[governance] Internet Shutdown: An IGC Statement to the ISOC Cameroon Chapter?

[George Sadowsky]

I found it very instructive to read:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/world/africa/african-nations-increasingly-silence-internet-to-stem-protests.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/world/africa/african-nations-increasingly-silence-internet-to-stem-protests.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news> 

for a high level description of the multiple Internet shutdowns in Africa.  It's unfortunate that autocratic governments have also discovered the power of the Internet and exercise their ability to control it.  

In 1994 George Soros addressed the Internet Society annual conference in Prague, saying that the most important question for him at that time was, "how many Internet connections do there have to be into the former Soviet Union (fSU) so that the Internet can never be shut off?"  it was an important question at that time for the former communist countries, and Soros dedicated his foundation to invest heavily in infrastructure for the fSU and to connect countries in the the fSU to the west.   Since then, Soros' question has been partially addressed by the construction of webs of increasing complexity among countries. 

Unfortunately much of African is not there yet.

George Sadowsky 
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