The East African Nation of Tanzania has blocked access to social media platform X. Today’s ongoing outage has been confirmed by the internet’s observatory organization, Netblocks. On its X handle, Netblocks posted the following.
“Live metrics show that X (formerly Twitter) has been restricted on #Tanzania‘s main internet providers; the incident comes as the police force issues an alert over alleged opposition party plans to raid police stations where political prisoners might be held.”
State authorities in Tanzania arrested prominent politician Tundu Lissu and four other opposition officials. The arrested politicians belong to the Chadema party. Three politicians, including Mr. Lissu, were taken into custody in Mbeya, just before a scheduled World Youth Day rally. Thereafter, Chadema’s chairman and the head of its youth wing were arrested a day later.
The Tanzanian police force (TANPOL) has warned members of Chadema who are organizing protests via Zoom. The police claim the Zoom meetings are being used to organize small groups of 20 people to raid offices and police stations. Tanzanians have taken to X using VPN to express frustrations. Last year, state authorities in Tanzania had mulled over introducing a mandatory license for using VPN.
READ: Internet Outage Reported in Kenya as X Goes Down
Internet shutdowns or partial restrictions are often political tools of choice to try and suppress citizens voices. In July, a number of Kenya mobile networks, including Safaricom, are alleged to have shut down the internet for a few hours. Earlier in the year, Senegal shutdown its internet as youths took to the streets to protest. Social media platforms were also restricted for days during the Bangladesh student led protests that brought about a change in government.
