Libya goes offline as government pulls internet plug

Libya’s internet connection appears to have been cut again, with Google observing a flat-line in traffic from roughly midday EST on March 3. The move to clamp down on communications in the country is believed to be an attempt by the current government to prevent protests as tensions escalate.

It’s the third wholesale attempt to take a country offline since the start of the year, after the Egyptian government axed internet access in late January. There, the ban lasted for around a week. The Libyan government has pulled the plug on services once already, on February 18, though the outage only spanned a roughly seven hour period.