The Ugandan government passed a law that would impose a daily tax on social media users in May and it went into effect on Monday.
People are required to pay 200 Ugandan shillings, which is about 5 cents, a day to have access to social platforms like What’s App, Facebook, and Twitter, while a 1% tax on mobile money transactions, a popular payment method, was also introduced.
Uganda blocks Social media & other OTT SERVICES.
Many have taken it to Private Secure Networks, VPN & VPS to avoid the daily ugx 200.
Daily's ago public servants, ministers privileges were increased by over 73%. Cc. @Info_Activism #IntelPostUpdates #SocialMediaTax pic.twitter.com/lsnSz3ZX4E— New Day Communications (@Newsday_Ug) July 1, 2018
People are clearly unhappy about this new law that they initially thought was a joke.
While the rest of the world is moving forward aggressively with technology advancements and better internet access for all, Uganda is wondering what the Stone Age looks like.#SocialMediaTax
— Solomon King (On Social Media Break) (@solomonking) June 30, 2018
Imagine paying your #socialmediatax only to have your tweet stolen pic.twitter.com/tPTrLaG33r
— Amooti B.U.S.O (@wyclif_henry18) June 28, 2018
https://twitter.com/hashtag/SocialMediaTax?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fkrishrach%2Fuganda-social-media-tax
Imagine if Donald Trump followed suit? Yikes!