Agreeably, African internet cuts are no longer new occurrences. The scare of getting disconnected from the web all of a sudden could be said to be the average African’s daily digital cross.
For Bright Okpocha (Basketmouth), uploading the next episode (usually more than minutes long each) of his maiden comedy web series on his official YouTube channel feels like enough time to shoot and edit 5 more episodes.
Bright’s fellow internet entrepreneurs and idea thinkers in Zimbabwe, Cape Verde, Algeria, Togo, Somalia, and every other African soil are just as challenged with slow internet speeds.
Being that it’s possible for mobile phone services to completely zone out for almost a whole day in some parts of the region (often over server downtime or seemingly bad weather), getting yanked from the internet often smells like a meal cooking just next door.
Perhaps if a fair amount of African countries had super-fast internet connections, video streaming content creators would probably be churning twice the amount of content they are now.
That would fetch these digital entrepreneurs more dollar earnings, a value that metrically finds its way into some markets and industries in their respective countries, boosting their economies (respectively).
But for a continent as unconnected as Africa, the problem has the makings of a reversal on steroids. Being the least connected continent in the world and home to most of the globe’s small to mid-sized economies, internet cuts, ideally, shouldn’t even come into the picture. However, the problem is that they do come through, in all shapes and sizes.
Now, another problem is: the countries censoring or cutting off their internets the most in Sub-Saharan Africa—and the world to some extent—are also the ones economically affected the most.
Such a situation may make the main ingredient for an apt anecdote about consequences. Most importantly, for the entire continent, Eastern and Central African countries are the biggest callers and losers of internet cuts.
Frequency in the east & central
The estimated economic costs of an estimated 17,735 hours of internet blackout for the world in 2020 was USD 4.01 Bn, 50 percent less than what was lost in 2019—despite COVID-19.
For Sub-Saharan Africa, there’s a similar record. It lost USD 237.4 Mn for its record-breaking 7,800 hours of blackout in 2020, a supposedly comforting sum compared to the USD 2.16 Bn the 6,929-hour cuts bled from the region’s economies in 2019.
Nevertheless, for what seems like the past decade, Eastern and Central African countries are wielding the axe against the internet the most and also getting chopped the most.
Top10VPN’s The Global Cost of Internet Shutdowns in 2020 report shows four Asian nations and one European country occupying the top five spots, ranked according to the durations.
But after Azerbaijan—which was offline for 1,128 hours—Ethiopia and Sudan quickly jumped in the 6th and 7th places, respectively. The former was unplugged for 1,536 hours, while the latter spent 36 hours offline—though at a cost of USD 68.7 Mn.
Sudan is geographically a Northeast African country, but Ethiopia is deeply rooted and landlocked in Eastern Africa.
African countries take a break on the list to give two Middle Eastern countries—Turkey and Syria—the 8th and 9th spots, being in the digital dark for 18 and 79 hours, respectively. But from the 10th to 14th position, African countries were on a streak.
Out of the four countries, one is situated in Eastern Africa (Tanzania), and another hails from the Central (Chad).
Losing USD 0.2 Mn for 31 hours of internet cuts, Somalia—another Eastern African country—makes the 18th position, right after Iraq. Following closely is Burundi—an East-central African country—where 1.1 million people spent an entire day restricted from browsing the net.
Back to 2019 rankings for the same Sub-Saharan Africa where Sudan sat on the 2nd spot worldwide (1,560 hours and over USD 1.8 Mn in economic losses), coming only after Iraq.
Chad, DRC. Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Mauritania, Egypt, Benin Republic, Gabon, Eritrea and Liberia (in that order, according to duration) also occupied some spots of the 21-country ranking. Out of the 12 African nations that made the list, half are either from Eastern or Central Africa.
Katherine Barnett, a researcher at Top10VPN appears to support the argument about East and Central parts of the continent being the hotspots for internet cuts in SSA by reasserting that Chad lost the most hours to these actions in 2020, as far as the entire region is concerned.
Indeed, about 2.2 million people in the landlocked country couldn’t surf the net for 4,608 hours in total, which is estimated to have cost the economy USD 23.1 Mn.
“While Chad experienced the longest duration of shutdowns, Ethiopia was the African country most economically impacted by internet restrictions. The country lost USD 111.3 Mn over the course of 1,536 hours without the internet. The difference in economic impact, though, can be explained by the fact that the Ethiopian restrictions affected the entire internet, while restrictions in Chad only impacted certain social media platforms,” she told WeeTracker.
More attributes in common
Judging from the way they are entangled with each other on the map, East and Central African countries perhaps have more pronounced geographical connections than any other subregions in the continent.
Also, it seems the same set of countries lost the most money to the adverse effects of web or social media censorship. They had quite the multimillion-dollar price tags to show how much would have been absorbed into their coronavirus-hit economies had there been no censorship.
The numbers for 2019, for example, tell the whole story.
Uganda—the Museveni-controlled country—is another East African country that seems scott free. The country isn’t included in recent reports because for the entire 2020, there was no internet shutdown recorded in the nation.
On the flipside, Uganda snatched the unflattering title of the first country in the world to cut its people off from the internet this 2021. Before citizens went to the polls for the presidential elections, and after month-long targeted restrictions, Yoweri Museveni’s three-and-a-half decade of iron-fisted control decided it was time to hit the kill switch on its own web connection.
The last time Uganda resorted to such punitive measures was some 5 years ago when the same 76-year-old Museveni was contesting to be elected into office. It first started out as a simple cloak over social media platforms from Ugandan users, but metamorphosed into an all-out digital disconnection from its neighbors and the rest of the world.
Africa experienced less government-ordered internet disruptions in 2020 compared to the year before, but with Uganda setting the ball rolling for a year filled with 13 different major elections in the continent, fingers are crossed.
33 percent of total internet cuts worldwide in 2019 were executed as a result of fake news and hate speech. But specifically for Africa, election-borne unrest—mostly in nations with long-serving, presbyterian presidents—is the chief reason governments block the internet.
For this year’s African election timetable, a significant amount of Eastern and Central African countries are also in attendance.
Nonetheless, there is another common problem: not only do most of the countries from these two African subregions have problems staying online when their governments want a nationwide ghost protocol, but they also seem to have quite low internet penetration rates.
Compared to the rest of Africa, the nations suffering more from internet cuts in Eastern and Central Africa are mostly low-income countries.
Lower penetration, easier cut?
“Internet penetration rates in some African countries are lower than in certain other regions of the world. While the economic impact is lower in countries with lower internet penetration rates, the social and political impacts are still stark,” says Katherine.
She adds: “Despite potentially having lower internet penetration rates, authoritarian authorities recognise the power of the internet and frequently look to restrict access in a bid to conceal human rights abuses and retain control”.
In the 2020 African edition of the Freedom House Index (a global measurement of political rights and civil liberties), the sembling sibling sub-region’s countries were also in omnipresence. Occupying the bottom parts of the list, nations like Rwanda, Sudan and Ethiopia (last three), have scores suggesting that freely using the internet in those places is not very common.
In countries like South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria (top three on the index and where official internet shutdowns have never been recorded), it is relatively easier to have your internet connection and keep it, then worry about the stability of the connection.
Per Statista data pertaining to the share of internet users in Africa as of March 2020, East and Central African countries have the lowest internet users penetration rates in the continent.
Melody Patry, Advocacy Director at Access Now—a non-profit digital rights advocacy group—says the research team of its global movement hasn’t yet worked on the correction between low internet subscribers and internet shutdowns in the central and eastern parts of Africa.
“What we have noticed, though, is that in most instances of shutdowns, the internet is being used as a tool to share and access information, especially where so called “traditional media” are perceived as inaccessible or in close proximity with the government. In these cases, it’s likely the authorities ordering the shutdowns see the internet (and mostly social media and messaging apps) as challenging their power and as a platform they want to control,” she says.
In 2020, Ethiopia’s internet was offline for nearly a month in the government’s efforts to quell the Oromo tensions. It is likely that the country is able to intermittently order and recall internet cuts because they call the shots in the telecoms industry. Operating in one of the world’s last closed telecoms sectors, Ethio Telecom is a state-owned monopoly telco fully controlled by the government.
It could be somewhat incorrect to assume internet cuts are more prevalent in (partially or fully) closed telecoms markets, but such an assertion wouldn’t be too far from the truth.
For example, Chad—the biggest caller of internet cuts in Africa for 2019—has two main telcos: Tigo Chad and Airtel Chad. Also, the country’s telecom industry remains one of the least developed on the continent, with penetration rates in all sectors fixed, mobile and internet well below African averages.
Chad finally gained access to international fibre bandwidth in 2012, but it still lacks a national backbone infrastructure to support efficient broadband services.
In the same way, a painstaking look at the countries where web shutdowns occur the most in Africa reveals that most of them are either under-developed, challenged or plagued by unrest and economic pummels.
“We haven’t done that research to establish whether there’s lack of competition in these markets that frequently cut their internets We would need to work more on this issue to establish that there is a correlation. However, India, that has millions of internet users (most internet users in the world behind China and before the United States), is the country that ordered the most internet shutdowns in the past three years,” Patry explains.
She adds: “It depends on the method used to shut down the internet, but yes, authorities in countries where there is a telecom monopoly deal with fewer intermediaries. That means the logistics to order and enforce the shutdown are simplified. However, if said telecom companies were to challenge the shutdown order, it would be harder—and more costlier —for the countries to implement shutdowns”.
Case in point, there are about 8 telcos in Sudan, but spending on telecoms services and devices is extremely pressured by the financial effects of large-scale job cuts, which restricts disposable incomes.
Uganda, with 5 active mobile operators, has a total of around 22.8 million mobile subscribers but the East African nation. But the MTN-dominated market wouldn’t be needing a large-scale (though gradual) reform if the odds weren’t tipped in the favor of an economically detrimental reality.
“We’ve documented internet shutdowns in countries where there is only one telecom provider as well as those with a variety of providers. While it’s easier and quicker to implement an internet shutdown in a country with only one provider, all telecom providers are ultimately reliant on government licenses to operate which means even countries with multiple providers can be affected,” Katherine includes.
She continues: “In countries with a lot of different providers, internet shutdowns can occur gradually, with users of one provider remaining online longer than others. Ultimately, however, telecom providers have little power to refuse government orders. To promote transparency, telecom providers should be open with their customers about demands to restrict services”.
The clamor for VPNs
In October 2020 last year, rumours flew about the Nigerian government clandestinely ordering an internet shutdown in the midst of a youth-led nationwide protest against police brutality.
No information exists to prove this—especially as the West African nation has hardly ever blocked its people out from the web. Nevertheless, at the climax of the controversial EndSARS movement, the country’s internet was reportedly slowed down, making Nigerians turn to VPNs to stay connected.
Full disclosure: Africa is one of the places where virtual private networks (VPNs) are most used in the world. Of the 14 countries where demand for such services hit beyond the skies between 2020 and early 2021, 7 were African. In 2020, VPN usage for the Middle East And Africa stood at 35 percent, topping global charts alongside the Asia-Pacific cluster.
On the African continent, Tanzania experienced the most insane surge worldwide as internet users needed 18,823 times more VPN to access the web. Burundi follows closely with a VPN demand increase of 5,686 percent. Notably, both of these countries are from the subregions cited earlier in this piece.
There were less frequent internet cuts in Africa in 2020 compared to 2019.
To achieve substantial internet freedom, increase penetration and encourage more telecoms investment, web shutdowns (both in number and costs) need to keep dropping—especially for Eastern and Central African countries.
