The government of Papua New Guinea has blocked access to Facebook for one month to study its impact on the general public and to root out "fake users."
Minister Sam Basil told the local Post Courier newspaper that the government aims at launching a study on how the social media platform would be used in the state during the ban.
The shutdown would allow the government to pinpoint users behind fake accounts, who upload pornography and who post misleading and fake news, he said.
"This will allow genuine people with real identities to use the social network responsibly," Basil noted, adding that "we cannot allow the abuse of Facebook to continue in the country,” the German News Agency reported.
Facebook has come under a barrage of scrutiny from various governments following revelations that it leaked the personal data of some 87 million US users to British data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica.
Last month, Basil raised concerns over the privacy challenges, saying: “The national government, swept along by IT globalization, never really had the chance to ascertain the advantages or disadvantages of Facebook, and even educate and provide guidance on the use of social networks like Facebook to Papua New Guinea users."
Bassil said his ministry's research would assess the impact of Facebook's presence or lack thereof on the people.
He also indicated that the government would explore the possibility of launching its own social network exclusively for Papua New Guinea citizens. The date of the ban termination was not announced.
