Internet as utility, not luxury
Kiya Tsegaye, Addis Standard’s Legal Affairs Advisor & Contributor
Addis Abeba, June 04/2017 – For the third time in less than one year, authorities in Ethiopia have imposed a blanket blackout of access to internet for ordinary Ethiopians. The blackout is total for ordinary citizens because for the last six days, a few people, especially those who are willing to pay extraordinary amounts of money to luxury hotels to access Wi-Fi, those who are employees of major international organizations including embassies, the African Union, and United Nations affiliate offices and tech savvy ones who know how to configure their DNS and use strong versions of VPN were able to use the internet.
Needless to say, the Internet is one of the most important technological progress made in the 20th century. We have become dependent on the internet in almost all aspects of our lives – from business, to relationship and family, to social and cultural aspects of our lives. When the internet is shut down, it impacts our lives in many ways than few.
