Uganda Tightens Restrictions on The Internet Usage
date
Oct 31, 2022
slug
internet-restrictions-in-uganda
status
Published
summary
Uganda keeps tightening the internet restrictions in the country. After the Computer Misuse Act in 2011, they have added new rules of internet usage.
tags
Website
type
Post
featured_image_url
Author
Oguz Dagli
category
News
meta_title
New Law Tightens The Restriction on The Internet Usage in Uganda - FastVPN
It looks like the governments around the world do not understand the nature of cyberspace. News about internet restrictions show us that authorities try to keep the public away from the digital world. So strange that they block the most important technology in the 21st century. Restricting the internet is like announcing a lockdown because of the dangers in the streets. Would you be okay if there was a lockdown because there were too many thefts in the streets? We cannot be okay with the internet restrictions either.
News from Uganda shows us that Uganda tightens the laws of internet usage. They don’t restrict the internet actually. They don’t throttle the bandwidth, they don’t ban specific websites or they don’t completely shut down the internet like Iran did. However, new laws criminalize some of the internet activities. Are you curious about the new laws? Let’s check!
Uganda legislated the Computer Misuse Act in 2011. With the new law, it looks like Uganda tightens the rules of internet usage. The most catchy part of the law is the legislation that includes prison terms up to seven years for various offenses, including for accessing and sharing information about another individual without their authorization. This kind of legislation concerns the public. In such situations that there is a notoriously known government, people don’t trust law enforcement personnel because of the open-ended laws.
The legislation that restricts the internet, is an example of how far away the public is from freedom. People generally are afraid of sharing their own thoughts online. For this reason, the most beneficial feature of the internet (reaching the information in the fastest way) cannot be used. It feels such a loss for humankind. We have built FastVPN to open up the way to reach the information swiftly. You should be secure not against identity theft but also against those who already know your identity and want to use it for their own benefits.
Reactions to The Legislation
There are many negative reactions to the new law. The common concern about the law is that it blocks the way independent media works.
Gilbert Senduguwa, executive director of Africa Freedom of Expression Center, told IPI that he found the new law “troubling”. He also went on to say, “We are also concerned that with government’s bad record, such a law may be a tool to be used against independent journalists, CSOs and legitimate political opposition”.
The law is “a blow to online civil liberties in Uganda,” according to an analysis by a watchdog group known as Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa, or CIPESA.
“Ugandan legislators have taken the wrong turn in attempting to make an already problematic law even worse. If this bill becomes law, it will only add to the arsenal that authorities use to target critical commentators and punish independent media,” the group's Muthoki Mumo said in a statement after lawmakers passed the bill.
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/finance/news/law-uganda-imposes-restrictions-internet-165728049.html
It looks like journalists will not be so comfortable while sharing the information online as they used to be before. For example, when a journalist posts a tweet about the location of someone at a specific time period, it might be accepted as it is against the law. Moreover, there might be a prison sentence.
Conclusion
Authorities see the internet as the deranger of social order. They try to decrease internet usage while they should have been doing the opposite. It is obvious that accessing cyberspace is key to improvement. The more transparent the organizations the higher speed the improvements will be in technology. Aware of this, FastVPN’s mission is to free up the digital world by providing high speed secure VPN service.
