[ooni-talk] [New Report] Uganda internet blocks & nationwide internet outage amid 2021 general election

[Maria Xynou]

Hello,

Today, in collaboration with DefendDefenders, Defenders Protection
Initiative, and IODA, we co-published a new research report examining
the recent internet disruption in Uganda amid its 2021 general election.

Our report is available here:
https://ooni.org/post/2021-uganda-general-election-blocks-and-outage/

We based our investigation on:

* OONI measurements collected from Uganda:
https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2021-01-23&since=2020-12-23&probe_cc=UG

* OONI experiments using the `miniooni` research client (which we plan
to eventually integrate into the OONI Probe apps)

* Public data sources monitoring internet outages (IODA data, Google
traffic data, Oracle Internet Intelligence data, and CloudFlare Radar data)

In the days leading up to Uganda’s 2021 general election, ISPs blocked
access to the Google Play Store (hampering people’s ability to download
apps), as well as to a number of social media apps (including WhatsApp,
Facebook Messenger, and Telegram) and websites (such as facebook.com) –
regardless of OTT tax payment.

Access to certain circumvention tool websites (such as protonvpn.com)
was blocked as well, though both Tor and Psiphon worked throughout the
election period.

Starting from the eve of Uganda’s 2021 general election (in the evening
of 13th January 2021), Uganda was disconnected from the internet entirely.

The country experienced a 4-day internet outage (which included election
day), as shown through several public data sources: Internet Outage
Detection and Analysis (IODA), Oracle’s Internet Intelligence Map,
Cloudflare Radar, and Google traffic data. In our report, we also share
network-level analysis of the internet outage based on IODA data.

The internet outage is further corroborated by the absence of OONI
measurements from Uganda during this time period (since OONI Probe
requires internet connectivity to perform tests), as well as by the
drastic drop in Tor users and Psiphon users during this period.

Even though internet connectivity in Uganda was restored on 18th January
2021, access to social media and circumvention platforms remained blocked.

Notably, Ugandan ISPs only appear to have started blocking access to
YouTube on 18th January 2021, even though the platform is not included
on the OTT list of taxed platforms.

You can continue to monitor ongoing internet censorship in Uganda though
OONI data (which is openly published in real-time):
https://explorer.ooni.org/search?until=2021-01-23&since=2020-12-23&probe_cc=UG

We thank OONI Probe users in Uganda who contributed measurements, making
this study possible.

Best,

Maria.

-- 
Maria Xynou
Research & Partnerships Director
Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI)
https://ooni.org/
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