With much alarm, observers have noted that authoritarianism in the East African nation of Tanzania has been on the rise. For some time now, the government of John Magulfi has slowly tightened its grasp over media coverage and even clamped down on the freedom of speech on online social media platforms. Several new laws were passed to specifically control social media access and narrative. For instance, laws were passed requiring blogger to be registered on a special online register, all cybercafes were mandated to have CCTV coverage, etc. More traditional media outlets that have persisted in unfavourable coverage of the government have had their licenses revoked and their employees prosecuted. Crackdown on unfavourable media coverage of the government was particularly clear during the COVID-19 lockdowns earlier in the year. Aggressive clampdown measures were undertaken against individuals and organisations that were seen to challenge the narrative of the Tanzanian Government having the COVID-19 situation under control. At a time when the press coverage of the pandemic is vital, the government chose to go after the press with increasingly arbitrary and repressive measures.
The general opinion regarding the backslide of democracy in Tanzania in regional news circles is that this is part of a larger trend of many African nations now moving away from democratic principles. Many reasons have been given but the failure of the free market to significantly alleviate poverty and bring about development has been cited as one of the major reasons why many nations are now going the way of China in adopting a model of development that is based on state capitalism run by a one-party system.
But there is a larger lesson here that goes beyond the specificities related to Africa and its experience with democracy. Tanzania is one of the nation's that has aggressively tried to regulate social media, particularly the access and conversations of its users. While it was reported that years of steadily tightening regulations forced a fearful system of self-regulation online, the government still faced the most prominent of direct criticism online. BBC and other news outlets have reported that in the weeks and months leading up to the recent elections in Tanzania, the ruling party sought to further increase its grasp over what many see as the last bastion of free speech in the country. For the most part, access was restricted. For those who managed to sneak around such restrictions, other measures existed. For instance, prominent critics had their accounts shut and tweets were taken down after their accounts were targeted by copyright complaints that are based on the US's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which US-based technology companies must comply with. Internet advocacy groups noted a significant increase in spurious DMCA claims leading up to the elections. After many popular activist and whistleblower accounts were targetted by such claims, Twitter was finally notified of the misuse of its copyright rules and has (apparently) taken steps to guard against similar measures. Twitter and other social media platforms have been urged to tighten their own regulations to keep such attempts to exploit loopholes and regulate free speech under control. At a time when social media platforms are being called under questions for exercising undue influence and dodging government regulation, such instances of willful social media free speech suppression by supposedly democratic regimes does put the problem into perspective. There is right, fool-proof way to regulate social media that doesn't run into atleast some level of problematic discussion of the vested interests of regulators and their biases. Social media is an incomparably powerful tool of not just communication but influence. Just as social media platforms themselves realise their significance, so do the governments of the world who may seek to regulate, influence and even control the narrative and access on such platforms. In a country like Tanzania where many observers have reported not only a rise in authoritarianism but also voter apathy to the election or the state of democracy, the 'bastion of free-speech' — social media, must hold out for democracy.