AXADLE, Puntland State — The removal of Facebook pages linked to the presidents of Puntland State and Jubaland has reignited concerns about a widening pattern of online pressure against Somali politicians, lawmakers, ministers, journalists and media organisations critical of Somalia’s federal government.
The latest cases involve suspended accounts, deleted posts, copyright complaints and reports falsely declaring living journalists dead. Independent media outlets and journalists say the actions have restricted their ability to publish and communicate with audiences.
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The Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) said on September 14 that it had documented a rise in such incidents. Meta East Africa, it added, had not responded to its request for comment.
The incidents are not new.
Somali media organisations recorded more than 32 Facebook accounts affected by comparable attacks in late 2024. The accounts included those associated with the Puntland State presidency, ministers and politicians. Jubaland also reported an incident involving its president’s Facebook account.
The Facebook account of former Puntland State President Senator Abdirahman Mohamed Mohamud Farole was removed during that period. Information available to Axadle indicates that the account has still not been returned to its owner.
In one particularly unusual tactic, living individuals were reported to Facebook as deceased. Reports from 2024 said fraudulent death documents were used in some efforts to persuade Meta’s systems to turn accounts into memorialised profiles.
Fraudulent copyright complaints have likewise become a recurring tool used against Somali media organisations.
An SJS investigation published on August 30, 2026 documented copyright claims, content removals and restrictions affecting Somali journalists and outlets. The syndicate said the activity had intensified during political disputes between the federal government and other political actors, including Puntland State.
According to the investigation, media organisations reported that copyright claims had been lodged against videos and reports they produced themselves. The material included political speeches and footage featuring public officials.
Axadle has also been hit by repeated copyright claims, including disputes involving videos the organisation says were filmed by its own journalists.
SJS said some of the claims were traced to individuals or pages with no apparent connection to the content for which they claimed ownership.
The syndicate also said it secretly contacted a person using the name “The Odyssey”, who allegedly sought $5,000 to submit a disputed copyright claim against a media organisation.
Journalists told SJS that individuals or institutions linked to the government had taken part in mass reporting campaigns and attempts to restrict content. Some of those allegations have been rejected, while others remain independently unverified.
SJS quoted a former Ministry of Information employee as saying that journalists’ names and content were submitted to the Ministry of Information and the National Communications Authority.
A former ministry official confirmed to SJS that his department had worked with Meta, but denied that the relationship was used to censor the media. He said the cooperation had instead helped recover accounts suspended in error.
No independently verified evidence shows that Somalia’s federal government was responsible for every incident involving politicians, journalists and media organisations.
The latest reports come as the federal government deepens strategic communications cooperation with Türkiye and China. SJS has urged the government to reveal the nature and extent of those arrangements and to guarantee that they will not be used to intimidate or silence journalists.
There is no evidence that the Turkish government itself removed the Facebook accounts or filed fraudulent copyright complaints.
Meta expanded its Meta AI Support Assistant in March 2026. The tool is intended to help users resolve account issues, understand content removals and navigate the appeals process.
The company says the system can offer assistance around the clock, while human reviewers remain involved in sensitive decisions, including certain appeals against disabled accounts.
For Somali users, however, the repeated incidents raise a fundamental question: when an automated system wrongly identifies a living journalist as dead or accepts a false copyright claim, how quickly can that person secure meaningful human review?
Facebook is not simply a social networking service in Somalia. Millions of Somalis rely on it for news, political leaders use it to address the public, and independent outlets depend on the platform to reach audiences inside the country and abroad.
As a result, removing the account of a president, lawmaker, minister, politician or journalist is more than a technical dispute with a platform. It can shape political debate, restrict press freedom and limit public access to competing perspectives.
Questions remain about who is submitting fraudulent death reports and false copyright claims, as well as why Meta’s systems have repeatedly allowed such tactics to affect Somali accounts.
Meta is facing calls to explain how it detects and prevents abuse of its enforcement systems and how Somali users can obtain human review when automated decisions are wrong. The federal government, meanwhile, faces demands to disclose its institutional relationship with Meta and the procedures governing requests involving accounts and online content.
The incidents documented in 2024 never received a comprehensive public explanation. Similar tactics have appeared again in 2026.
There is still no independently verified evidence that all of the incidents were directed by a single actor or coordinated under one directive — reinforcing calls for an independent investigation.
AXADLETM
