When the lights go out on the internet in Africa, it’s rarely an accident. It’s a decision. And on Tuesday evening, Gabon became the latest country to make that decision, announcing an indefinite suspension of social media platforms in what the government framed as a necessary response to “inappropriate, defamatory, hateful, and insulting content” undermining national security and social cohesion.
In a televised statement, Jean-Claude Mendome, spokesperson for the High Authority for Communication (HAC), Gabon’s media regulator, cited the “spread of false information,” “cyberbullying,” and the “unauthorised disclosure of personal data” as reasons for the directive, which took “immediate effect” and will remain in force “until further notice.” The regulator did not specify which platforms would be affected, though internet monitoring group NetBlocks confirmed that access to Meta services, YouTube, and TikTok was now restricted in Gabon.
The shutdown arrives at a politically combustible moment. Teachers began a high-profile strike in December 2025 over pay, status, and working conditions, and the dispute has become one of the most visible signs of broader public-sector discontent. Gabon is led by General Brice Oligui Nguema, who won presidential elections last year after leading a military coup in 2023, ending more than five decades of Bongo family rule. The 50-year-old president pledged to reform the oil- and timber-rich country, but growing social unrest over the cost of living and labor disputes is testing that mandate.
For digital rights advocates and economists tracking African internet governance, Gabon’s move is not surprising. It’s part of a pattern that is becoming structurally embedded in how governments across the continent manage dissent. And the costs — economic, democratic, and social — are enormous.
The African Shutdown Playbook: A Continent-Wide Tactic
Gabon is far from alone. In October 2025, Tanzania restricted internet access nationwide during general elections, following an earlier restriction of X in May 2025 over what officials described as “moral concerns.” In 2021, Nigeria suspended Twitter (now X) for seven months after the platform removed a post by then-President Muhammadu Buhari, while Uganda disrupted access to Facebook and other platforms around its general elections the same year.
The trend is accelerating. A February 2025 report by Access Now disclosed there were 296 internet shutdowns across 54 countries worldwide in 2024, of which 28 occurred in 18 African countries. Ethiopia has one of the most extensive and systematic histories of internet shutdowns in Africa, recording around 30 from 2016 to 2024. Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Senegal, and Mauritius have all deployed digital blackouts in recent years, typically during elections, protests, or moments of political instability.
The justifications are almost always similar: national security, the prevention of misinformation, the need to maintain public order. The outcomes are also similar: citizens cut off from information, businesses paralyzed, and opposition movements fragmented.
What’s changing, according to digital rights researchers, is that shutdowns are becoming pre-emptive rather than reactive. Governments are increasingly turning to pre-emptive disruptions, citing security concerns even in the absence of protests, elections, exams, or other traditional triggers. In other words, governments are no longer waiting for unrest to emerge before cutting the internet — they’re doing it prophylactically, to prevent unrest from organizing in the first place.
The Economic Toll: Billions Lost, Livelihoods Destroyed
The immediate human cost of an internet shutdown is easy to see: people can’t communicate, businesses can’t operate, students can’t study online, freelancers can’t work. But the aggregate economic cost is staggering, and it’s growing.
In 2024, shutdowns cost sub-Saharan Africa economic losses of over $1.6 billion. In 2022, internet shutdowns cost the world almost $25 billion, with lower- and middle-income countries worst affected. For context, internet shutdowns in Africa between 2015 and 2017 cost economies about $237 million, but the first months of 2019 alone accounted for about $267 million, with Sudan losing at least $7.5 million per day.
Tanzania’s recent shutdowns offer a stark case study. According to NetBlocks’ Cost of Shutdown Tool, two incidents — including the continued suspension of X and the election-related internet blackout — cost Tanzania more than $238 million in direct losses to productivity, trade, and digital services. The nationwide shutdown, which lasted from October 29 to November 3, spanning five days and six hours, translated to losses of at least $72 million, or about $13.8 million per day.
For Gabon, with an estimated 850,000 active social media users in late 2025 (around a third of the population), platforms are widely used for marketing and small-business sales. A restaurant owner in Libreville, speaking anonymously to the BBC, said the suspension would greatly affect his business. “Almost 40% of my customers decided to order or come to the restaurant after seeing our advertising on social media… I won’t be able to catch new customers, because clients are attracted by what they are seeing, reviews from friends, pictures. We are entering a phase where we don’t even know if we are moving forward with global development or if we are sliding backward into total underdevelopment.”
That sentiment captures the paradox at the heart of Africa’s digital shutdown economy. With 500 million online shoppers already connected by 2025, Africa’s e-commerce market is projected to reach $940 billion in value by 2032. The continent is also positioning itself as a digital services exporter, expected to reach $74 billion by 2040, while the cross-border payments market is forecast to hit $1 trillion by 2035.
But those projections assume reliable, uninterrupted internet access. When governments arbitrarily sever that access, investor confidence evaporates, supply chains break, and the very digital transformation governments claim to support becomes impossible.
Who Bears the Cost? SMEs, Women, and the Informal Economy
The macroeconomic figures are stark, but they obscure who actually pays the price when the internet goes dark. At the heart of Africa’s digital transformation are millions of SMEs, many operating in informal markets and relying on mobile money, social media, and digital tools to sell, communicate, and grow. With limited access to alternative infrastructure or financial reserves, a shutdown can mean a complete halt in operations or even closures.
Women are disproportionately affected. A study in Uganda found that refugees and host communities experienced diverse implications from internet shutdowns, with women especially affected. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, women entrepreneurs rely on platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Marketplace, and Instagram to run micro-enterprises — selling clothing, food, crafts, and services — because they lack access to traditional storefronts or formal banking. When those platforms disappear, so does their income.
Rural communities face compounded vulnerability. Shutdowns further deepen existing digital divides. Rural communities or under-resourced urban areas often lack backup infrastructure or alternative communication channels. These regions are the first to go silent when networks fail, and the last to come back online.
The irony is brutal. African governments routinely promote digital entrepreneurship, paperless education, and mobile banking as pillars of economic modernization. But when political tensions rise, those same governments switch off the infrastructure that makes that modernization possible. As Julie Owono, Executive Director of Internet Without Borders, put it: “You cannot fully embrace a digital economy while weaponising the very infrastructure it relies on.”
The Legal and Human Rights Void
Gabon’s HAC stressed that “freedom of expression, including the right to critique and comment, remains a protected right under Gabonese law.” That assurance rings hollow when the primary channels for exercising that right — social media platforms — have been indefinitely blocked.
Digital rights organizations have long argued that internet shutdowns violate fundamental freedoms enshrined in international and regional human rights frameworks. Digital rights groups, alongside organizations such as UNESCO, have warned that internet shutdowns and platform suspension carry significant consequences, including restrictions on expression, access to information, and economic activity.
There have been glimmers of legal pushback. In May 2025, the ECOWAS Court of Justice ruled that Senegal’s internet shutdown during the June–July 2023 protests was unlawful and violated citizens’ rights to freedom of expression and access to information. Days later, Kenya’s High Court issued an injunction prohibiting the government from arbitrarily disrupting internet services, setting a precedent for constitutional oversight.
But enforcement remains weak. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted a landmark resolution in March 2024 to prevent internet shutdowns during elections. However, Mauritius disregarded the resolution and ordered a shutdown in November 2024. Without enforceable mechanisms to hold governments accountable, these legal protections remain largely symbolic.
The VPN Economy: Citizens Fighting Back
When governments flip the kill switch, citizens adapt. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which allow users to bypass geographic restrictions and access blocked content, surge in usage during shutdowns. The minute the internet came back on in Uganda following a recent shutdown, VPN usage surged 2,237% above the daily average prior to the shutdown so that people could bypass the ongoing social media blocks.
But VPNs are not a panacea. They require technical literacy, cost money, and can be unreliable. More fundamentally, they shouldn’t be necessary. As Gbenga Sesan, Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative, a digital rights group, put it: “These disruptions are economically devastating and deeply damaging to digital rights. Every shutdown chips away at trust, investment, and human potential. Governments must realize that in today’s world, connectivity is the foundation of opportunity. Shutting down the internet silences citizens, stalls economies, and sets entire nations back.”
What Happens Next in Gabon?
No timeline has been provided for when social media access will be restored in Gabon. The HAC’s statement offered no metrics, no conditions, no milestones that would trigger a reversal. “Until further notice” is an indefinite sentence.
For Gabon’s 850,000 social media users, the impact will be felt immediately. For the country’s small businesses, freelancers, and digital entrepreneurs, every day of the shutdown represents lost income, severed customer relationships, and compounding disadvantage relative to competitors in countries where the internet remains on.
For President Nguema’s transitional government, the calculation is clear: short-term political stability and control over information flows outweigh the medium-term economic and reputational costs. Whether that calculus holds as teacher strikes persist, public-sector discontent grows, and the digital economy grinds to a halt remains to be seen.
For the broader African continent, Gabon’s shutdown is a reminder of a troubling trajectory. As digital connectivity becomes the foundation of economic opportunity, civic engagement, and democratic participation, the ability of governments to unilaterally sever that connectivity represents one of the most consequential threats to Africa’s development.
The continent cannot afford to sit out the fourth industrial revolution. But it also cannot participate in it if governments keep pulling the plug.
