Recently the government of Benin introduced a tax on social networks in that country, the fee obliged users to pay around 0,008 USD equivalent in USD per MegaByte of data used in applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Instagram and many others. But it seems that now the Benin government has decided to back down on its decision, and this is being described as a pleasant surprise, since the government has decided to withdraw the tax on social media.
The credit should be given to the people of Benin for having taken to the streets and protested against social media rates from the day they were announced. The social media tax, logically, meant that the costs of mobile Internet became more expensive, since it was a fee to be added to the cost of purchasing packets of data to access the Internet.
Tax on social networks across Africa?
However, as we have observed in other countries of the African continent, Uganda, it is possible to avoid paying the social network fee. In Benin, some citizens have used the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) to falsify their location and access social media platforms without being asked to pay the tax.O Kenya is also looking at prospects for introducing a form of internet access tax, while in Uganda, the social media tax persists today.
In neighboring Tanzania, bloggers, and indeed anyone who publishes content on the Internet, have to pay an annual fee that most of the country definitely cannot afford. In most cases, these fees and taxes are just a protection for incumbent political leaders to restrict the speech of those who speak out against them.
