators did receive an emailed instruction from the regulator to block the sites, Tarana said a second email was sent on Sunday night instructing the recipients not to block the sites.
Mobile phone and internet gateway company officials said they did not receive the second email.
A BTRC official, who asked not to be named, said the regulator received a directive from an intelligence agency on Sunday to keep Twitter, Skype, Imo, Viber and other services closed to the public until further notice.
Contradicting this account, an official of the Telecommunications Division, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the division called for the blackout to quash pockets of connectivity that remained despite the blocks that were supposed to be in effect.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday told journalists that his ministry did not issue the directive to block Twitter, Skype and Imo.
Yesterday, all mobile messaging and calling apps and social networking sites were again opened to public access.
“I have ordered the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to withdraw all temporary suspensions on all the social networking sites as well as calling and messaging apps from now [5pm, yesterday] following the government’s decision. Whatever we do, everything follows from government directives, rules and regulations. We do not bypass instructions from the government,” state minister Tarana told the Dhaka Tribune.
“All operators will receive the regulator’s directive within an hour to unblock the sites and apps and they will be reopened after the necessary steps for activation are taken,” she added.
An official of a mobile telephone operator said: “We received a directive from the BTRC at 5:05pm yesterday lifting the temporary block on all social networking sites and calling and messaging apps and implemented it very soon afterwards.”
He said the BTRC instructed operators to release all apps and sites including Viber, WhatsApp, Line, Tango, Skype, Imo and Twitter that had been blocked at various times earlier.
Social media services have been blocked by the government several times this year.
While Bangladesh’s 18 million Facebook users went without for over three weeks until December 10, WhatsApp and Viber, blocked at the same time as Facebook, remained off limits until access to all sites was restored yesterday.
On January 18, the BTRC blocked WhatsApp, Viber, mypeople, Line and Tango across the country for security reasons. The apps were unblocked four days later.