Kenya’s Internet Outage Saga As Seen On X

No photo availableByCarol Odero & Joan Kaberia
4 min read
X documented all of it when Kenyans experienced a sudden reduction in internet speeds, despite many experiencing a blackout on the app.
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25 June will go down in history. Nationwide protests against the Finance Bill 2024 were widely watched across all platforms. X documented all of it when Kenyans experienced a sudden reduction in internet speeds, despite many experiencing a blackout on the app. The Internet, crucial for communication and sharing information, became frustratingly slow right when we needed it most.

It all started with apprehension about the Internet being throttled down or turned off, raising concerns from many activism fronts. 

KIKTANet flagged the anxiety. “We strongly urge the Kenyan government to refrain from enforcing any Internet shutdowns or information controls in response to the ongoing protests against the Finance Bill 2024 through the hashtag #RejectFinanceBill2024. Such measures would infringe on the fundamental rights and freedoms of Kenyans as well as negatively impact Kenya’s economy, democracy, and reputation in the eyes of the international community.” Their response outlined the reasons why this was a fundamentally terrible idea.

Unfortunately, this followed.

And the news was broken.

Then Safaricom, who is significant as you will see later, posted this.

Telecom provider Safaricom’s attribution to problems with undersea internet cables led to trouble. And the interruption came despite assurances by the regulator, the Communications Authority of Kenya declaring on 24 June it had no plans to shut down or interfere with the Internet, stating it “had no intention whatsoever to shut down internet traffic or interfere with the quality of connectivity” and then some.

However, investigations later revealed the undersea cables were undamaged. The global internet observatory NetBlocks confirmed no “physical subsea cable damage” during Kenya’s internet outage.

TechCrunch reached out to NetBlocks’ Director of Research, Isik Mater, who said that it might be due to “unscheduled maintenance,” while adding, “We’ve been tracking those statements. We can look at two factors: the observed impact, and the observed timings. Our observations do indicate that today’s disruption affects multiple countries. However, this outage has much higher impact to Kenya than past confirmed major subsea cable cuts including those earlier this year; we wouldn’t usually expect to see service collapse like this. Further, the other affected countries are downstream to Kenya, so likely affected by the situation in Kenya rather than the other way around.” 

Despite these assurances, data from NetBlocks indicated a significant drop in connectivity strength, and no physical damage to the cables was identified. The revelation that the cables were fine and the outage was likely orchestrated led to an uproar among Kenyans. Frustrated by the situation, they contemplated switching to competitors. Enter Elon Musk.

 

The outage affected critical apps like M-PESA Super App and Safaricom App and Safaricom’s earlier response came under scrutiny which compelled Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa to explain it thus. “I sincerely apologise for the network outage that started on 25 June. This outage was caused by reduced bandwidth on some cables that carry internet traffic. This affected not only Safaricom but the entire industry. We are doing everything possible to ensure that you get the services you deserve.” The outage affected critical apps like M-PESA Super App and Safaricom App.

The hashtag #CancelSafaricom gained traction as users expressed disappointment. Prominent influencers and loyal customers publicly severed ties with Safaricom. Muchiri Mike, a longtime influencer for the company, stated:

Like everyone else, we continue to watch these Spaces.

 

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