Senegal: The 63rd Country to Restrict Social Media | CTV Africa News

The study conducted by the privacy protection company Surfshark shows that Senegal became the 63rd country in the world that has restricted social media access since 2015. Cutting off social media access is a common practice in African countries, especially during elections, protests, demonstrations, or exams. During the past five years, a total of 28 (out of 55) African countries have employed some form of a social media ban or a heavy disruption, while 14 of these cases were election-related.

“Social media has established itself as a key political player of its own. However, as its influence grows, so does the governments’ desire to censor it by introducing new laws, restricting access, or blocking social media altogether,” says Gabriele Racai, Communications manager at Surfshark.

In 2020 alone, there were nine political cases of social media restriction across the continent in Tanzania, Togo, Mali, Malawi, Guinea, Burundi, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

These governments usually go after communication apps like WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger, Viber, and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Most internet censorship and social media restriction cases in Africa have to do with riots, protests, elections, and other events of political nature.

About the social media censorship report:

Privacy protection company Surfshark analyzed 185 countries and their social media blocking practices from 2015 to the present day, seeking to evaluate the extent of social media censorship. The research shows that 63 out of the 185 analyzed countries blocked or heavily restricted social media access in the past five years.

The data was collected through open-source information from Freedom House, Netblocks, and reputable news reports from 2015 to the present day. Social media was conceptualized as social networking sites (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.) and communication apps, including VoIP apps (i.e., Skype, WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber). Both local and national social media blockings have been taken into account in the study.

The final social media censorship report with regional deep-dives can be found here: https://surfshark.com/social-media-blocking.

NOTES TO EDITORS

Surfshark, a Gold medalist at 2020 Info Security Excellence awards as Hot Security Technology of the Year, is a privacy protection toolset developed to provide its users with the ability to control their online presence seamlessly. The core premise of Surfshark is to humanize online privacy protection and develop tools that protect users’ privacy beyond the realm of a virtual private network. Surfshark is one of very few VPNs which have been audited by independent security experts.