Will Tanzanian Bloggers Pay Up or Push Back Against ‘Blogger Tax’?

Blogging has been famous in Tanzania for more than a decade, permitting writers and impartial journalists with specific perspectives and document news that may not otherwise appear in mainstream media. But as of the final month, this kind of work will include a rate tag.

On March sixteen, 2018, the United Republic of Tanzania issued the Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations stressful that bloggers should check-in and pay over USD 900 per 12 months to post online.

Application 1. These Regulations shall apply to online content material including (a) application services licensees; (b) bloggers; (c) internet cafes; (d) on-line content material hosts; (e) online forums; (f) online radio or television; (g) social media; (h) subscribers and users of online content material; and (i) every other associated online content material.

The new policies have far-achieving implications for freedom of expression and human rights. Bloggers must fill out proper regulatory paperwork and keep away from publishing prohibited content material inclusive of nudity, hate speech, specific sex acts, severe violence, “content that annoys” faux information, and “awful language” amongst different regulations.

The new guidelines supply free electricity to the Tanzanian Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) to prescribe and proscribe. Under Part II, Number four, TCRA then has the authority:

(a) to preserve sign-in of bloggers, online forums, online radio and online tv;
(b) to do so in opposition to non-compliance with those Regulations, such as to order the removal of prohibited content

African News similarly explains:

Online content publishers (blogs, podcasts, films) will practice for a license at a fee of a hundred,000 Tanzanian Shillings (44 USD) pay a preliminary license rate of a million Tanzanian Shillings (440 USD) and an annual license charge of one million Tanzanian Shillings (440 USD). This manner of running something as easy as a non-public weblog (textual content) in case you stay in Tanzania, you’d have to spend a preliminary (approximately) $900 (USD) in license expenses.

One immediate public concern concerning the brand new policies is their ambiguity. In his present-day publish, blogger Ben Taylor analyzed the content of the regulations, being attentive to a lack of precise definitions:

The first aspect to note is that those policies are very unclear on numerous critical factors. Some terms – consisting of ‘on-line content company’ and ‘online content material carrier company’ – are by no means described. Are these the same component? In different locations, the name given to a section of the policies bears no relation to its content material – phase 7, for example, has ‘bloggers’ inside the identify however not anything relevant to bloggers inside the content material. There are spelling and grammatical mistakes. And perhaps maximum bizarrely, the main section on programs for online content material provider licenses – section 14 – doesn’t even require that candidates must publish their utility – handiest that they have to ‘fill in a software form’ – or say wherein it needs to be submitted.

Taylor raises critical questions during his evaluation. No one yet is aware of how those regulations can be interpreted through the Tanzanian Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), the police or the courts.

What is apparent is that breaches of the new regulation could be punishable except “no longer much less than five million Tanzanian shillings” (around USD 2,500), or imprisonment for “now not much less than three hundred and sixty-five days or each.”

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) issued a policy brief on the new regulation, warning in opposition to its ambiguity in positive sections:

…[The] policies should be reviewed and amended to have clean, unambiguous definitions and wording, and defeat the requirement for registration of bloggers and customers of similar online systems. It is likewise crucial that no longer an excessive amount of strength is vested in TCRA with regards to content take-downs and that variety of content available online is promoted. The duties set out ought to not turn content provider providers and publishers into monitors, by using handing them obligation including the use of moderating gear to clear out content, engaging in a content review earlier than the book, and project mechanisms to pick out resources of content material.

Blogging as opportunity news in Tanzania
Blogging emerged in Tanzania around 2007 and had become famous as an alternative news platform with conscious, middle elegance human beings, as well as politicians and political events.

In Tanzania, in which media historically holds strong ties to authorities interests, running a blog spread out opportunities for individuals to establish personal information shops that proved immensely powerful regarding attain and readership.

Before the upward thrust of cellular apps, access to a stable Internet-connected and pc have been imperative for bloggers. This set a noticeably unnecessary barrier to participation for human beings with constrained income.

Michuzi blog, launched in 2005 by using Issa Michuzi, who is referred to as the ‘father of all Swahili blogs,’ become one of the earliest and most broadly study blogs in Tanzania, often reporting on politics and news, with thousands of readers according to today. Michuzi became the first in Tanzania to look blogging as a commercial enterprise. He controlled to hold his content unfastened and handy yet surely capitalized on the power of ads to generate income.

Although Tanzania’s poverty charge fell from 60 per cent in 2007 to an anticipated forty-seven per cent in 2016, nearly 12 million Tanzanians nonetheless live in intense poverty.

The Internet gets admission to remains low at approximately forty-five per cent as of 2017. With a populace of roughly 60 million people and 31 per cent dwelling in urban areas, running a blog remains out of reach for maximum.

According to Tanzania Bloggers Network Secretary-General Krantz Mwantepele, as quoted in The Citizen, many Tanzanian bloggers cannot manage to pay for those expenses because the “license programs and annual subscriptions are manner past earnings of many bloggers.”