Missie Moustass (Mr Moustache) was the name of a Facebook account which started posting audio clips. Those audio clips were allegedly phone conversations between politicians, journalists, lawyers, police officers and a British high commissioner in Mauritius. The initial audio clips appeared on Facebook on 18 October. Some of the journalists confirmed that they had those conversations through WhatsApp in 2022. Meanwhile, the state-funded TV used a video from a TikTok content creator to claim that Artificial Intelligence could have been used to create the audio clips.
Missie Moustass moved to TikTok after the Facebook account was suspended. The director of the Computer Emergency Response Team of Mauritius (CERT-MU) confirmed that he contacted Facebook and TikTok to have those accounts removed. Missie Moustass moved to YouTube after the TikTok account was suspended. The YouTube channel was created on 19 October. Its first YouTube video (Season 3, Episode 1) was uploaded on 22 October. The last YouTube video was uploaded on 11 November which is the day after Mauritius held elections for all the seats in the legislative assembly.
Something went wrong with YouTube on 31 October (date in UTC). There wasn't any routing issue as a traceroute showed that the YouTube network was reachable from Mauritius.
@sminmu also, it's best if you can share a screenshot of your Stats for nerds so we can take a closer look: https://t.co/dO4j9OXGnR you can keep an eye on our Known Issues page for any related confirmed issues: https://t.co/TQSQjTkT7H (2/2)
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) October 31, 2024
Emtel Limited is licensed as an Internet Service Provider in Mauritius. Emtel Limited issued a press release on 1st November to inform its customers that it received a communication from Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA) to temporarily suspend access to all social media platforms until 11th November 2024. The explanation given was illegal postings that may impact national security and public safety.
The communications regulator (ICTA) published a press release afterwards. The press release stated that the ICTA has received directives in the evening of 31 October 2024, to direct all Internet Service Providers to temporarily suspend access to all social media platforms until 11 November 2024
. The ICTA directive was issued pursuant to section 18(1)(a) of the Information and Communication Technologies Act 2001 (ICT Act), section 18(1)(m) of ICT Act, and section 7(3) of the ICT Act. The social media restrictions were in response to the the publication of "certain" audio clips, according to the Mauritius' Prime Ministers' Office.
The following social media platforms were blocked by Emtel Limited and Mauritius Telecom:
The social media ban was implemented at the Internet Service Provider through TLS interference, according to the Open Observatory of Network Interference.
The significant drop in YouTube traffic for Mauritius can be correlated with the time frame of the social media ban in Mauritius.
A member of one of the opposition parties filed a request for an injunction requesting that the ICTA directive be suspended. The request was declined on 1st November and the ICTA was requested to clarify its position. The communications regulator reversed its social media directive on 2nd November. That was before the Mauritius Supreme Court was scheduled to assess the request for a court injunction against the communications regulator.
Meta's Vice President of Content Policy stated that the company will keep manipulated media on its platforms so that it can add ["AI info"] labels and context in an article published in September.
TikTok requires an AIGC label for edited Media and AI-generated content. TikTok does not allow misinformation that may cause significant harm to individuals or society, regardless of intent.
There were reports of ten-year olds using VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) to circumvent the social media ban within hours after it went into effect. The social media ban was viewed as ineffective as young and old took to using VPNs.
The internet filtering which the communications regulator requires from its licensees could easily be bypassed given that a larger population is now conversant with VPNs.
The Computer Emergency Response Team of Mauritius was unable to convince Google to remove the YouTube channel.
The claim that the postings were illegal was not assessed by a court of law.
There were some Facebook and TikTok postings from other accounts. The content could be construed as satire. The content seem AI-generated/manipulated. However, none of those postings carried the label required by the social media platform.
Senior government officials were allegedly involved in some of the phone calls. There would have been a security breach if the network over which senior government officials discussed confidential matters was open to the Internet. A plausible response to the security breach would be to disconnect that network from the Internet instead of banning social media.
In October 2023, Haaretz, reported that an alliance of digital arms and surveillance firms pitched its surveillance spyware to several countries, including Mauritius. One could surmise that the elusive Missie Moustass was a foreign adversary.
The Missie Moustass YouTube channel had 2,404,223 views on 31 October. The views was 4,183,433 on 2nd November. The views increased to 13,342,123 on 10th November.
A coalition of opposition parties won all the seats in the 10th November elections. The social media ban could have been one of the factors which influenced the voters.
The author is not affiliated directed or indirectly with any political party.
1. "Révélations de Missie Moustass : Ébouriffant scandale", lexpress.mu, October 2024
2. "Fears British High Commission phones were hacked during Chagos Islands talks", www.independent.co.uk, October 2024
3. "Jason l' Étourdi : «La MBC a manipulé ma vidéo»", lexpress.mu, October 2024
4. "La «Cybercrime Unit» a la lourde tâche de traquer «Missie Moustass»", lexpress.mu, October 2024
5. "Le CERT-MU du ministère des TIC à la rescousse du Commissaire de police", lemauricien.com, October 2024
6. "Mais qui est donc «Missie Moustass» ?", lexpress.mu, October 2024
7. Traceroute to www.youtube.com, www.elandsys.com, October 2024
8. "Aux opérateurs : l'ICTA ordonne de suspendre l'accès aux réseaux sociaux jusqu'après les élections", lemauricien.com, November 2024
9. "Communique", Information and Communication Technologies Authority, November 2024
10. "Mauritius blocks social media until after election, opposition and civil society groups cry foul", Reuters, November 2024
11. "Mauritius blocked social media ahead of 2024 general election", Open Observatory of Network Interference, November 2024
12. "Cour Suprême : Demande d'injonction contre la directive-censure de l'ICTA", lemauricien.com, November 2024
13. "Réseaux sociaux bloqués : «Le niveau de menace est faible», dit l'ICTA en cour", lexpress.mu, November 2024
14. "Communique", Information and Communication Technologies Authority, November 2024
15. "Our Approach to Labeling AI-Generated Content and Manipulated Media", Meta, September 2024
16. "Integrity and Authenticity", www.tiktok, April 2024
17. "Investigation: How Israeli Spyware Was Sold to Egypt and Pitched to Qatar and Saudi Arabia", Haaretz , October 2023