The title of this post was meant to be "Africa, where net
neutrality goes to die."
A statement I jacked off my friend, Marcello. I was supposed to
write a post explaining how ISPs in Africa have embraced zero rating and are actively pushing for differential pricing of OTT services such as WhatsApp as well as the dangers of Free Basics. Echoing the war cry of many
digital rights activists in India who managed to have it banned from their
country.
All this was before 18th February,
election day for Uganda.The fateful day that my government turned my beautiful
nation into a frightening mimic of North Korea, blocking access to Social Media
(read Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, apparently movements cannot be started on
Instagram or SnapChat) and mobile money (money transfer services via mobile phone) for 4
days. Their reason; security. According to the President, people (enemies of
state) use these mediums to propagate lies. And he doesn't like lies. Abhors
them in fact. So much so, he'd rather we all went back to expensive and
rudimentary means of communication. Interestingly enough, many government
entities continued to use said mediums to communicate. I guess to address the
1.5 million Ugandans who had bypassed the blockade using VPNs.
But what does this say about our state of
digital rights? According to Wikipedia, The term digital rights describes
the human rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and
publish digital media or to access and use computers, other
electronic devices, or communications networks.
Then there is the Right to Internet
Access; also known as the right to broadband, it states that all people
must be able to access the Internet in order to exercise and enjoy
their rights to Freedom of expression and opinion and other fundamental human rights, that states have a
responsibility to ensure that Internet access is broadly available,
and that states may not unreasonably restrict an individual's access to the
Internet.
A United Nations
report released 16th May 2011 stated that disconnecting people from
the internet is a human rights violation and against international law. It also protested blocking internet access to quell political unrest.
I took out the essential articles in the document
and highlighted for emphasis;
78. While blocking and filtering measures
deny users access to specific content on the Internet, States have also taken
measures to cut off access to the Internet entirely. The Special Rapporteur considers cutting off users from Internet
access, regardless of the justification provided, including on the grounds of violating
intellectual property rights law, to be disproportionate and thus a violation
of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights.
79. The Special Rapporteur calls upon all States to ensure that Internet access is
maintained at all times, including during times of political unrest. In particular, the Special Rapporteur
urges States to repeal or amend existing intellectual copyright laws which
permit users to be disconnected from Internet access, and to refrain from
adopting such laws.
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Clearly, this is no longer a matter of
discriminatory access projects like Facebook’s Free Basics. The state has
turned against its own. It disregarded the fact that many (if not most in this
fledgling economy) businesses depend entirely on social media and the fact that
this is now our primary mode of communication. Instead of breeding calm, it
spread fear and panic among the citizens. The saddest thing about this is that
the President said this was a test. The state can go to greater lengths. All in
the name of stifling dissent, which makes me wonder what that bodes for even the investors. If your services can be shut down on a whim, is it really worth your
while?
The removal or censorship of Internet is
in essence a breach of the human right to freedom of speech. The Egyptian
government shut down the Internet a number of times during the 18-day uprising
in Egypt in a meek attempt to stifle the protests during the Arab Spring. And
even though services were only cut off for a few days, this hampered Egyptians
ability to access basic services like ambulances. I shudder to imagine what would have happened had severe violence actually broken out in many parts of the country with the blockade still in place.
But I have hope, the thing I love most about
technology is that evolves, quickly. Luckily, governments (especially
African) rarely do. Therefore, like off the grid solutions for electricity are starting
to proliferate the continent so will "Off-telecom-infrastructure"
solutions for internet start to rise. Already, there’s the Google loon project and
Facebook's Aquila.
Change is coming!
PS: I'll be speaking about all things #NetNeutrality4Africa at this year's RightsCon so I'm going to be writing abit alot about that.
Bisous,
S.
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