Tanzania Orders All Unregistered Bloggers To Take Down Their Sites (reuters.com)

The state-run Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) ordered all unregistered bloggers and online forums on Monday to suspend their websites immediately or face criminal prosecution. Several sites, including popular online discussion platform Jamiiforums, have reportedly shut down to avoid prosecution. Reuters reports: Regulations passed in March made it compulsory for bloggers and owners of other online forums such as YouTube channels to register with the government and pay up to $900 for a license. Per capita income in Tanzania is slightly below $900 a year. Digital activists say the law is part of a crackdown on dissent and free speech by the government of President John Magufuli, who was elected in 2015. Government officials argue the new rules are aimed at tackling hate speech and other online crimes, including cyberbullying and pornography.

"All unregistered online content providers must be licensed before June 15. Starting from today June 11 until June 15, they are prohibited from posting any new content on their blogs, forums or online radios and televisions," the regulator said in a statement on Monday. The statement said legal action would be taken against any unregistered websites posting new content. Anyone convicted of defying the new regulations faces a fine of at least 5 million shillings ($2,200), imprisonment for a minimum 12 months, or both.

Comments

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprised anyone beat the UK to it

Re:lol

[Vinegar Joe]

These days there's little difference between Third World shitholes and Britain.

Re:lol

[ShanghaiBill]

These days there's little difference between Third World shitholes and Britain.

Tanzania wasn't always a SH. It has always been poor but did well on other measures of human welfare, like life expectancy, childhood mortality, and political rights (at least by African standards). But they have been backsliding into repression and dictatorship. It is a beautiful country, with warm and friendly people. It is sad to see the direction they are heading.

Re:lol

[Tablizer]

These days there's little difference between Third World shitholes and Britain [per freedom of expression & privacy].

That's scary, because the USA often follows what UK does after enough bad apples do their bad apple deeds.

Gee, maybe if we put our blogs inside of guns, they'll be protected?

Re: lol

[Cinnamon Beige]

Next thing might be a measless or syphilis epidemy.

What do you mean, 'next thing'? Measles epidemic was a while back, syphilis epidemic is current; I think this year got us our first confirmed strain of syphilis that is resistant to every drug we've got.

Of course, one reason to require all bloggers be registered and having to cost a lot to get registered is so you can shut out bloggers who dare question whatever the sociopolitical elite's dogma is--including all facts that might contradict or at least embarrass our proper lords and masters.

Re:lol

[ArmoredDragon]

This can't happen in the US without amending the constitution to nullify the first amendment, same reason why even though the UK banned firearms 20 years ago, the US won't be doing that any time soon, if ever. Rather, the EU beat the UK to it, and now the UK is following after the EU. Here's Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, verbatim:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

Sounds well and good, right? Until you get to section 2:

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

If you read between the lines and interpret it based on existing laws and recent (and ongoing) events in the EU, it reads more like this:

EU member states have to at least pretend to respect freedom of speech, but in reality it's optional. Here are a list of tools you (as in EU member state governments) can use to abridge any form of speech, and some examples of how they have already been used, and how they might be used in the future:
- Even though using the "interests of territorial integrity" tool being used to justify censorship and quelling of dissent is technically a crime against humanity under international (UN) law, it's never really enforced so it's ok to do so anyways under the EU because we say so. Hence, Spain was perfectly allowed to exert strong censorship on Catalan's internet, and beat and then arrest Catalan demonstrators just for being there, even if there is no evidence that they committed any crime. If the UN asks, use one of the "catch all" tools.
- For another example of how to use the above tool, France stamps out co-cultures that it doesn't like and/or speaks a language that is different enough from French that they can ban it, such as Basque, in addition to making it illegal to use words that aren't part of their official definition of the language. They also use this to craftily prevent certain garments from being worn for religious purposes, specifically to protect christianity from islam.
- We've provided a few catch all tools that you can use, just don't use any one of them excessively or else it might draw suspicion. Health and Morality are both powerful yet vague tools that can be used to justify any crackdown. For example, Germany uses the health tool to justify censoring artistic expression in video games so they can force developers to replace all people with all robots, then come up with a cheesy plotline to explain why. It can be argued that if they don't, then Germans will be psychologically harmed if any pixels resemble blood, schwaztikas, or Randy Marsh getting a probed by an alien.
- While you must endorse and actively speak in favor of diversity, we don't require you to do the same for diversity of opinion in any meaningful way, and you are allowed to be as hypocritical on this as you want just so long as you keep it a secret. We've modeled this after observing multiple univerities in California and in some others across the USA, where this policy enjoys great success using mob violence as a means of enforcement while the university pretends to intervene. We've improved on this idea by allowing you to subtly codify it into your laws, which is whe

Oh, Tanzania

[93 Escort Wagon]

It took me a few moments before I realized that didn't actually say "Tasmania", which made this story seem much more shocking than it actually is.

Re:Oh, Tanzania

[Vinegar Joe]

You devil.

I for one welcome our

[jaymemaurice]

I for one welcome our orwellian ov+++NO_CARRIER

Censorship knows no boundaries

[UnknownSoldier]

This sucks that some country in Africa decides to censor things.

I guess their presidential constitutional republic now has officially jumped the shark into a dictatorship.

/sarcasm Congratulations on regressing from 2018 back into 1918! Thanks for another retarded government making yet-another-place not to live on this planet. You join other retarded countries such as China! Yay, progress!

--
Only Cowards Censor

Re:Censorship knows no boundaries

[Brett Buck]

Socialist, so of course it is totalitarian.

Can voters change that?

[Tablizer]

It's not clear what kind of government it is. Like Russia, on paper it looks like a democracy, or close to one, but it's hard to tell what really goes on in terms of freedom of the press, voter intimidation, fake or jailed opposition, etc.

Re:Can voters change that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can voters change that? Answer: Um, NO (that's just the point).

You don't need to be very bright to figure out what kind of government Tanzania's is. When a government "regulates" free speech, it's because free speech endangers its continued existence. Doesn't matter what the result of the last sham election was. Nor does it matter that there are all these other alternative channels for "free speech" that just happen to support the party in power.

Re:Can voters change that?

[Tablizer]

By that view, the DMCA and other abused "piracy" laws makes USA a non-democracy. Then again, plutocrats pushed it, making us at least partially a plutocracy instead of democracy.

Not enough voters care to make it an issue: they are too focused on Guns, God, and Gays such that plutocrats pretty much control the little corner issues.

Re:Can voters change that?

[loonycyborg]

Not clear is the key here. You don't know because you don't care. Calling Russia non-democracy is just a rusophobic insult and not a meaningful statement, like a Muslim criticizing some other country for not being based on the sharia law. Each country did own mistakes and has own problems, but Americans and Europeans traditionally don't care. They push this democracy vs non-democracy narrative to promote their cultural imperialism. No actual problems in countries targeted will ever be fixed and new ones will be created, it will be only used as a pretext for vassalization, since it was the original point of this.

Re:Can voters change that?

[rtb61]

Simply not true but who cares any more, no one is listening and it has all become rather boring. Russia is now a technocracy at federal level and that is now spreading down to state and local level at quite the pace.

Licensing all bloggers as censorship system only really works in countries with a specific genetic characteristic, has to do with a certain scoring system where the average is 100 (I am humouring myself with empty political correctness). In those countries there are a very limited number of people can can produce blogs and forums, most can not, more along the line of an ignorant mob consuming and absorbing what ever belief is the flavour of the moment, from albino witches to having sex with a virgin as a cure for aids.

So how will it affect democracy in those countries. Honestly, truly honestly, democracy only really works above a certain intellect, below that and you are too subject to the vagaries of empty beliefs to make sound decisions about a whole range of subject, including who to vote for (you know the crud, I voted for them because of the way they talked, I voted for them because of their religion, I voted for them because they looked good, I voted for them because I was told to or the inevitable I voted for them because they are going to make us 'ALL' rich, even when that is factually impossible, you can not have minority rich with majority poor).

Tanzania does something weird with the internet this week, meh, I sure they'll do something weird with chickens or witches next week https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... Perhaps they have just confused blogging with witch craft, must be that idiot Pompeo's fault https://www.rt.com/usa/384667-..., they thought the internet must be full of demons and witches, the US government said so.

Re:Can voters change that?

[loonycyborg]

Exactly, but calling a country non-democratic is used as a slur by Americans nonetheless. The word "democracy" lost a single meaning over the years. So I think whether Russia is democracy or not depends on particular meaning you're using.

Re:Makes perfect sense. Still free speech

[magarity]

That makes perfect sense to me. They still have free speech. Just a little registration form and a small fee.
Very similar to how the Constitutionally protected right to bear arms is handled in some US states. Registration and fees don't count as "shall not be infringed", right? That's what Hillary said, anyway.

If it was a small fee then it wouldn't be news. A year's income is not a small fee.

Oh boy

[MAXOMENOS]

How long do you suppose it will be before someone gets the idea to require first world bloggers and podcasters to obtain a license, at prohibitive cost?

heart breaking

[epine]

Tanzania wasn't always a SH.

Yes, it's a beautiful country, with some horrific problems, many that go back more than a few years.

Darwin's Nightmare — 2004

The film opens with a Soviet-made Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane landing on Mwanza airfield in Mwanza, Tanzania, near Lake Victoria. The plane came from Europe to ship back processed fillets of Nile Perch, a species of fish introduced into Lake Victoria that has caused the extinction of hundreds of endemic species.

Through interviews with the Russian and Ukrainian plane crew, local factory owners, guards, prostitutes, fishermen and other villagers, the film discusses the effects of the introduction of the Nile perch to Lake Victoria, how it has affected the ecosystem and economy of the region.

The film also dwells at length on the dichotomy between European aid which is being funneled into Africa on the one hand, and the unending flow of munitions and weapons from European arms dealers on the other. Arms and munitions are often flown in on the same planes which transport the Nile perch fillets to European consumers, feeding the very conflicts which the aid was sent to remedy. As Dima, the radio engineer of the plane crew, says later on in the film: the children of Angola receive guns for Christmas, the children of Europe receive grapes.

The appalling living and working conditions of the indigenous people, in which basic sanitation is completely absent and many children turn to drugs and prostitution, is covered in great depth; because the Nile perch is fished and processed for export, all the prime fillets are sold to European supermarkets, leaving the local people to survive on the festering carcasses of the gutted fish.

As to why the local fish can't be sold to the domestic market to counter the impending famine (local news reports relayed in the film indicated Northern and Central Tanzania were facing famine), one fish processing factory manager says "it is too expensive".

God, what a depressing film.

For the full effect, watch it back-to-back-to-back with Bus 174 and Spirited Away. That's got to be the (self) slasher trifecta of all time.

The slicker City of God (2002 film) is a reasonable substitute for Bus 174, but I preferred the grittier precincts. And don't be fooled by the heavenly animation of Spirited Away, that's a full-on PTSD psychological distance fugue.

Re:Makes perfect sense. Still free speech

[rogoshen1]

how much would they charge for a whoosh?

Does Tanzania have a "Great Firewall"?

[SeaFox]

How do they identify and prosecute blogs that are hosted on overseas servers?

Re:Does Tanzania have a "Great Firewall"?

[gijoel]

If they can identify the person running said blog/website, that person will go to jail. Unless that person is superhumanly diligent in not posting identifying information, they will eventually find that person. Or someone could snitch on them, etc.

Tanzania and Tasmania

[shubus]

Let's not get confused--as I was for a bit---. --Tanzania is a sovereign state in eastern Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Kenya and Uganda. --Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Australian mainland, separated by the Bass Strait. I about had a cow thinking this was going on Down Under.

We are all missing the point

[LynnwoodRooster]

How can we blame this on Trump?

/sarc

Re:We are all missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're mistaken, everyone actually loves Trump. He's like a dad you have sex with. He'll compliment your looks and when you sit on his lap, a mysterious object pokes you in just the right way.

Re:Makes perfect sense. Still free speech

[Onymous Hero]

Not enough, clearly...

Re:where are the world police when you need them?

[terrycarlino]

Billions (historically hundreds of millions) of people have always been crushed under authoritarian regimes. It is no one else's job or responsibility to free them. A people most often gets the kind of government that it deserves.

One reason the U.S. has always been a society that both promotes and celebrates individuality and advances the concept of private (as opposed to government controlled) societies as that freedom does not rest with governments it rest with the individual, but that freedom can only be defended by the individual acting in collaboration.

The founding fathers understood that, including Washington, upon whom much is said about disfavoring political parties. People change parties all the time, even in the U.S., but political parties are not and should not be the only or even the primary way citizens collectively act in their society.

If the citizen's of Tazania don't care enough to resist tyranny then no one for the outside will be able to free them. An yes when throwing off tyranny people will die, but when it comes down to it most tyrannical leaders find that just killing all of the repressed doesn't serve them. When you kill the golden goose it stops laying eggs. Plus eventually you run out of bullets and they bludgeon you to death.