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.” …