In the fight against terrorism in general and the Al-Shabab extremist group in particular, the Somali government has enforced a ban on extremist content.
The Somali deputy minister of information, Abdirahman Yusuf announced the government ban in a statement made public and posted on the ministry’s official Twitter account over the weekend in what it calls “the dissemination of extremism ideology messages both from official media houses and on social media.”
The statement reads in parts, “I want to inform the Somali media and all Somali people in general that we’ll regard all al Shabaab related propaganda coverage including their terrorist acts and their ideology as punishable crimes.
“Thus, implementing its decision, the government started cyber operations fighting against terrorist accounts on social media, so far, we have suspended more than 40 accounts on Facebook and Twitter.”
Speaking to the AFP news agency, Yusuf insisted the decision would not affect normal news coverage about Al-Shabab by journalists in Somalia.
