Uzbekistan Restricts Access To Most Social Media, Instant Messaging Sites, 3 November 2021

Uzbek authorities have restricted access to most social media and instant messaging platforms for violating the Central Asian country’s personal data legislation, a move felt almost immediately by users.

However, presidential spokesman Sherzod Asadov told local media on November 3 that access to all the sites would be restored soon and that the head of Uzbekistan’s communications regulator, O'zkomnazorat, Golibsher Ziyaev, had been dismissed for acting wrongly without any authorization.

Earlier in the day, O'zkomnazorat added seven social networks -- Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Moi Mir [part of Mail.ru], Odnoklassniki, Telegram, and YouTube -- to its “register of violators” of a law in effect since April that requires Internet companies to store the personal data of Uzbek users on servers in the country...

[Also refers to Twitter, TikTok, VKontakte, Skype and WeChat]