Some news pieces and social media posts have claimed that Lebanon will be cut off from the Internet within a week due to the disconnection of the data routes that provide the country’s internet through some countries. Is this claim true?
Claim: Lebanon will be disconnected from the Internet within one week.
Verdict: False. Ogero denied the claim.
Context:
The news piece in question noted that Lebanon gets its internet exclusively from service providers in Turkey, Cyprus, and Egypt.
It alleged that since the last two countries deactivated their data routes with Lebanon due to overdue payments, due in U.S. dollars, Lebanon “will witness a total disconnection from the Internet” after Turkey follows suit next week.
Outraged by the distressing news, people started to widely share the news, with some commenting that Lebanon is heading back to “the old ages.”
The misinformation prompted Chairman of Ogero Imad Kreidieh to post a brief tweet debunking the claim.
“Once again, some [people] are marketing fabricated news that does not relate to the truth in any way. The Ogero Commission denies this news in its entirety,” he said on Thursday.
Notably, Kreidieh later told MTV’s “Sar El Waet” that Lebanon’s internet and telecommunications services would stop if Ogero’s diesel fuel supply ran out.
“I hope we do not get to this stage and there is yet to be an alternative plan,” he said.
In context, the Ministry of Telecommunications announced a couple of weeks ago that it would boost internet speed for subscribers on the Ogero network for several months, free of charge, in light of the “exceptional economic conditions.”
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