evidence: A series of social media posts implied that the Sri Lankan government had recently decided that Tamil would be the official language used in administration and court procedures in the Northern and Eastern provinces. [...] Sinhala and Tamil are also used as administrative, legislative, and judicial languages in Sri Lanka, and English is used as a link language. The decision to use Tamil language in Northern and Eastern provinces for administrative activities by government institutions and as the language of the courts was made 35 years ago through the amendments to Sri Lanka’s constitution in 1988. [...] We contacted Mr Anuradha Wijekoon, the Secretary of the National Language Division of the Ministry of Public Administration, who explicitly stated that there had been no recent changes to the language provisions in the constitution mentioned above. The administration and judicial activities in the North and East provinces have been conducted in Tamil for decades, aligning with the existing constitutional provisions.