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Uganda Rolls Out a 5-Cent Daily Tax To Access Social Media (time.com)
The government of Uganda is taxing social media users at a rate of 5 cents per day, which does not include the usual data fees. "The tax on users of sites such as Facebook was first proposed by long-time leader Yoweri Museveni, who complained of online gossip in a March letter that urged finance minister to raise money 'to cope with the consequences,'" reports Time. From the report: Service providers, including regional telecommunications giant MTN, said in a joint statement Sunday that starting July 1 the levy would be charged on "Over The Top services," including access to websites such as Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. The tax will be deducted by service providers that will then pay to the government revenue service. Amnesty International urged Ugandan authorities to scrap the tax, calling it "a clear attempt to undermine the right to freedom of expression" in the East African country. From the social media levy the government hopes to collect about Shs400 billion (about $100 million) in the current financial year.
Uganda be kidding me!
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Bear in mind that many places in rural Uganda have shops where you can buy phone top ups for the local currency equivalent of 25 cents, 5 cent tax per day is a *massive* tax for a lot of Ugandans.
The tax will be deducted by service providers
I predict that most of the revenue they are expecting will be going to foreign (i.e. non-tax-collecting) VPN providers.
One must first define social media.
Will just charge all accounts and figure out a way to track access to listed sites and then just keep the difference.
;)
Just my 2 cents
Am I the only one who sees a "pay-as-you-go-model" like this as a result of the new privacy restrictions being imposed by the EU and state of California? The model of this story is a tax, but if advertisers can't find their targets and start withdrawing ads, does anyone else think sites like FB or Instagram might use something like this? Just a question.
"Freedom of expression" --> "We need free access to feed you our ads/propaganda"
In the US they ought to charge at least a dollar a minute to compensate you for consuming their bullshit.
This is giving US ISPs a case to stand on for when they decide to charge users for specific services they want to access now that Net Neutrality is gone.
That depends on how you look at it. If they use a firewall to block your connection from being able to access Facebook, Twitter etc. if you don't pay the tax then it's a free privacy upgrade.
To be fair, if tobacco and alcohol are taxed because of the effects they have on society... then social media is no exception, it is just as much of a damaging drug that effects people psychologically. Social media, facebook in particular is damaging to self-esteem, confidence, and general mental health.
It strips your privacy in exchange for a false sense of belonging.
So your boyfriend is fat.
Who cares?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
"The tax on users of sites such as Facebook was first proposed by long-time leader Yoweri Museveni, who complained of online gossip in a March letter that urged finance minister to raise money 'to cope with the consequences'"
So.... exactly how will the government of Uganda use the revenue raised from the tax to "to cope with the consequences?"
Perhaps to identify those who do not think like the government to "re-educate" them?
Re "How does the government plan to block "social media" for those unwilling to pay the tax?"
HTTPS cant hide from a telco and a contractor offering police/mil/gov deep packet inspection.
Discovery is not hard work in 2018.
Who decides what qualifies as "social media"?
A government can do that, just like with any other tax rate.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This is about the equivalent of a soda tax.
Both sugar and the internet can make one unhealthy.
One man's vice is another man's revenue stream.
--
"Look on the bright side, it'll be dark soon." -- Midnight Sun
I just been on the Air Ministry roof, an it pissin' down wit' rain.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Given that most web pages these days contain links to SM (Facebook, Twitter, ...) often a link to the SM logo or a bit of javascript.
So the person might not knowingly have anything to do with SM but I suspect that their browser downloading these small components will be seen as access to SM and so trigger the day's tax. Now that HTTPS is pervasive it is not possible to determine *what* is being accessed within a web site.
The only way that people are going to be able to avoid this is by installing browser plugins like request policy - which, in itself, is no bad thing.
Yeah, I want you to have my babies. I'm jelly, bro.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The mobile cartels lobbied for this to help protect their profits; from another source: "The Ugandan government has implemented a law forcing mobile users to pay taxes to use mobile money and social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Skype" ... basically the mobile providers are unhappy that users are able to send messages to each other at very low cost using the data network over FB messenger, WhatsApp, Skype etc., where in the past they used to be able to charge exorbitant rates if those same messages were sent as SMS.
As someone who lives in a US "Blue" state that's rarely seen a tax increase plan that they didn't like, I have to wonder when our tax department will attempt something similar here.
Hell... we already have a 1% "data services" tax on things like Netflix and iCloud, and we are supposed to be paying a "use tax" on any retail sites that aren't currently collecting state income tax on their sales.
I think that they only reason that they haven't tried taxing social media sites next is because most of them are incorporated in states where it would make it more difficult to collect the revenue.