Uganda’s Internet Shut Down for Election: What the Data Shows

On January 13, 2021, Uganda’s communications regulator ordered internet service providers to suspend the operation of internet gateways, effectively cutting the country off from the rest of the world. The order came one day before the national election. Several users and journalists posted copies of the letter sent to providers, confirming the action.

Cloudflare Radar’s monitoring tools picked up the disruption almost immediately. The 7-day change in internet traffic chart for Uganda shows a steep drop to near zero starting around 1900 local time, coinciding with when providers received the directive.

Our 7-day change in Internet Traffic chart in Uganda shows a clear drop to near zero starting around 1900 local time, when the providers received the letter.

The pattern is also visible in Cloudflare’s application-level attack data, which reflects the same sharp decline in traffic.

This is also obvious in the Application-level Attacks chart.

The Uganda Internet Exchange Point (UIXP), where many local providers exchange traffic, also shows the outage in its public statistics.

The traffic drop was also confirmed by the Uganda Internet eXchange point, a place where many providers exchange their data traffic, on their public statistics page.

Cloudflare’s edge network data, which tracks BGP routing and traffic levels for each network operating inside Uganda, confirms the shutdown. Each line in the chart below represents a different provider, such as ISPs and mobile networks, and all show the same dramatic drop.

We keep an eye on traffic levels and BGP routing to our edge network, and are able to see which networks carry traffic to and from Uganda and their relative traffic levels. The cutoff is clear in those statistics also. Each colored line is a different network inside Uganda (such as ISPs, mobile providers, etc.)

Restoration After Five Days

Uganda re-established its external internet connections around 1100 UTC on January 18. Traffic levels have largely returned to normal, though the BBC reports that social media platforms remain blocked. The restoration is visible on both Cloudflare Radar’s Uganda page and the UIXP public traffic statistics.

Uganda's January 13, 2021 Internet Shut Down Embedded Image - AFtTw7
Uganda's January 13, 2021 Internet Shut Down Embedded Image - HBmgww

The shutdown lasted just under five days, from January 13, 1700 UTC to January 18, 2021. Cloudflare continues to monitor traffic from Uganda and will report on any significant changes. At the time of writing, internet access appears restored, but social media access is still restricted.