{"id":4483,"date":"2021-01-20T02:32:37","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T02:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/?p=4483"},"modified":"2021-01-20T02:32:37","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T02:32:37","slug":"uganda-blocks-facebook-ahead-of-contentious-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/2021\/01\/20\/uganda-blocks-facebook-ahead-of-contentious-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda Blocks Facebook Ahead of Contentious Election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-the-new-york-times wp-block-embed-the-new-york-times\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/01\/13\/world\/africa\/uganda-facebook-ban-elections.html\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The current president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni has blocked Facebook from operating in his country, just days after the social media company removed fake accounts linked to his government ahead of a hotly contested general election set to take place on Thursday. With it being the 21st century, social media has become a huge part of campaigning and the spreading of fake news can be detrimental to the success of a candidate. In a televised address late on Tuesday night, Mr. Museveni accused Facebook of \u201carrogance\u201d and said he had instructed his government to close the platform, along with other social media outlets, although Facebook was the only one he named. They expect other sites to be shut down as well such as instagram and Twitter. The ban on Facebook comes at the end of an election period that has been dogged by a crackdown on the political opposition, harassment of journalists and nationwide protests that have led to at least 54 deaths and hundreds of arrests, according to officials. So not only has it taken away some of his credibility, but also the lives of innocent people. His opposing competitor, Mr. Wine filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court accusing Mr. Museveni and other top current and former security officials of sanctioning a wave of violence and human rights violations against citizens, political figures and human rights lawyers. Facebook\u2019s investigation into the network began after research from the Atlantic Council\u2019s Digital Forensic Research Lab showcased a network of social media accounts that had engaged in a campaign to criticize the opposition and promote Mr. Museveni and the governing party, the National Resistance Movement. After the research was published, Twitter also said it had shut down accounts linked to the election. Museveni hopes that he has shut down the website before anything too big happened to ruin his chances of winning the election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The current president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni has blocked Facebook from operating in his country, just days after the social media company removed fake accounts linked to his government ahead of a hotly contested general election set to take place on Thursday. With it being the 21st century, social media has become a huge part of campaigning and the spreading&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/2021\/01\/20\/uganda-blocks-facebook-ahead-of-contentious-election\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4484,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4483\/revisions\/4484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}