Want To Blog In Tanzania, Or Read Social Media In Uganda? Pay The Government, Please

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Although blogging may have lost its early excitement for many, in some countries it still represents a vital channel for news that may not be available elsewhere. For example, as Global Voices explains:

Blogging emerged in Tanzania around 2007 and became popular as an alternative news platform with educated, middle class people, as well as politicians and political parties.In Tanzania, where media historically holds strong ties to government interests, blogging opened up possibilities for individuals to establish private news outlets that proved immensely powerful in terms of reach and readership.

On March 16, 2018, the United Republic of Tanzania issued the Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations demanding that bloggers must register and pay over USD $900 per year to publish online.

applicants are expected to fill a form detailing the estimated cost of investment, the number of directors and stakeholders in the platform, their share of capital, staff qualifications, expected dates of commencing operations, besides future growth plans.But even after providing this documentation, authorities still reserve the right to revoke a permit if a site publishes content that "causes annoyance, threatens harm or evil, encourages or incites crimes" or jeopardizes "national security or public health and safety." Officials could also force managers to remove "prohibited content" within 12 hours or face fines not less than five million shillings ($2,210) or a year in prison.

"I am not going to propose a tax on internet use for educational, research or reference purposes... these must remain free. However, olugambo on social media (opinions, prejudices, insults, friendly chats) and advertisements by Google and I do not know who else must pay tax because we need resources to cope with the consequences of their lugambo"

2017 registered the highest number of Ugandans ever arrested for their online expression and these arrests are clearly targeted crackdown on free flow of information and speech on the Internet.

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Patent Troll That Sued EFF And Lost... Now Loses Its Bullshit Patent As Well

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Remember GEMSA (Global Equty Management (SA) Pty. Ltd.)? That's the Australian patent troll who "won" a Stupid Patent of the Month award from EFF for its silly patent (US Patent 6,690,400 on "virtual cabinets representing a discrete operating system." GEMSA sued a bunch of companies, including Airbnb and Zillow for supposedly violating the patent. Oh, and then it sued EFF in Australia, getting an order from the court demanding that EFF take down its article and barring EFF from ever publishing anything about any GEMSA patents.That kinda thing is not going to fly in the US, and so EFF went to court in the US, seeking declaratory judgment that such an Australian court order was totally unenforceable in the US under the SPEECH Act. Late last year, the court gave a thorough and complete victory to EFF, making it clear that GEMSA could not, in any way, hope to enforce its Australian order in the US, as it clearly would violate EFF's First Amendment rights.And now, the US Patent Office has basically killed GEMSA's patent that EFF called out in the first place, via the all important inter partes review system that is currently being challenged at the Supreme Court (ruling coming soon...).

The '400 patent described its invention as a Graphic User Interface (GUI) that enables a user to virtualize the system and to define secondary storage physical devices through the graphical depiction of cabinets. In other words, virtual storage cabinets on a computer. E-Bay, Alibaba, and Booking.com, filed a petition for inter partes review arguing that claims from the '400 patent were obvious in light of the Partition Magic 3.0 User Guide (1997) from PowerQuest Corporation. Three administrative patent judges from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) agreed.The PTAB opinion notes that Partition Magic's user guide teaches each part of the patent's Claim 1, including the portrayal of a cabinet selection button bar, a secondary storage partitions window, and a cabinet visible partition window.

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