Recordings about a conspiracy to spy on journalists and politicians shake the country a week before the general elections
Nov. 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The authorities of Mauritius have denounced that the population of the African country is being victim of a wave of misinformation following the publication on social networks of recordings of an alleged plot to wiretap politicians and journalists.
The situation has reached such a point that the country’s authorities ordered on Friday the suspension of access to social networks until the day after the general elections on November 10, only to rectify this decision a few hours later by recognizing the inability to the initiative to put an end to the dissemination of these recordings.
The scandal has been called “the Missie Moustass leaks” (“Mr. Mustacho”, in Mauritian Creole), in reference to the Facebook user who began to disclose these recordings and reproduced them on other platforms such as TikTok or YouTube.
The operator Emtel initially confirmed the suspension order from state regulators, given “in response to concerns about illegal messages that may negatively affect national security or public safety.”
The country’s Prime Minister, Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, appeared this past Friday at an unusual press conference to ensure that these messages are the product of a falsification carried out with artificial intelligence and that the country “has been the victim of a local cyberterrorist attack.” .
Shortly after the appearance, the authorities decided to reverse the suspension order, according to a statement from the Authority for Information and Communication Technologies to the news portal ‘Le Mauricien’.
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