• A widespread internet outage began affecting Kenyans as of Tuesday, amid violent protest action across the country.
• Safaricom says that the cause of the internet outage was due to damage experienced in multiple subsea internet cables.
• Internet freedom watchdog NetBlocks instead says that this is false and the outage was likely to halt the spread of information regarding the protests.

In the midst of deadly protests rocking cities in Kenya, new information released this week points to the internet across the country quietly experiencing a mass outage. The same internet that has been reportedly used by protestors to organise demonstrations against the government and authorities.

Last week, young Kenyans began using social media like X and TikTok to mobilise and protest against the Kenyan government’s Finance Bill 2024, set to introduce sweeping new taxes to the country, already dealing with a cost of living crisis.

With the finance bill now halted before being signed into law by Kenyan President William Ruto, protest action is still ongoing with demonstrators now calling for the president’s resignation.

Internet freedom watchdog NetBlock says that it detected a massive outage of the internet in Kenya on Tuesday this week, amid worsening protests that have left scores of Kenyans dead following retaliatory attacks by the police and the Kenyan military.

Internet availability in the country dropped from around 100 down to just over 40 percent on Tuesday, according to NetBlocks. The disruption was so sudden and widespread that neighbouring countries that use Kenyan operators, including Uganda and Burundi, also experienced internet disruptions.

Safaricom delivered an official statement on Tuesday following the outage, saying “We have experienced an outage on two of our undersea cables that deliver internet traffic in and out of the country. We have activated redundancy measures to minimise service interruption and keep you connected as we await the full restoration of the cables.”

NetBlocks however is rejecting this claim, saying outright that no physical subsea cable damage has been identified, and that the impact Kenya is dealing with is “higher than in past cable cuts.” Meanwhile, MTN Uganda says that the outage is Kenya’s fault.

Instead, the watchdog believes that the outage is “likely to limit coverage of events on the ground where protests are held.”

Safaricom’s involvement during the protests was also called into question this week, as Kenyan users took the social media alleging that the telecom was illegally handing private information of key protest organisers to the authorities, leading to their capture.

The outcry was so sustained that Safaricom had to publish a statement denying the allegations.

[Image – Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash]