The Republic of Guinea is currently led by an interim government, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who ordered an internet shutdown to avert civilians from rendezvousing to protest against the ruling government. Doumbouya has reportedly called out for local law enforcement assistance to collaborate with the military in the two-day scheduled protest campaign.
The chief consent of this report is based on the absence of internet transmission, yet this report is not shirking the fact that bad governance has impacted the tech-savviest population to digitally turbulent the ruling government. Doumbouya is keen on making peace reign still intending to hold power which censored internet connection to curb civilians from sharing information about protests.
Citizens of Guinea currently cannot access the internet and internet-inclined platforms to share information – especially social media. It’s a no-brainer that Doumbouya is aware of the disturbing riot that happened in the States, where Americans decided to meet up at the Washington capitol to stir menace in the name of protesting.
However, access to social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok has been severely limited across the West African country since May 17, 2023. Doumbouya’s order to censor the internet sphere has impacted telecom service providers to heed his command including MTN Guinea, and Orange Group who have reportedly heeded the colonel’s order.
MTN and Orange are the prominent telecom companies serving the Republic of Guinea having closed the access to social media platforms. The citizens of the country started noticing that they were unable to connect to the internet after Doumbouya gave the order. This denotes that other internet-related platforms such as news websites, and other websites suffer interrupted internet connection aside from social media.
Despite Doumbouya’s keenness to censor the internet, citizens of the country relentlessly thrive to overrule the colonel’s command in accessing the web via virtual private networks (VPN) to bypass the censored internet. Under Doumbouya’s regime, the internet has been censored several times because he believes digital protesters have the power to undermine his place in power.
In sum, recall that Doumbouya led the previous coup in Guinea that placed him in power after a failed democratic government in 2021. Still, the military regime the colonel leads has impacted the rise of woke minds to protest against bad governance led by the military.