The details as to who ordered the shutdown of social media this time round are unclear at the moment. Uganda Communication Commission Executive Director Godfrey Mutabazi had intimated in March that he received express orders from Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura to shut down Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Mobile Money due to security concerns. Whatever the case might be, what was done was done. — NTV UGANDA (@ntvuganda) May 11, 2016 A number of African governments have implemented similar social media restrictions for ‘security reasons.‘ We have curated a list of countries which have had their internet access restricted especially during elections although some such as Eritrea, Ethiopia have direct government restrictions on what their citizens can access at any given time.

Algeria

Facebook Twitter 3G services

Algeria blocked the above named services in a bid to plug the leak of national exams on social media. A total of 555,177 pupils will have to resit partial baccalaureate exams from June 19 to 22. More on the story on TheNextWeb

Republic of Congo

Complete Internet shutdown Mobile services (Calls, SMS). Specific phone numbers were allowed access.

Egypt

Facebook, Twitter , WhatsApp, Skype, Viber

Eritrea

YouTube, [websites critical of government, pornographic websites, self-censorship] *Lowest internet penetration in the world.

Ethiopia

Equatorial Guinea

[Restricted coverage of Arab Spring, international criminal investigation into activities of President’s son, self-censorship]

Burundi

WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, Tango

Uganda

WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook

Chad

Social media sites

  Featured Image: YourNewsWire

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