Across Africa, New Battlefields for Free Speech Take Shape on Social Media
Across Africa, New Battlefields for Free Speech Take Shape on Social Media by Ish Mafundikwa and Ryan Lenora Brown – Christian Science Monitor
… Across the continent, governments have increasingly targeted social media as a way to bring unruly dissenters to heel. In Tanzania, for instance, a recently introduced law slaps a registration fee of about $900 on bloggers and online forums. A 2016 law in Rwanda makes it illegal to use a digital device to cause “annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety,” and Egypt’s government recently announced a law allowing it to block any social media users with more than 5,000 followers if they disseminate “fake news.”
In Uganda, activists took to the streets to protest a new tax on social media applications that went into effect this month. The law slaps a 200-shilling (5 US cents) daily charge on anyone who wants to use applications like WhatsApp, Twitter, or Facebook – a fee the government says will raise much-needed revenue for state coffers.
A group of lawyers, meanwhile, recently lodged a legal challenge to the charge, which they argue inhibits Ugandans – particularly poor Ugandans – from accessing and sharing information freely.
“Freedom online holds so much potential to change our society – to expose people to new ideas and connect them to the world,” says Baguma Moses, co-director of the Cyber Law Initiative, which brought the challenge at Uganda’s Constitutional Court. “So we as Ugandans aren’t willing to let this thing pass into our lives without a fight.” …
