Authoritarian regimes weaponise internet blackouts to stifle dissent
Photo: @eugenechystiakov via Unsplash
Internet blackouts have become a repressive tool regularly used by authoritarian regimes to stifle dissent and disrupt democratic processes.
On Thursday Ugandans went to the polls for presidential elections that saw the octogenarian incumbent President Yoweri Museveni seek to extend his 40-year rule with a seventh term in office. Two days earlier mobile phone and internet companies were instructed to suspend all internet services until further notice. The shutdown was preceded by a wave of violent crackdowns against Museveni’s political opponents and critics, including journalists and human rights groups.
The pretext for imposing a blackout was “strong recommendations” from security agencies that it was needed to prevent incitement of violence and spreading misinformation, according to a letter from the Uganda Communications Commission to telecoms companies.
The main opposition party led by former pop star Bobi Wine accused Museveni of using the shutdown to help him “steal the election”. A similar blackout was imposed in Uganda’s 2021 elections, which Museveni won by 59 percent, a victory described as fundamentally flawed by foreign observers. Ahead of this week’s shutdown, Wine urged supporters to download the Bitchat app “for communication in case the regime disables the internet ahead of #ProtestVote2026”. Bitchat allows users near each other to communicate via Bluetooth networks without the internet.
A similar, week-long blackout was imposed during Tanzania’s elections last October, which saw security forces gun down hundreds of opponents. In poll widely condemned as a sham, the incumbent, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, won an improbable 98 percent of the votes.
In Iran, where protests against an economic meltdown and lack of political freedoms erupted in late December and being met with bloody crackdowns, the internet has been shut down since January 8. Iran uses several methods to impede the free flow of information with varying degrees of success. These include blocking the use of VPNs, using a state-run domestic internet network, and disrupting access to smuggled Starlink terminals, which are banned in the country, possibly by jamming their GPS signals and thereby making it more difficult for them to find overhead satellites.
https://www.ft.com/content/2aa036ee-a81a-4516-9187-8b129daab8c3
