ooni-talk

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January 2026

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OONI Report on Social Media Blocks in Uganda
by Maria Xynou 24 Jan '26

24 Jan '26

Hi friends, Hope you're doing well. Today OONI published a short report, documenting the *5-day internet shutdown during Uganda's 2026 general elections*, and the subsequent *blocking of major social media and messaging apps*. Read the report here: https://explorer.ooni.org/findings/352623460000 Last week, Uganda experienced an internet shutdown during its 2026 general elections. After 5 days, internet access was restored, but major social media and messaging platforms remained blocked. In this report, we share third-party data (IODA, Cloudflare Radar, and Google traffic data) to document the internet connectivity shutdown. We also share OONI data on the subsequent blocking of WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X in Uganda over the past week. The internet disruptions during Uganda’s (latest) 2026 general elections seem quite similar to those during the (last) 2021 elections, which we reported on 5 years ago ( https://ooni.org/post/2021-uganda-general-election-blocks-and-outage/) In both cases, internet access was shut down completely for about five days – including election day – and the shutdown coincidentally spanned 13th to 18th January in both years (2021 and 2026). Access to major social media and instant messaging platforms was blocked in the 2021 election run-up, while access to such platforms was blocked after the 2026 election. Overall, the shift toward imposing complete internet shutdowns during elections, combined with selective blocking of major social media platforms before and after elections, suggests an effort to maximize the political impact of targeted disruptions while minimizing the economic, political, and social costs associated with prolonged connectivity shutdowns. This is a pattern observed in many other countries as well. We thank OONI Probe users in Uganda for contributing measurements. ~ OONI team.

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