Cameroon Suspends Twitter

In the latest Cameroon news, Cameroonian mobile operator MTN has been ordered by the government of Cameroon to suspend an SMS service that has been confirmed a potent tool for protest movements in North Africa.

MTN Cameroon has granted a barely noticed service of big potentials since November 2010. MTN a major mobile phone service provider was the first in the country to provide admission to Twitter messages by SMS on the cellular network.

Cameroon News – Twitter Confirms Ban

A while ago nonetheless, Twitter headquarters in San Francisco verified that this service now had been brought to a halt. “Twitter SMS on MTN Cameroon has been suspended by the Cameroonian government,” the social media confirmed. MTN also set out a message to its users, mentioning that the SMS service to twitter has been suspended. The MTN and other authorities did not give any further clarifications.

One would wonder why the establishment would bother to suspend this outwardly inconsequential commercial service, which had yet to get a wider popularity in Cameroon. The country’s online society has no doubt about why, maintaining that Twitter via SMS is a powerful weapon.

Prior to the ban being imposed very few Cameroonians were even aware that Twitter was accessible in Cameroon via SMS, and the majority of those who were knowledgeable of the fact did not even grasp its prospects as a tool for political or anti-political activism,”

Cameroon News – Attempted Mass Protests

However, on the 23^rd of Feb, there had indeed been an attempt to initiate North Africa motivated mass protests in Cameroon. Exiled Cameroonians particularly had been active in social media such as Twitter and Facebook, trying to egg on the widely disgruntled masses inside the nation to take to the streets.

A reputed blog in the Republic of Cameroon says “Every Cameroonian that owns a mobile phone – Which happens to be about six million people- know what an SMS or a text message is, and has texted at least once before. Increasingly smartphones are making their way into Cameroon, and practically every phone in the market has a camera. The combination of standard SMS and smartphones is where the potential ‘threat’ to national security really lies,”