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Ugandans look to bypass election social media ban

#UgandaDecides to find ways to use social media during election

Co-founder, former CEO, and editor

Use of the anonymous web system Tor spikes in Uganda Tor Project
Use of the anonymous web system Tor spikes in Uganda

Co-founder, former CEO, and editor

    LONDON

    Uganda's election this week was accompanied by a government-ordered shutdown of social networking sites and apps, including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.

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    Uganda page

    Updated: 20 February 2016

    These blockages can often be circumvented with free internet tools, including proxies and the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN). Sure enough, Ugandans are tooling up.

    Use of the anonymous web browsing network Torhas spiked (graph above).

    The top current iPhone downloads from Uganda, according to App Annie are all VPN-related.

    Google searches for "VPN" from Uganda have also spiked dramatically, according to the Google Trends tool.

    According to an analysis of Twitter's public data, tweets are still coming out from Kampala.
    A searchable map of a few of the tweets in and around Kampala:

    Data uncertain, but high numbers of VPN downloads are reported

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