What is actually achieved through Internet shutdowns?

During the last couple of weeks, whilst going down the rabbit hole that is ‘trends within digital activism,’ I stumbled across a recently published book called “Digital Citizenship in Africa: Technologies of Agency and Repression”.

 As my focus here on the blog is to track the governments’ reactions to the widespread usage of digital activism, the title immediately caught my attention. 

The book is published in a series called Digital Africa. According to the publisher: 

“The Digital Africa series explores how digital technologies have opened new spaces for the exercise of democratic rights and freedoms in Africa, as well as how repressive regimes have used digital technologies to diminish, or remove those rights.”

Overall, the book is pretty accessible as it is a collection of smaller publications, each with their own area of focus. Some of the texts explore “feminist digital citizenship in Nigeria” whilst others the “the role of language in defining the limits and opportunities for digital citizenship in Kiswahili-language communities”.

The section within this book that caught my eye was called “Internet shutdowns and digital citizenship” by Felicia Anthinio and Tony Roberts, and it is this text I will discuss in detail in this post. 

So, without spoiling the book to you,  I will give my honest take on this new publication and try to illustrate what is actually achieved through Internet shutdowns.

The general

The Internet shutdowns and digital citizenship chapter explores the phenomenon of Internet shutdowns and their impact on digital citizenship in Africa. The authors mention:

“As social, economic and political life is increasingly conducted online, the costs of connectivity disruption to businesses, families and democracies can be devastating, yet the use of internet shutdowns is becoming more frequent; they are lasting longer and are evolving to take on new forms.”

The text starts off and presents us with relevant facts such as that Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition (which I mentioned in my previous blog post) tracked over 935 Internet shutdowns in 60 countries from January 2016 to December 2021. Amongst these figures, 120 recorded Internet shutdowns have been seen in 34 African countries. The authors mention how these kinds of shutdowns have far reaching implications for the citizens of African countries and also that we can see an increased usage of such shutdowns as a tool to silence voices online. 

Internet shutdowns and social media bans are becoming increasingly common (photo: Unsplash).

Important to note here is that an Internet shutdown can be general, which means the whole Internet becomes inaccessible for people. Or it can be more direct and targeted towards certain websites or platforms such as shutting down access to a social media website.

The case studies used

Banning access to the Internet or social media often leads to more social unrest (photo: Unsplash).

The authors present three case studies from different African countries to exemplify the recent usage of Internet shutdowns.

Ethopia

In the first case study, the authors explain that  Internet shutdowns are used  to silence critical voices or citizens trying to spread awareness of what is happening in the country. 

The study specifically focuses on the Tigray region and the war that took place there, and illustrates how the use of Internet shutdowns essentially cut off the region from the rest of the world. Consequently it made the reporting of human rights abuses near impossible. 

The authors note that the conflict has seen “mass rape, mass murder and violent abuse of refugees” which goes unreported due to the shutdowns. 

Furthermore, what makes the situation difficult in this case is that both sides of the conflict, the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front are both accusing each other of being behind the Internet shutdowns that the region experiences.

Nigeria

In Nigeria, many citizens turn to social media to make demands on their government. The authors note that “social media users in Nigeria was estimated to be twenty-eight million in 2020”.

They talk about the #ENDSARS movement from 2022 which saw many Nigerians engaging on social media to spread awareness about their cause. SARS refers to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, and the movement sought its disbandment due to reports on police brutality.

However, in June 2021, “authorities in Nigeria banned Twitter, making it inaccessible across the country without specialist circumvention tools.”. The result was that, even when faced with threats of persecution, many Nigerians started using VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) to access the site. Moreover, the move to ban the platform also resulted in lawsuits brought to court by civil-society organisations.

Protestors gather on the street as part of the Anti-SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) movement in Nigeria (photo: Unsplash)

Uganda

In Uganda, there was a partial Internet shutdown before an election in 2021. The shutdown targeted Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, and the Google Play Store.

Drawing parallels to the case in Nigeria, the foremost tool to circumvent these bans are the VPNs, which is commonly used to mask the country from which one is accessing the Internet. However, in this case, the Ugandan government also blocked access to several VPNs. 

The result of this ban on certain websites had profound implications for the citizens, who were unable to use online commerce, access essential services such as Internet banking, and share and receive information about the ongoing election.

The authors noted a trend in Uganda, and discussed how this was not the first recorded Internet shutdown in relation to an election. had been used in 2016 as well in a similar fashion. Just like in Nigeria, this move by the government also resulted in several lawsuits.

What can be done?

Internet shutdowns hinder not only communication but access to banking and other essential services (photo: Unsplash)

From services such as online banking becoming unavailable to the inability for citizens to report and shine light on atrocities such as mass murders – the implications of an Internet shutdown can be far reaching and devastating. 

The text presents some ways in which we should respond to this.

One of the recommendations the author’s present is that laws need to be implemented by governments that place human rights at the centre, meaning that these rights cannot be infringed through actions such as an Internet shutdown. Moreover, the text also summarises that the international community needs to denounce the malicious use of Internet shutdowns because they essentially go against these rights. Lastly, the authors also mention that academia, civil-society actors, and individuals “must continue to work together through global initiatives like the #KeepItOn campaign to monitor, document and respond to shut down threats around the world.”. If we do not track the Internet shutdowns as an authoritarian tool to silence critical voices or citizens trying to grab the world’s attention on human rights abuses, how can we organise to counter that it happens in the future?

Closing remarks

Overall, this section on which I have focused is a great summary for how internet shutdown affects citizens in different African countries, and I really recommend reading it.

Note that I have brushed over some rather important sections that the authors go into much greater detail in, but my task is to give a taste of what you can expect from this newly published work. The book can be purchased as a physical copy over at Bloomsbury: here

Join the discussion

One of our objectives for this student project is to generate conversation and debate around the topics we’re covering. As such, we invite you to join the discussion in the comment section below. As with any public forum, we ask that you please keep the conversation respectful and avoid the use of inappropriate or harmful language.

---