Uganda’s tax on social media usage
Talking of pragmatism, the parliament of Uganda passed a law in April of this year, which goes into effect on 1 July 2018 that imposes a tax on people using social media platforms. The deal is quite simple: Use Facebook, Twitter, Viber, and so on, and pay $0.05 daily to the Ugandan treasury. (I understand […]
Talking of pragmatism, the parliament of Uganda passed a law in April of this year, which goes into effect on 1 July 2018 that imposes a tax on people using social media platforms. The deal is quite simple: Use Facebook, Twitter, Viber, and so on, and pay $0.05 daily to the Ugandan treasury. (I understand that the use of WhatsApp may also be taxed in Uganda, given the platform’s widespread use among Ugandans, coupled with the capability the platform has for communicating with all kinds of contents – text, video, graphics, voice, and so on.) “The Gossip Tax,” as it is lightly referred to by the proponents in Uganda, isn’t at all complicated, although the implementation will have to be completed at some point. Approximately 41 percent of Uganda’s population, or 17 million people, use the Internet.
Uganda seems to have a history of pragmatic cyber-focused decision-making, such as shutting down access to social media platforms during the country’s last presidential elections in 2016. The president of the country, Mr. Yoweri Museveni, stated at the time that it was done to "stop spreading lies.” Although shutting down the platforms might sound quite harsh and draconian, if not heavy-handed, may be it was the right thing to do under the circumstance. Using the Internet to spread lies now appears to be commonplace. Remember the famed Facebook/Cambridge Analytical scandal of a couple of months ago, which enabled Cambridge Analytical access to 87 million Facebook accounts; and the politics-motivated fake news that was reportedly spread all over the world including to Kenya and Nigeria? Well, who knows, if a country like the U.S. had controlled social media access somehow, in the months and days leading to the presidential election, a different person might have been in the White House today. This fact is partly supported by the finding of the intelligent agencies in the U.S. that foreign governments sponsored the spreading of misinformation that was intended to discredit the candidate for the opposition party. So, may be Uganda’s action was done in good faith after all. Controlling the spread of fake news is difficult that a shutdown of some sort might make sense, since most of the vital operations in the country are carried out outside of the social media platforms.
President Museveni had proposed the social media tax to generate revenue that, in his words, “would help the country cope with the consequences of Olugambo (gossiping).” The president appears unequivocal about his belief that social media encourages gossiping, and that needs to be checked. Uganda’s Finance Minister, Matia Kasaija, has been quoted as saying “We’re looking for money to maintain the security of the country and extend electricity so that people can enjoy more social media, more often, more frequently.” I understand this to mean the government wants to develop tools to help prevent and control the misuse of cyberspace. Uganda’s State Minister for Finance, David Bahati, reportedly told the parliament that the tax increases are needed to help Uganda pay off its growing national debt. Well, taxing citizens to pay off a country’s debts is a well-established national finance management procedure. The new Uganda’s Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill will also impose various other taxes, including a one-percent tax on the total value of mobile money transactions.
Another component of Uganda’s government’s pragmatism is the country’s plan to unveil its own version of Facebook and Twitter this year. According to the head of the country’s communication commission, Godfrey Mutabazi, “the inspiration to develop local platforms was to host online content in the country.” “Instead of Ugandans, for example, visiting Twitter, they will have something local that they will be able to use," Mr. Mutabazi was quoted as saying. With all these international personal data protection issues left and right, the Ugandan plan doesn’t sound too bad, really. After all, I doubt that the EU-motivated Safe Harbor rules and principles cover African countries like Uganda, Nigeria, or Kenya.
Other East Africa nations, such as Tanzania and Kenya are also trying to regulate cyberspace usage in some manner. The Tanzanian authorities recently proposed to require bloggers to pay $920 in order to post contents online, as a way of protecting the citizens from lies being spread online. The new rules mandate that all online publishers (including bloggers, vloggers and podcasters) register and pay $480 for a three-year license, with additional annual fee of $440. In Kenya, a new law will impose a fine of $50,000 and/or up to two years in jail for publishing false information.
The critics of the “fake news” laws in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, are saying that the laws are being created to silence independent media and crack down on press freedom and freedom of expression of individuals. I am of the hope that these governments mean well and are not out to silence bloggers of contents that they do not like. While I am not so sure of the laws in Kenya with respect to the real motivations, the stated purpose of those in Uganda, and perhaps Tanzania, appears quite genuine.
The implementation of Uganda’s cyberspace laws might not have been completely worked out yet; but I do not agree with critics that the government cannot enforce them if it really wants to do so.