{"id":26680,"date":"2016-07-07T02:31:17","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T02:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/whatsapp-shut-down-in-zimbabwe-during-protests\/"},"modified":"2016-07-07T02:33:26","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T02:33:26","slug":"whatsapp-shut-down-in-zimbabwe-during-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/whatsapp-shut-down-in-zimbabwe-during-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp Shut Down in Zimbabwe During Protests &#8211; Following Burundi, DRC, Uganda"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{{Zimbabwe\u2019s increasingly totalitarian government on Wednesday shut down access to messaging service WhatsApp for the morning, but it appeared to be working in the afternoon after outrage swept Zimbabwe\u2019s internet users.}}<\/p>\n<p>Similar clampdowns on internet access during anti-government protests have occurred in in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2015, and Uganda earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhatsApp constitutes about 34% of all mobile internet traffic in Zimbabwe and understandably, it being down affects messaging for a lot of Zimbabweans,\u201d the Techzim blog reported, adding that the service was down for about four hours from 7am.<\/p>\n<p>One of the major cellular networks \u2013 Econet \u2013 confirmed to Techzim its service had been disrupted: \u201cEconet would like to confirm that WhatsApp is currently down. We will notify you once it is working again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zimbabwe\u2019s controversial higher education minister Jonathan Moyo appeared to confirm the shutdown was state-sanction: \u201cIf there\u2019s a stay away as you claim then stay away from WhatsApp. What\u2019s gud [sic] for the goose is gud [sic] for the gander!\u201d the former information minister tweeted.<\/p>\n<p>Strikes in the form of stay-aways by civil servants, teachers, doctors and nurses have swept Zimbabwe as its collapsed economy has seen severe cash shortages, resulting in salaries not being paid. Minibus taxi drivers held a strike on Monday to complain about police extorting money during road stops. The hashtags #ThisFlag (started in April by Harare pastor Evan Mawarire) and #ZimShutDown2016 have been trending on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>Zimbabwe\u2019s economy has been in freefall for years, under the rule of President Robert Mugabe, with hyperinflation causing the Zimbabwe dollar to be replaced with US Dollars and South African Rands. This latest round of unrest follows a ban last month on imported goods from neighbouring South Africa and riots at the Beitbridge border crossing. Traders regularly import basic food stuffs, grains and cereals, dairy products and bottled water as well as furniture, building materials, steel and kitchen products from South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) issued a warning about \u201cthe gross irresponsible use of social media and telecommunication services\u201d and warned \u201cthat anyone generating, passing on or sharing such abusive and subversive materials which are tantamount to criminal behaviour, will be disconnected and the law will take its course\u201d.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-13324 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/zim_potraz_whatsapp.jpg\" alt=\"A warning from the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe about social media usage.\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{{Zimbabwe\u2019s increasingly totalitarian government on Wednesday shut down access to messaging service WhatsApp for the morning, but it appeared to be working in the afternoon after outrage swept Zimbabwe\u2019s internet users.}} Similar clampdowns on internet access during anti-government protests have occurred in in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2015, and Uganda earlier [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2594],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-forbes"],"bylines":[{"id":2594,"name":"Forbes","slug":"forbes","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2594,"name":"Forbes","slug":"forbes","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26680"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26680"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}