When Gabon’s media regulator indefinitely suspended major social platforms in February, citing security concerns amid anti-government protests, the move quickly reshaped how people communicate across the country.
Within weeks, use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) surged as people tried to bypass the block. Reports emerged that gendarmes at checkpoints in Libreville and other cities were stopping young men, confiscating phones found to have VPNs installed and sometimes detaining the owners. Word spread fast. Activists and opposition figures also said their accounts were suspended following pressure from state officials.
Social media had been a central space for organising and information-sharing since December, when education and health sector workers began demonstrating over pay and the rising cost of living. The government defended the shutdown by pointing to misinformation, disinformation, pornographic content and alleged incitement to hatred.
Human rights groups have pushed back, urging authorities to follow due process and target alleged offenders through lawful prosecutions rather than imposing broad limits on expression. “This sustained intentional interference with access to essential digital communication platforms in Gabon is a blatant disregard for people’s fundamental rights, specifically the freedom of expression and the right to access information,” said Felicia Anthonio, campaign manager at the #KeepItOn coalition, a global alliance of human rights organisations.
One vocal critic, Nelly Ngabima — known online as Princesse de Souba — says she received threats that government officials would make her “disappear from social networks.” Within months her accounts across Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, which together had more than 300,000 followers, were suspended. She alleges state actors create fake accounts using activists’ identities and then report them for identity theft to trigger removals. “Today, Gabonese people even struggle to send a WhatsApp message because they are afraid. They do not even go out with their phones,” she said.
The temporary restrictions were lifted in April, but a new regulation passed in February now requires social media users to register with verified names, addresses and national ID numbers. Platforms face fines of up to 50m Central African CFA francs (about £66,000) and potential prison terms for non-compliance. Rights defenders warn the measure effectively enables online surveillance and can chill dissent.
The social media rules form part of a wider set of legal changes critics say codify a crackdown on dissent. A controversial nationality code published last month has drawn criticism for measures that opponents say narrow the rights of naturalised citizens and make it easier for the state to strip people of citizenship.
A government spokesperson, Charles Edgard Mombo, downplayed the broader implications, arguing that criticism concerned “not so much the substance of the debate as its form,” and noting that article 99 of Gabon’s constitution requires parliament to ratify presidential ordinances issued during times of urgency.
Opposition figures have faced direct pressure. Former prime minister and opposition leader Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who had filed a court challenge to the social media restrictions in Libreville, was arrested in April on charges linked to an alleged fraud and breach of trust from 2008; his supporters say the charges are politically motivated.
Ngabima’s warnings carry weight because of her past role inside the state security apparatus. She served as an intelligence operative between 2015 and 2019, and says her work included tapping phones and monitoring messages from politicians and military figures. Now based in France, she says that experience informs her concerns about the regime’s capacity to surveil those it considers dissidents.
Gabon is an oil-rich country with a young population, but poverty is widespread: about a third of people live in deep poverty, and citizens commonly complain of nepotism and corruption. The country also has recent experience of internet cuts: the penultimate shutdown occurred in August 2023 before a disputed election won by Ali Bongo; the internet was restored four days later after the military removed Bongo from power and placed him under house arrest.
General Brice Oligui Nguema, who led the 2023 removal of the Bongo family and presented himself as a reformer, won the 2025 presidential election with more than 90% of the vote in a ballot that was more open to media scrutiny than previous contests. Still, critics say Oligui — a relative of the Bongos and long part of the country’s security architecture — is using many of the same heavy-handed tactics as his predecessors, especially in opaque economic management and the suppression of dissent.
“Today Gabonese people still die of hunger, have no jobs and struggle to get medical treatment … all that already existed during Ali Bongo’s time,” Ngabima said. “In reality, strictly speaking, nothing has changed. You cannot remove Mr Ali Bongo because you condemned certain behaviours and then arrive and reproduce the same. That is not possible.”
Rights groups continue to call for restraint: they want authorities to respect freedom of expression, avoid blanket restrictions, and use fair judicial procedures if they believe laws have been broken. For many Gabonese, the recent restrictions on digital life have become another front in a longer struggle over political space, accountability and basic rights.
