
Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media  taxes - benryon
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Uproar-telecom-companies-implement-social-media-tax/688334-4640676-tnxx7x/index.html
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jkulubya
So the government decided that it was a good idea to tax OTT services, defined
as:

The transmission or receipt of voice messages over the internet protocol
network and includes access to virtual private networks but does not include
educational or research sites prescribed by the Minister by notice in the
gazette.

Quite a nonsensical definition really. Might as well tax internet access
(which you already do).

On top of that, the only way to pay this tax is via mobile money, which is
taxed 1% at point of deposit, 1% at point of transaction and 1% at point of
withdrawal. You’re being taxed to pay tax.

And when you do pay the 200 shilling tax (which is actually 202 shillings),
they only activate your social media access until 11.59pm today. Regardless of
when you paid. So, if you pay the tax at 11.30pm today, you’ve got only 30
minutes of use.

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lostmsu
The most interesting quote is about the history behind the tax:

"President Yoweri Museveni reportedly wrote a letter complaining to the
finance minster about online gossip and suggesting a tax be introduced to
“cope with consequences.”"

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agotterer
Wouldn’t it be easier for the government to tax the ISPs and data providers
the 202 shillings and let that cost be passed on to the consumer?

~~~
jkulubya
(Ugandan)

I think it’s legal gymnastics. Firstly, this “tax” is officially excise duty
on OTT services. Data & voice already attract (heavy) excise duty. So if they
tacked it onto your phone bill, it would walk and quack like a hike in excise
duty on data and voice plans.

Second issue - what if I don’t use any OTT services? But the phone company
wants to just add 202/\- per day to my bill? (That’s the route a few ISPs have
gone down. Waiting for them to be challenged)

There are a few other issues, but those are my main suspicions.

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HenryBemis
My key takes on this article are:

1) Gov needed more $$$. They could either reform/progress the state and let
the economy generate freely the extra $$$ in 2-5-10 years OR impose a new tax
"on those slackers who spend all day in social media". They chose the latter
as they can create a narrative to convince the masses on the validity of this
new tax. Edit/addition: And the fact that reforming the state requires change,
disrupting cliques, reduce corruption, reduce bureaucracy, so instead they
thrash anything modern they cannot control and doesn't serve the "old ideas".

2) "Sample" of 2700 and then calling it "National IT Survey" in a 20.7m
population is a joke/travesty. It looks like they shared some A4 pages in a
couple of ministries, asked the employees to get their kids to fill them up
and called it a day.

Apologies for over simplifying things.

~~~
sfifs
> "Sample" of 2700 and then calling it "National IT Survey" in a 20.7m
> population is a joke/travesty.

For well designed, stratified and representative surveys 2700 is actually
pretty good sample size and will get you to +/\- couple of percent points
accuracy. There's a whole well studied sciencee behind "design of experiments"
that goes into pretty much any R&D or market research effort. Nothing will
save you however if you don't design and administer the research well.

If you don't believe this and know a bit of programming, simply whip up a
Monte Carlo program to repeatedly randomly sample 2700 without replacement
from a dataset of 10 million a few thousand times, measure and histogram your
estimtes and see the range where you end up most of the time. I actually do
this when teaching introductory stats to new analysts and market researchers
because seeing is the first step to understanding :-)

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kodablah
To bring it back to the anglosphere, I predict mass anger towards the hobbling
of social media companies by Western governments if it occurs. We have all
these conversations amongst ourselves about the evils of these communication
facilitating companies, often with good reason. But we should be cognizant
that only the squeaky wheels are squeaking and the general public is happy
with their communication platforms. Take the elitist approach of telling them
what's good for them and affect their uses and the tides will turn. Not in
mass media or on sites like this one, but groundswells of annoyed yet still
mostly silent masses will make conscious decisions where they can and elitists
will not understand what happened.

~~~
dmach
Uganda would be considered within the Anglosphere but not "core Anglosphere".
It may not of been the most common use of the word before but Breixteers are
trying to convince people that these countries will replace the trade they are
stopping with the rest of Europe so will take as many as they can. I not sure
if follow but you mention that the general public is happy and that is surely
the issue. If the populous were made aware of the implications of what they
agree to on most of these sites/messaging services, owned and controlled by
"elites", there would be action. It's difficult to explain to people so that
they are convinced. The general assumption is that if it is as bad as is being
reported it would not of been allowed in the first place.

~~~
kodablah
> you mention that the general public is happy and that is surely the issue

An issue to you maybe, but some people just don't value their privacy as much.

> The general assumption is that if it is as bad as is being reported it would
> not of been allowed in the first place

I don't think this is true as is evident by the lack of public outcry/exodus.
We shouldn't confuse the media narrative or the scandals as public outcry.

Many people just don't care that much. It's not your job to convince them
because the opinion is ideological/subjective. It seems that many here think
that if people don't see these often-voluntarily-provided privacy incursions
as problematic, it is wrong and due to not being convinced properly or lack of
education or whatever. In reality, people probably don't care (can't say for
sure, I'm not one) because in the grand scheme of things, these problems are
minimal.

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nstart
I'm concerned from the perspective of VPN usage that I've seen happen during
social media blockades. People invariably turn to free VPN services. Suddenly
people are walking around with known malware injectors, and the worst of the
worst behaved VPN provider apps giving them "protected" browsing because they
don't know any better.

An app developer without ethics could probably create some template for
generating apps and sites for "free" VPN services, and liaise with the
government to create a perfect cycle of people using apps that spy on them.
And people would still probably fall for it.

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smdz
I wonder what is more taxing - (A) Government's social media tax or (B) One's
daily time spent on these social media platforms

For me it is definitely (B). I keep off Facebook but once in a while I get
into it because an email appears "XYZ posted a new photo". Tempted to see the
photo, I logon to Facebook and then I lose control - I surf through the
endless news feed clicking those click bait headlines and funny videos. And an
hour or more just flies by. Just like that I lost my time and some of my
energy. Fortunately I am able to resist the temptation to comment on FB stuff.

------
pg_bot
"Africa is poor because she is not free" \- George Ayittey

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mmmBacon
Not sure if it’s related but Facebook is building fiber backhaul for Uganda.

[https://code.fb.com/connectivity/airtel-and-bcs-with-
support...](https://code.fb.com/connectivity/airtel-and-bcs-with-support-from-
facebook-to-build-shared-fiber-backhaul-connectivity-in-uganda/)

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mc32
Depending on how they did this, this could be an interesting experiment on the
possibility of kerbing people's "screen" addiction. At least it looks like
they are whitelisting some "social value add" sites, but taxing other less
necessary sites.

If let's say they allowed X-time free after which you had to pay this tax and
that climbed such that it served as a deterrent against too much unproductive
screen time, it might provide some data for some behavioralists to study and
reach some conclusions which are lacking.

~~~
hartator
> reach some conclusions which are lacking.

This is strong premise. I don't think we need more data when you have studies
that show that social media as the same effect as cocaine. We specially don't
need another tax.

~~~
mc32
If aspects of it have the same addictive effects as cocaine, why not tax it
like other vices but in this case use the revenue to address the problems
which surface.

I’m saying if they are going to do this, let’s do it again n a fashion such
that we might glean useful information which could benefit all users.

~~~
cf498
>why not tax it like other vices but in this case use the revenue to address
the problems which surface.

What problem?

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dingaling
Is there a term for the confusing use of comma in headlines like that?

I noticed it initially in USA print newspapers but it seems to be propagating
over the Web.

It is no more efficient than using an ampersand.

In this case I wondered how "mobile money" and "social media tax" were
related.

~~~
extra88
In print journalism, it's common to use a comma in headlines that way. The
comma is more efficient than an ampersand because it is less wide in variable
width fonts.

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dang
Url changed from [https://gizmodo.com/uganda-goes-through-with-social-media-
ta...](https://gizmodo.com/uganda-goes-through-with-social-media-tax-and-
people-ar-1827287611), which points to this.

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lord_ring_111
If all governments do that, it will instantly raise humanity’s iq and eq up a
notch and help govt get money too.

~~~
thewizardofaus
Social media has destroyed humanity. Turned everyone into attention deficit
zombies.

~~~
tedmiston
Honestly, all censorship and free speech ideas aside, I wonder if a small
socia media tax could be net positive on American society? Especially in terms
of relieving diminished attention spans, etc.

I have decreased my own personal usage by adding a "time tax" — I always log
out after a brief session on Twitter/Facebook/etc. I also use 2FA everywhere
so there's extra friction in logging back in. That extra 30 seconds of effort
can be enough to say "nah, I don't need to check Twitter twice today".

~~~
tomjen3
You can use things productively, or you can use things unproductively. This
includes social media and Twitter. I have spent some time cleaning out so the
only people I follow on Twitter post extremely valuable content. I block with
extreme prejudice and will unfollow if they stop posting useful info.

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ameyamk
Although implementation may be ugly and/ or shocking - the concept in itself
has interesting roots.

Although social media in itself is vital - we are seeing more usage of it
correlates with negative behavior pattern (as is excessive tv watching).

Should govt intervene?

They do intervene for substance addiction...

~~~
Retra
If you watched people spending time with their friends, you could probably see
the same patterns. Most human behavior is not productive. It's been that way
for a long time.

~~~
saagarjha
People spending time with their friends is not productive?

~~~
Retra
Not any less than spending time on social media or games.

