South Africa is the only African nation to actively shut down torrenting sites.
This is based on a report by Comparitech, which provides a global map of internet restrictions, including on the African continent.
The report explores internet censorship across 175 countries, to see which countries impose the harshest internet restrictions and where citizens can enjoy the most online freedom.
To find out to what extent each country is censored, the report looked at restrictions or bans for torrenting, pornography, social media, virtual private networks (VPNs), as well as restrictions or heavy censorship of political media and any additional restrictions for messaging/VOIP apps.
The report shows that most African nations have restricted torrent sites; however, only SA has banned or shut down these sites.
In the case of pornography, social media, political media, VPNs and messaging/VOIP apps, the Southern African nation has not imposed an outright ban or restriction, based on the report.
Torrenting is the act of downloading and uploading files through the BitTorrent network. Instead of downloading files to a central server, torrenting involves downloading files from other users’ devices on the network.
It is often associated with piracy because it’s frequently used to share files that are protected by copyright, including movies, games, music and software.
In South Africa, if a person disregards copyright laws, in terms of the Copyright Act, they could be fined or imprisoned if found guilty.
When it comes to restrictions on online pornography, the report indicates 15 African nations have this in place, with five of these having full bans. They are Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Tanzania and Uganda.
According to the report, most of the African countries covered – 44 of 53 (83%) – restrict political media. “Thirteen of these enforce heavy censorship, including the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, both of which increased censorship this year.
“Ghana gained a point for restricted political media due to artificial political narratives being at the forefront of their media.”
In terms of social media restrictions, 64% of the African countries covered implement such restrictions, but only Eritrea has gone so far as to continually block access to social media sites, it reveals.
Egypt and Uganda are the only countries to restrict VPN use. “Despite VPNs being legal, many VPN providers’ websites and servers are blocked.”
In addition, the report notes Egypt is one of the seven African countries to restrict the use of messaging/VOIP apps. The others are Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.
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