Ethiopia to create local rival to Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp

Decision comes after government accused Facebook of deleting accounts ‘disseminating the true reality about Ethiopia’.

Ethiopia has begun developing its own social media platform to rival Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, though it does not plan to block the global services, the state communications security agency said. Ethiopia has been engulfed since last year in an armed conflict pitting the federal government against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the Tigray region in the country’s north. Supporters of both sides have waged a parallel war of words on social media.