For six days in late October and early November, Tanzania went dark. It wasn’t a power outage, but a state-ordered internet shutdown that coincided with an election, nationwide youth-led protests, and a brutally enforced curfew.
While the government may have sought to control the flow of information, it also severed the economic lifeline for millions of its citizens.
The story of the shutdown isn’t just about blocked websites; it’s about the tangible, human cost. It’s about the families who, for days, couldn’t receive vital remittances from abroad to pay for medicine and survival.
As Tanzanian fintech founder Benjamin Fernandes of NALA put it starkly, “When the internet goes dark, the economy follows. In Africa, it’s not just tweets that stop — it’s mobile money, deliveries, jobs, hospitals, startups, tech, and livelihoods.”
The cost of this digital blackout was not just anecdotal; it was catastrophic. According to the NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool, a metric used by the United Nations, the six-day outage drained a staggering $238 million from Tanzania’s economy.
This figure doesn’t even account for the ongoing suspension of X (formerly Twitter) since May 2025, which has separately cost the nation an additional $165.8 million.
This economic self-harm becomes even clearer when you look at the specifics. With over 80 per cent of Tanzanians using mobile money, the shutdown paralysed the country’s primary transaction system. The Tanzania Instant Payment System (TIPS), which processed nearly Sh30 trillion in 2024, went silent.
For millions, this meant no way to pay for goods, receive wages, or handle emergencies. As Fernandes noted, he received calls from people abroad “desperate to pay hospital bills they can’t send money for.” This wasn’t about tech; it was about “food, medicine, and survival.”
Unchecked state power
Beyond the immediate financial freeze, the shutdown raises profound legal questions about the unchecked power of a state to disconnect its citizens. Governments often justify these actions under the guise of national security, but courts are increasingly ruling such unilateral decisions as illegal and unconstitutional.
A landmark 2019 ruling by the High Court of Zimbabwe provides a powerful precedent. The court declared an internet shutdown ordered by the Minister of State for National Security to be illegal, reasoning that the minister had no legal authority to issue such a directive.
READ MORE: A Curfew is Not a License to Kill: Tanzania Must Answer for Its Dead
The power, the court found, was not his to wield. This decision underscores a critical principle: even in a crisis, government actions must have a clear basis in law.
Similarly, in 2020, the Supreme Court of India declared that indefinite internet shutdowns are unconstitutional. In the case of Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, the court affirmed that access to the internet is protected under the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression.
It ruled that any restrictions must be temporary, necessary, and proportionate. An indefinite, sweeping blackout fails this fundamental legal test.
These legal challenges are not confined to other nations. The very legality of the Tanzanian government’s actions during the shutdown is questionable.
As I detailed here the other day, a review of official government gazettes from October 2025 found no published order delegating emergency powers to the Inspector General of Police, raising doubts about the legal foundation of the curfew itself.
Climate of impunity
When a government operates outside its own laws and in defiance of established human rights principles, it fosters a climate of impunity. The digital silence was accompanied by real-world violence.
READ MORE: Calls for Independent Inquiry Mount in Tanzania After Deadly Post-Election Violence
Reports emerged of multiple deaths, including people who were shot at their own homes. The government has officially denied that any deaths occurred, but the accounts from the ground paint a grim picture of a state turning on its own people.
This is the ultimate cost of an internet shutdown. It is not just about the millions of dollars lost per day. It is about the erosion of trust, the violation of fundamental rights, and the silencing of dissent through fear.
As digital rights group Paradigm Initiative stated, the shutdown was a “blatant defiance” of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which guarantees both freedom of expression and the right to development.
Tanzania’s six-day blackout is a cautionary tale for the entire continent. It demonstrates that in the 21st century, the internet is not a luxury but essential infrastructure—for commerce, for communication, for life itself.
Allowing any government the unilateral power to flip that switch is a risk no modern nation can afford to take. The economic and human costs are simply too high.
Khalifa Said is the Editor-in-Chief of Dar es Salaam-based digital publication The Chanzo. He’s available at Khalifa@thechanzo.com or on X as @ThatBoyKhalifax. These are the writer’s own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of The Chanzo. Want to publish in this space? Contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com for further inquiries.
