• About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
District Focus
  • Home
  • Business
    • Technology
  • Life&Style
    • Health
    • Women
  • News
    • National
    • Religion
    • World
  • Opinion
    • Columnists
    • Letters
  • Sports
  • Video
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
    • Technology
  • Life&Style
    • Health
    • Women
  • News
    • National
    • Religion
    • World
  • Opinion
    • Columnists
    • Letters
  • Sports
  • Video
No Result
View All Result
District Focus
No Result
View All Result
Home Business

State of Digital Rights and Governance Report Launched with a call on Government to scrap social media tax

by Abel Turinawe
March 13, 2021
in Business, News
0
State of Digital Rights and Governance Report Launched with a call on Government to scrap social media tax

Officials pose in a group photo during launch of the Digital Rights and Governance in Uganda

0
SHARES
20
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

BY AMBROSE GAHENE

Unwanted Witness, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), in partnership with Future Challenges, Digital Human Rights Lab and with support from German Cooperation (GIZ) among others, on Friday Launched a Report regarding State of Digital Rights and Internet Governance in Uganda, at Kampala Hotel Africana, with a call on Government to scrap Over The Top (OTT) tax, levied on social media users.

Ms Dorothy Mukasa, Unwanted Witness official, in her remarks said, establishment of OTT in 2018 that was imposed on internet users via social media was found to be expensive for some people to sustain the internet in Uganda. She said: “Individuals should be able to access, use, create, publish digital media through the use of ICT means because they have the digital human rights that are legal and therefore should be protected”

Carol Atuhaire, another Unwanted Witness activist, said, OTT tax is a hindrance to the growth of ICT in Uganda because the number of internet users in Uganda has grown exponentially from less than 40,000 around 2000 to slightly over 10 million in 2020, with social media penetration of the urban population.

“Introduction of OTT saw about three million subscribers become inactive between 2018 and 2019. As some countries are rolling out 5G internet, you can hardly get stable 3G in Kampala, yet its where most internet infrastructure were established”, she said.

Launch of the State of the Digital Rights and Governance Report at Hotel Africana on Friday

Uganda Communication Commission Head of Legal, Abdul Salam Waiswa, said: “Facebook doesn’t care about you; it’s a private company in the US”. He said Facebook connectivity is limited in Uganda as the Government is still holding talks with Facebook on several issues for its safe operations in Uganda.

Ms Stella Alibateese, National Information Technology Authority (NITA- Uganda) Director, Regulation and Legal Affairs said: “As individuals we expose ourselves intentionally as we enjoy digital rights online, but we’ve created awareness and protection frameworks to ensure information, identity, safety, privacy, as well as online consumers’ rights”

Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) Director, Monitoring and Inspections, Ms Ruth Ssekindi, said limitation of digital rights should be for a short time in respect to address a challenge, threat and that the limitations should be reasonable, acceptable and proportional to the challenge or threat, other than violation of digital rights.

Comment on this story
Tags: FEATUREDICTIGG
Previous Post

“It’s Not All Bad in Newsrooms” UMWA tells female journalists

Next Post

Gov’t earmarks Shs 900M to buy solar tabs for household

Next Post
Gov’t earmarks Shs 900M to buy solar tabs for household

Gov’t earmarks Shs 900M to buy solar tabs for household

Browse by Category

  • Business
  • Columnists
  • Health
  • Inspiration
  • Letters
  • Life&Style
  • National
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Photography
  • Religion
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Video
  • Women
  • World
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

No Result
View All Result
  • Business
  • Life&Style
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Photography

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist