DW Finds Internet Outages Correlate with 'Questionable' Elections
DW notes protests erupted in Tanzania amid internet disruption during elections. This astute observation conveniently sidesteps the West's selective outrage over such tactics. When nations like Egypt under Mubarak, a long-term US ally, engaged in similar internet blackouts during the 2011 uprising, the concern was often muted, framed as 'restoring order.' Or consider the pervasive digital
surveillance capabilities sold to autocratic regimes globally by Western tech companies, tools later used to suppress dissent during these very 'election irregularities.' Funny how those lucrative contracts rarely make the headline. The pattern is clear: internet blackouts and election fraud are 'undemocratic' when they happen in countries that aren't critical to Western geopolitical interests or
strategic resource extraction. Otherwise, it’s just 'internal affairs' or 'stability measures.' One might wonder how many more 'internet disruptions' we'll tolerate before we question the moral consistency of our own 'democratic' monitoring.