Social media is free. But not in Uganda.

A new tax makes it expensive for us to text, talk, shop, share, post, pay, or do anything using social media.

Scroll on to see how this tax makes our digital and everyday lives harder, to learn what life would be like if the rest of the world had to pay it too, and to stop the spread of taxes like these elsewhere.

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OTT Tax burden by

Burden for somebody who pays the tax

Based on median monthly nominal wages; Source: Uganda National Household Survey, 2016-17

How does the tax affect Ugandans?

Millions of Ugandans, like billions of people around the world, need social media to live.

Not just to do fun things like share special photos, follow our favorite stars, or plan dates and parties. But also to do essential things like read the news, stay in touch with family, learn at school or get business done by having meetings or paying money. The social media tax makes all these things expensive for men like Odong, and almost twice as expensive for women like Nakintu.

Why should the world pay attention?

Social media taxes are on the rise.

  1. The government in Tanzania already charges bloggers a fee to produce online content.
  2. The government in Benin started a social media tax in 2018, until its citizens protested and had the tax removed after just 3 days.
  3. And the government in Zambia has plans to tax social media access soon too.
Their impact on citizens is crippling. In Uganda, a tax of $0.05 a day add up to about 4% of your annual spending. Imagine that would feel like a social media user in Tanzania, Benin, or even the United States?

Survey Respondent Opinions

View survey respondents' opinions of the Social Media tax according to various social groups by percentage.

2018

2019

How does the blocking happen?

DNS Blocking

DNS stands for Domain Name System. When the internet is blocked at DNS level it means the system is confused about what address you’d like to visit. DNS is the system that your computer uses to identify each unique URL and match it to its corresponding IP address. So if you’re searching for Google.com, your server asks another server what the address is which then brings back the address to you in the form of the Google homepage.

TCP Blocking

TCP is your basic internet mailman! TCP is responsible for ensuring the safe delivery of your internet packets. When the internet is blocked at TCP level it means the mailman is unable to deliver all of your packets. TCP cannot sign off on the delivery until all packets are sent and received safely.

HTTP Blocking

Think of HTTP as a language. It’s the medium of communication between computers. When the internet is blocked at HTTP level it means computers are having a hard time understanding each other; they are not speaking the same language. When you make a request to see a page on the internet your device is asking for all the code to that page. HTTP ensures that the code is easily translated between devices and throughout the system.

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