Protesters targeted members of the Rajapaksa family and government politicians. The government in turn used authoritarian methods such as imposing a state of emergency which allows the military to arrest civilians, imposing curfews, restricting social media such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Viber and YouTube, assaulting of protesters and journalists and arresting of online activists.[9][10][11] The measures taken by the government resulted in further increasing the unpopularity of the government and the Sri Lankan diaspora began demonstrations against the suppression of basic human rights.