Politicians Have Temper Tantrum As Social Media Deletes Disinformation

Michael Hedges January 13, 2021 Follow on Twitter

Elections are intended to bring out the best. All pretence of this ended this century as elections have become disruptive, chaotic and violent as well as indecisive. Villains have been located. It’s the news media. It’s the internet. Authoritarians agree.

Social media portals and many related telecommunications were cutoff from Ugandans earlier this week. Governments usually possess the ability to flip that magic switch and so it was with the communications regulator Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), according a letter from UCC executive director Irene Sewankambo to telecoms, reviewed and reported by AFP and Reuters (January 12). Targets of this virtual raid were social media portals (Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram), encrypted messaging portals (Signal, Viper) and virtual private networks (VPNs). Local reports suggest all internet access “is very slow” and even telephone service is spotty.

“Nasty and aggressive” phone calls from UCC officials to telecoms, reported AFP (January 12), made clear the government’s displeasure with a decision by Facebook’s safety officials (January 11) to delete pro-government accounts, citing misinformation and manipulation of public debate. After all, there are presidential and parliamentary elections Thursday (January 14) and no authoritarian wants a surprise. President Yoweri Museveni is seeking his sixth term in office. His opponent is popular singer turned member of parliament Bobi Wine, given name Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu.

“We removed a network of accounts and pages in Uganda that engaged in CIB (Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior) to target public debate ahead of the election," wrote Facebook/Sub-Saharan Africa communications spokesperson Kezia Anim-Addo in an email to Al Jazeera (January 11). “Given the impending election in Uganda, we moved quickly to investigate and take down this network. They used fake and duplicate accounts to manage pages, comment on other people's content, impersonate users, re-share posts in groups to make them appear more popular that they were.” Accounts and pages removed were linked to Uganda’s Information Ministry, notorious for aggressive pro-government propaganda. Observers local and foreign note that social media platforms have been on a tear recently ridding their sites of dodgy content.

“Uganda is ours. It's not anybody’s,” said President Museveni responding to the Facebook takedown, quoted by German international broadcaster Deutsch Welle (DW) (January 13). “There is no way anybody can come and play around with our country to decide who is good, who is bad.” President Museveni arrived in 1986 after a five-year guerrilla war, replacing previous dictator Milton Obote.

President Museveni has shutdown internet access before. Ahead of the 2016 general elections social media and communications platforms were made inaccessible on orders from the Uganda Electoral Commission due to “a threat to public order and safety.” Opposing candidate Kizza Besigye was arrested several times. President Museveni was reelected with just over 60% of the vote. Candidate Bobi Wine has also been arrested several times during this election round.

Tensions in-country are fraught. Media access to the proceedings have been limited by the Ugandan Media Council, a government agency, requiring special accreditations for local and foreign reporters in order to “sanitize from quacks,” noted France24 (January 12). Three reporters from Canadian public broadcaster CBC were deported in December.

Editors Guild Uganda and the Center for Public Interest Law sued to overturn the accreditation rules. “The impugned directions to register, accredit and licence journalists to cover specific events (elections and state events) and criminalising the free sharing of information on matters of public interest like elections and state events, unreasonably and unjustifiably restricts and curtails the right to practice journalism as a profession,” wrote National Media Group-Uganda general manager/editorial Daniel Kalinaki in the court filing, noted the Kampala Monitor (January 13). The Kampala High Court is set to deliver its ruling Thursday midday, as the voting takes place.

See also...

• Hot Topics - Elections and Media

• Hot Topics - Media in Africa

• Hot Topics - Social Media

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