Tangled Web
A social media tax, freedom of speech and Uganda
● Mujuni Raymond, a Ugandan investigative journalist, recently tweeted a photograph of a bullet with the hashtag #ThisTaxMustGo. “We don’t say it out of malice that officers from CPS used live ammunition to disperse a lawful protest, here is evidence,” he wrote.
Raymond had just come back from a protest against a tax on social media imposed by the government at the start of the month. To disperse the crowd, he said, police fired bullets, used teargas and made arrests.
Since July 1, Ugandans have had to pay a tax of 200 shillings, equivalent to about 5 US cents (about 70c), for every day they use services including Facebook, Twitter, Skype and WhatsApp.
In a country where about a third of the population lives on less than R25 a day, it is hardly surprising that usage of the platforms has dropped, by about 15% in the first half of the month, says an industry association.
Some people have installed private networks to access the internet from another country’s servers and so get around the tax.
The government of President Yoweri Museveni has given two reasons for the tax. First, it says it wants to regulate online gossip, or idle talk — which critics fear means it wants to censor opponents. Second, it wants to raise money to fund infrastructure.
People have switched from paying for calls and texts that were taxed via local telecoms companies to using free services provided by far-off Silicon Valley companies.
In the US and Europe, politicians are also concerned about social media, and are pushing big tech companies to pay tax in the countries where they operate.
With critics arguing that smartphones are addictive, perhaps one day a tax on consumption could help us all with this behaviour, in the same way duties levied on alcohol and tobacco can deter usage. But that would face huge opposition from freespeech advocates.
Museveni’s tax comes with a heavy dose of authoritarianism. Protesters were arrested when all they wanted was for people to be able to afford to communicate their views online.
This is not the Ugandan government’s first attempt to influence the use of social media: during the presidential election in 2016, officials blocked access to Facebook and Twitter, citing security threats.
Nor is it the first time a government has tried to impose costs for communicating online: in April, Tanzania announced plans to charge citizens about $920 to start a blog — the equivalent of the US asking Americans to pay nearly $60 000.
Human Rights Watch is concerned that the tax is part of a broader strategy to prevent critical discourse
Oryem Nyeko
Uganda-based Human Rights Watch researcher
Raymond says social media is used by young Ugandans for “innovations, connections, light banter and advertising businesses”. Moreover, he says, freedom of expression is meant to be guaranteed under the Ugandan constitution.
Oryem Nyeko, a Uganda-based researcher with Human Rights Watch, says the group is concerned that the tax is part of a broader strategy to “prevent critical discourse”, which has also included prosecuting the owner of a Facebook page criticising Uganda’s first lady.
Amnesty International has urged the Ugandan government to scrap the tax, calling it “a clear attempt to undermine freedom of expression”.
CyberLine, a Ugandan tech company, has filed a lawsuit arguing it breaches the principles of net neutrality.
Amid the recent criticism of Facebook and Twitter over fake news, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these sites can still be important forums for free expression.
Prevailing opinion has flipped: from the starry-eyed days of the Arab Spring — when many praised social media as crucial for democratic movements and naively underestimated its usefulness to dictators — to today’s scepticism. The world needs a new kind of social media, built to guard against the damage we now know it can cause to democracy, privacy and cohesion. This is a complex challenge — and one we will only be able to tackle if we remember what we are fighting for. — © The Financial Times