Nairobi, Feb. 10 -- The Ethiopian government has suspended access to popular social media platforms after tensions escalated between the authorities and the Orthodox Church, internet watchdog NetBlocks said on Friday.

Netblocks, an organisation that monitors freedom of access to the internet, said the latest restrictions impacted TikTok, Facebook and Telegram.

According to NetBlocks, the disruptions were executed by the state-owned giant service provider Ethio Telecom.

"Real-time NetBlocks metrics indicate that Facebook, Telegram and TikTok have been restricted on state internet provider Ethio Telecom, with aggregated reachability statistics collected from an initial set of 20 vantage points," Netblocks said.

Circumventing censorship...