Cameroon: Netizens React to SMS-to-Tweet Ban
International Women's Day 2011 will be remembered in Cameroon for more technological reasons.
Bouba Kaele, a marketing manager at the South African MTN telecom company in Cameroon, announced on social network Twitter that the Cameroonian Government banned access to twitter via SMS for MTN customers [fr] :
According to Edouard Tamba on his blog, customers received information via SMS from the MTN Cameroon saying [fr]:
Cher client, pour des raisons indépendantes de notre volonté, l’accès au 8711 est désormais suspendu. Merci de votre compréhension
Contacted on Twitter about the reasons for the ban, MTN's the Chief Information Officer, @GeorgesMpoudi replied:
This news caused anger among the Cameroonian online community. A hashtag was immediately created by @Kasbig [fr]:
These netizens’ surprise is understandable: after all on March 5 2011, the 9ideas conference was organised in Douala, Cameroon. The technology-driven conference was sponsored, by MTN, among others and the floor was given to African and Cameroonian innovators for them to introduce their ideas aimed at helping to develop the continent. The subject of Internet censorship had been dealt with at this occasion; as @champico explains:
Cameroonian online portal Mboablog posted on its Youtube channel a video of the 9ideas conference:
@mambenanje is more than upset:
@etumnamboa is even more sour:
For many, “security reasons” mentioned by the authorities are related to the recent revolutions and uprisings that have taken place throughout Africa since the beginning of the year. This unrest also affected Cameroon, though to a lesser extent than its African counterparts, on February 23, 2011. It's the opinion shared by @mambenanje:
But according to blogger Dibussi Tande, the Cameroonian Government got it all wrong:
Obviously, the government has failed to learn the lesson from North Africa. (…) It was information obtained via mobile phones, regular SMS and email which ended up on Twitter and not real-time tweets from activists on the ground. Thus, banning the Twitter short code does little to change the balance of power online.
Cameroonian netizens seem nevertheless resourceful. Blogger Djia Think posted an article on “OpenMesh, the ultimate weapon to keep our freedom of communication” that introduces the OpenMesh project:
C’est dans l’optique de lutter contre ses coups portés à la liberté de communication que Shervin Pishevar proposait le 27 Février 2011, le projet OpenMesh qui consiste à former un réseau maillée, où les hommes joueront le rôle des routeurs Internet
10 comments
It looks like all African governments are scared after what has happened in North Africa. It is reported that government Tv has been stop from airing the Arab uprising, it loos like the Sms service to tweet might also be stopped in Uganda