Hello,

Today OONI and Sierra Leone's Campaign for Human Rights Development International (CHRDI) published a joint research report examining the network disruptions that occurred last weekend amid Sierra Leone's 2018 runoff elections.

Our report is available here: https://ooni.torproject.org/post/sierra-leone-network-disruptions-2018-elect...

https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/981899863012139008

Throughout the election period, we have been coordinating on the collection and analysis of OONI Probe network measurements. OONI data did not show any signs of internet censorship, but the testing of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger indicated some form of performance degradation on the network.

Last weekend, locals reported that an internet blackout occurred following the runoff elections, so we referred to third party data sources to investigate further.

Google traffic and BGP announcement data aggregated and published by RIPE show that two network disruptions occurred in Sierra Leone last weekend:

1. In the early hours of 30th March 2018 (before the runoff elections)

2. Late at night on 31st March 2018 and in the early hours of 1st April 2018 (after the runoff elections)

We reached out to Sierra Leone Cable Company (SALCAB), Africell, Orange, and ACE to better understand how and why the two network disruptions occurred.

So far, we have only received a reply from the Vice Chair of ACE, who claims that the network disruption was caused by an ACE submarine cable cut and that they did not receive any government orders to switch off the internet.

SALCAB has also released a public statement, denying reports regarding government orders to shut down the internet, and arguing that the network disruptions were caused by issues pertaining to the cable cut.

It's worth highlighting though that the two network disruptions appear to be different.

In the first case, Google traffic and BGP data only show a partial disruption (with only a few ASNs and subnets affected), and neighboring Guinea and Liberia appear to have been affected as well. This could be explained by the ACE cable cut.

In the second case however, Google traffic shows a complete drop in traffic from Sierra Leone to Google Search, while BGP data shows that most prefixes were withdrawn. No neighboring countries appear to be affected by the second disruption, even though it was more severe than the first. This suggests that an internet blackout likely occurred.

We will update our report when/if we receive further information from the providers we reached out to.

Thanks for reading, and please feel encouraged to share any information you may have on this case.

Thank you.

~ OONI team. **