Papua New Guinea is banning Facebook for a month in order to filter out fake news, bogus accounts, and pornography, the Papua New Guinea Post Courier reported.
Sam Basil, communications minister there, said that the shutdown will allow the department and its National Research Institute to understand how the powerful social media website is being used in the island country.
Papua New Guinea, located in the southwest Pacific Ocean northeast of Australia, encompasses the eastern half of New Guinea, the world's second largest island, according to Britannica.com. The western portion of the island includes the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.
"The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed," Basil told the Post Courier. "This will allow genuine people with real identities to use the social network responsibly."
A Facebook representative told CNET.com that the company had learned of Papau New Guinea's decision to shut the website down.
"We have reached out to the Papua New Guinea government to understand their concerns," said the spokeswoman.
Basil told the Post Courier that the Facebook ban is being initiated to enforce the island's Cyber Crime Act that became law there in 2016.
"The act has already been passed, so what I'm trying to do is to ensure the law is enforced accordingly where perpetrators can be identified and charged accordingly," Basil told the Post Courier. "We cannot allow the abuse of Facebook to continue in the country.
"I will now work closely with the police for them to be properly trained and informed to fully enforce the Cyber Crime Act," he continued, adding that a date has not been set yet for the shutdown.
Facebook has been slammed over the past several years for helping spread "fake news" stories, not protecting the privacy of its users, and being used to help Russian influence the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
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