Social Media Blackout in Sri Lanka

There were several incidents in the central part of Sri Lanka, where people who claimed to be "Buddhist Extremist" and "Islam Extremists" fought with each other. And the hatred was spreading through the means of social media such as Facebook. The government immediately declared Emergency state, followed by a banning of major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Viber.

This decision has impacted various aspects in different ways, it was believed that the spreading of hate speech was somewhat controlled. Although social media platforms were blocked, people starting using them again through VPNs. The most trending apps were VPNs on both Play Store and App Store. The irony was that the Facebook page of Maithreepala Sirisena (The president of Sri Lanka) was active, and was constantly posting pictures and status updates.
It's been six days since the blocking of Social Media Platforms, digital marketing firms whose business mostly depend on Social Media are having a very hard time because on-paper there's no penetration from Sri Lanka on to platforms like Facebook although in reality, people access them through VPNs. Social Media plays a major role in our lives now, it is a powerful tool that can be used for good an bad. Blocking Social Media all of a sudden was very inconvenient, especially being unable to use messaging services like Whatsapp.

One can say it was a smart move from the government to block social media and stop the issue in the central part of the country, but doing so did they actually stop the awareness spreading. I believe the government should have stepped in way before and settled these issues before it had gotten into this level of chaos. If most of the people used social media like they regulary do, was the ban effective? Was it only the Digital Marketing Industry that suffered?