One of the casualties of the internet age, a list that includes traditional media, the livelihoods of recording musicians and fax machines, is the role of radio stations during state coups.
Time was when the first port of call for any self-respecting military junta was the state broadcast house. Now, they concentrate on the internet. I checked this with an AI assistant, which said (said?) that coups can still involve seizing broadcast stations, particularly in countries with limited internet access or older media infrastructure, but the internet has significantly changed the dynamics of power struggles.
Coup leaders now tend to focus more on controlling the internet, restricting social media and censoring online platforms. This shift, AI tells me in a pointed way, “reflects the changing ways in which information is shared and controlled in the modern world”.
Last year, the African Commission on Human & Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) passed a resolution on internet shutdowns and elections in Africa. The resolution was promulgated in a meeting at the organisation’s 78th “private ordinary session”, a meeting that, perhaps ironically, was held virtually.
The ACHPR’s resolution referred to the African Charter on Democracy, Elections & Good Governance, and especially principle 38, which stipulates that states “do not interfere with the right of individuals to seek, receive and impart information through any means of communication and digital technologies, by taking measures such as removal, blocking and filtering of content, except where such interference is justifiable and consistent with international human rights law and standards; and do not tolerate or engage in the interruption of access to the internet and other digital technologies targeting segments of the population or an entire population.”
Essentially, the commission called on governments to ensure open and secure internet access around elections, and to make sure that telecommunications and internet service providers take steps to provide unrestricted and uninterrupted access. They also asked states to “require telecommunications and internet service providers to inform users of potential disruptions and exercise due diligence to resolve any disruptions expeditiously”.
Stirring stuff. The internet rights group Access Now, and #KeepItOn, a coalition that describes itself as bringing together “hundreds of civil society organisations and our allies from around the world … to fight for an end to internet shutdowns”, has just released a report titled “Emboldened offenders, endangered communities: internet shutdowns in 2024”.
As for the ACHPR resolution telling states to not shut down the internet — The Guardian cites Access Now as saying that last year “digital blackouts reached a record high in Africa as more governments sought to keep millions of citizens off the internet than in any other period over the last decade”. The #KeepItOn report “found there were 21 shutdowns in 15 African countries, surpassing the existing record of 19 shutdowns in 2020 and 2021. Authorities in Comoros, Guinea-Bissau and Mauritius joined repeat offenders such as Burundi, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea and Kenya. Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania were also on the list. But perpetrators also included militias and other nonstate actors.”
Telecommunication and internet service providers who shut services based on government orders are also complicit in violating people’s rights
— Felicia Anthonio, #KeepItOn
The #KeepItOn campaign manager at Access Now, Felicia Anthonio, said that “telecommunication and internet service providers who shut services based on government orders are also complicit in violating people’s rights”.
Which brings us to a recent report by that excellent South African investigative organisation, Open Secrets, which is part of the #KeepItOn coalition. Called “Shutdowns everywhere you go: exposing MTN’s role in internet shutdowns”, the report “uncovers how South Africa’s corporate giant, MTN, and its subsidiaries are implicated in human rights violations in Africa and the Middle East”.
This report accuses MTN of complicity in implementing internet shutdowns during wars and elections, and examines “serious allegations of corruption, tax evasion and enabling terror activities”. With case studies from Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, Cameroon, Uganda and Nigeria — and an additional analysis of Vodacom’s conduct in the Democratic Republic of Congo — Open Secrets says it “lays bare the hidden business practices that have allowed these telecom giants to operate with impunity”.
The report leads with some fascinating numbers as a data visualisation. For example, the cost of internet shutdowns on the world economy between January 2019 and April 2024 was $52.99bn. In 2023, which it says was the worst year for internet shutdowns yet (I assume the 2024 data wasn’t available), the cost was $9.13bn. There were 283 shutdowns in 2023 (the #KeepItOn coalition says there were 296 in 2024), with conflicts being the leading driver.
“In 2024, people in 13 countries experienced 25 shutdowns implemented by a combination of eight perpetrators outside of their borders.
There are also some numbers specific to MTN, which one could only describe as pointed. MTN’s group revenue for financial 2023 was R221bn, a R14.1bn increase from the previous year. The report says MTN owes $71m in Uganda, which pales in comparison with the $2bn the company is “said to owe in evaded taxes” in Nigeria. The “said to owe” bit is a little worrying, especially when read alongside the stat: “Zero — the number of court proceedings that have properly tested the serious allegations against MTN.”
Why do we care? Besides the fact that we might miss a great conspiracy theory because we can’t access social media, there’s also the small matter of keeping citizens in the dark about what’s going on in their own country. In 2019, the special rapporteur for the ACHPR noted that internet and social media shutdowns violate the right to freedom of expression and access to information enshrined in the African human rights charter.
The rapporteur pointed out that “the internet and social media have given voice to the people of Africa who may now discourse on social, economic and political issues far more than ever before, and states should not take away that voice. Citizens should not be penalised through shutdowns when they demonstrate calling for economic or political reforms or indeed during contested electoral campaigns or polling.”
And yet, all over the world, citizens are being deprived of their right to access information. When telecom companies enable internet shutdowns, as Open Secrets points out, they should be transparent about this. And this reporting should go beyond declaring when a shutdown has occurred and which government ordered it, and include details of the relationship between the state and corporations.
The #KeepItOn report also shows internet shutdowns can become a cross-border issue. “In 2024, people in 13 countries experienced 25 shutdowns implemented by a combination of eight perpetrators outside of their borders. Perpetrators have also shown more sophistication in their mechanisms for imposing and obfuscating shutdowns and thwarting circumvention attempts, including using techniques like jamming devices, cyberattacks, forced seizures and disabling of low Earth orbit satellite internet terminals [such as Starlink], and tampering of subsea cable landing stations.”
This might seem a little abstract to some of us and, encouragingly, South Africa doesn’t even get a mention in the #KeepItOn report. But I can’t help wondering what happens when internet shutdowns aren’t just tools of governments within their own countries, and become more of a geopolitical weapon.
Is it conceivable, for example, that Europe or the US might start asserting their dominion over our internet infrastructure as a reaction to our government’s alignment with China or Russia? I’m not even sure if this is justified paranoia, but it’s a fact that most of our internet access is routed through Europe. It seems an outlandish thought, but given the current outlandishness being shoehorned into the world, not an impossible one.
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