The Minister for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and National Guidance, Honourable Judith Nabakooba, has said that individuals accessing social media via Virtual Private Network (VPN) risk to be arrested as government blocked the platforms until the end of all elections.
Nabakooba said that people using VPN are being tracked and will be prosecuted once arrested. Gov’t switched off internet last week prior to and throughout the presidential and parliamentary elections.
On Monday January 18, internet was switched back on but social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter among others remained blocked.
According to Nabakooba, the blocking of social media is also still in place in Uganda as a sign to show their distress to FaceBook and Twitter owners who pulled down all pages and accounts of National Resistance Movement (NRM) bloggers and supporters, yet the government had asked Facebook to pull down all accounts and pages belonging to supporters of National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine which were violating the communication standards in Uganda.
However, majority Ugandans are accessing the blocked platforms through VPN.