A rising trend towards government-enforced internet shutdowns – with at least 300 incidents in more than 54 countries over the last two years – is prompting renewed warnings from the UN about the threat these digital blackouts pose to freedom of expression, access to information and human rights. In a statement issued this week, UNESCO…
Net Nine Nine CEO Albert Oosthuysen Despite global trends showing a correlation between higher internet penetration rates and GDP growth, South Africa’s high internet penetration has failed to translate into robust economic growth. This is because uncapped fibre broadband reaches only 26% of the population, despite mobile internet penetration exceeding 80%, according to Net Nine…
Authoritarian governments have long relied on a blunt but effective tool to silence dissent: switching off the internet. From nationwide blackouts during elections to targeted throttling of social media platforms during protests, cutting connectivity has become a depressingly familiar tactic across parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. A recent Reuters report on Iran’s…
Joe Tidy,BBC cybersecurity correspondentand Farshad Bayan,BBC Persian NurPhoto via Getty Images Iran is 10 days into one of the most extreme internet shutdowns in history, with 92 million citizens cut off from all internet services and even disruption to phone and text messaging. The Iranian government cut off services on 8 January, apparently to stifle…
Ugandan authorities cut internet access and limited mobile services across the country on Tuesday, two days before an election in which President Yoweri Museveni will stand for a contentious seventh term after four decades in power. The Uganda Communications Commission ordered mobile service providers to shut down public internet connections from 6pm (5pm SAST) on…
Everyone’s a content creator now For the first 30 years of television’s existence in South Africa, linear broadcasting dominated the way content was served to the public. Broadcasters including the SABC, MultiChoice and eMedia enjoyed the privilege of captive audiences who were “programmed” through rigid schedules that determined the type of content that would be…
Iranian authorities appeared to be cutting off internet access Thursday in the capital and some other regions of the country as mass protests and chanting against the government continue. Two sources in Tehran told CBS News the internet was down in the capital. The NetBlocks monitoring organization said Thursday, at about 8 p.m. local time, that its…
Africa was hit by a record number of digital shutdowns in 2025 that stifled opposition and undermined democracy. On 29 October 2025, election day, a nationwide internet outage cut online communication across Tanzania, raising concerns about electoral transparency. This is increasingly common across Africa. Ethiopia has one of the most extensive and systematic histories of…
Between 2016 and 2024, there were 193 internet shutdowns imposed in 41 African countries. This form of social control is a growing trend in the continent, according to a new open-access source book. It has provided the first-ever comparative analysis of how and why African states use blackouts – written by African researchers. The book,…
Between 2016 and 2024 there were 193 internet shutdowns imposed in 41 African countries. This form of social control is a growing trend in the continent, according to a new open access source book. It has provided the first-ever comparative analysis of how and why African states use blackouts – written by African researchers. The…
