Digital cleansing? A look into state-sponsored policing of Ethiopian networked communities

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn June 2015, the National Election Board of Ethiopia announced that the incumbent Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its affiliates had won 100 per cent of the House of People's Representatives seats. The results have extended Ethiopia's anocratic one-party rule since the EPRDF ousted the former military dictatorship through armed struggle in 1991. Despite earlier promises of democratic reform, the EPRDF has increasingly become a self-proclaimed vanguard party at the expense of political inclusivity, continuing its attempts to validate its longevity through a ‘developmentalism’ rhetoric, which frames alternative speech as heresy, and at times a crime. One notable consequence of this hegemonic thinking is an alarming invisibility of plurality in the traditional Ethiopian media landscape. Drawing from hegemonic notions of development statism, this article looks at the extent to which digital platforms have become viable alternatives to traditional electronic and print media in Ethiopia. I argue that, despite its potential to promote freedom of speech, the Ethiopian online sphere is systematically policed through state-sanctioned legal frameworks. Through analysis of an online survey, I also demonstrate how perceptions of users about online experiences show skepticism toward the role of the Ethiopian state in Internet monitoring.