(AP) \u2014 Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Tuesday that his government has shut down social media ahead of a tense election on Thursday, accusing Facebook and unnamed outside groups of \u201carrogance\u201d after the social network this week removed Ugandan accounts linked to his reelection campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat social channel you are talking about, if it is going to operate in Uganda, it should be used equitably by everybody who wants to use it,\u201d Museveni said of Facebook in a national address. \u201cIf you want to take sides against the (ruling party), then that group will not operate in Uganda.\u201d<\/p>\n
Museveni, dressed in a military jacket, said he was \u201csure the government has closed social media\u201d and apologized to Ugandans for what he called an inconvenience.<\/p>\n
Facebook on Monday said it had removed a network of accounts and pages that \u201cused fake and duplicate accounts to manage pages, comment on other people\u2019s content, impersonate users, re-share posts in groups to make them appear more popular than they were.\u201d The network was linked to a government ministry, it said.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate Facebook statement in response to the president\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n
Many Ugandans said Tuesday that Facebook and WhatsApp were not working. Twitter also appears to have been affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is unfortunate but it is unavoidable. There is no way anybody can come around and play with our country, to decide who is good, who is bad. We cannot accept that,\u201d Museveni said, adding that he \u201ccannot tolerate this arrogance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Museveni has alleged repeatedly that foreign groups are trying to meddle in Uganda\u2019s election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(AP) \u2014 Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Tuesday that his government has shut down social media ahead of a tense election on Thursday, accusing Facebook and unnamed outside groups of \u201carrogance\u201d after the social network this week removed Ugandan accounts linked to his reelection campaign. \u201cThat social channel you are talking about, if it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":344598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Museveni.jpg?fit=768%2C512&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1rE1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344599,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344597\/revisions\/344599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}