Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed had given press freedom a much-needed push for which he even earned a Nobel Peace Prize in October 2019.

The Nobel committee cited the prime minister "discontinuing media censorship" as one of  Abiy Ahmed's many achievements in paving the way to establish a new and better democracy in Ethiopia. but it is already under attack. 

But the bonanza of media activity that followed is now generating increasing concerns that new media freedoms are being abused to stoke ethnic tensions. Media are being accused of abetting groups seeking to leverage identity politics to destabilise the country for their own ends.
At the same time, the government is now facing criticism for repeating the authoritarian ways of previous Ethiopian governments toward media and attempting to put the lid back on what it opened.