- VPNs no longer work in Uganda as internet shutdown intensifies
- After 8000% Surge, Proton VPN Confirms Outage
- Digital rights experts warn that alternative solutions are now very limited
VPNs stopped working in Uganda as the country’s internet shutdown intensified ahead of the election.
The current internet blackout comes after a surge in interest in privacy tools, with Proton VPN seeing a massive increase in subscriptions in the country, peaking at 8,000 new users per hour on Tuesday.
Speaking to TechRadar, Proton VPN CEO David Peterson confirmed that internet connectivity dropped dramatically on Wednesday, making VPNs unusable.
“Uganda has followed the recent trend set by Iran and Afghanistan, where governments seeking to silence opposition and operate without global scrutiny have gone beyond website bans and VPN restrictions to completely shut down the Internet,” Peterson said.
Why did VPN stop working in Uganda?
On Tuesday, the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) ordered internet and mobile network service providers to suspend internet access. Social media platforms, messaging apps, video streaming sites and even satellite internet connections have been affected.
Initially, people managed to use VPN apps to bypass some of the restrictions. However, internet access has since become “almost completely unavailable,” according to the latest data from Cloudflare Radar.
Felicia Anthonio, global #KeepItOn campaign manager at Access Now, warned: “This amounts to a complete internet blackout, rendering VPNs ineffective as they rely on some form of connectivity to function and plunging millions of people into digital darkness.”
What can people do in Uganda?
Solutions for Ugandans are extremely limited at this time.
Anthonio warned that the closure is “comprehensive, in scale, scope and impact”, confirming that authorities have also blocked roaming services and satellite connections often used to circumvent restrictions.
While there are reports that people have used Bluetooth-based peer-to-peer mesh networking applications, such as Bitchat, to communicate without the Internet, Anthonio maintains that these are “not a substitute for open Internet access.”
The democratic stakes could not be higher. “Deliberately isolating the country from the rest of the world just days before a long-awaited election is a deep betrayal and a blatant disregard for democracy,” Anthonio told TechRadar.
“Without [internet access]”the president in power has an unfair advantage, the opposition is silenced, voters are denied critical information, journalists and election observers are unable to report or monitor, and human rights organizations are unable to monitor and document human rights abuses in a timely manner.”
Anthonio urges citizens to document events and abuses offline whenever it is safe to do so, ensuring that evidence can be shared once connectivity is finally restored.
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