KAMPALA, UGANDA — After banning social media failed to silence the nation’s keyboard warriors, the Ugandan government has taken the next logical step: banning the Internet entirely and launching its own exclusive version, accessible only to government officials.
Officials say the old Internet had become a “dangerous breeding ground” for misinformation — mostly about things the government actually did. With no reliable way to stop the truth from leaking, they shut it down and launched a government-only network called UGANET. Every post will now be pre-approved, sanitized, and 100% Ministry-certified, and best of all, ordinary Ugandans won’t have to suffer the burden of Internet access ever again.
“We discovered that cracking down on social media just encouraged more grumbling,” said President Yoweri Museveni at the launch. “So it was only logical to ban the Internet. Now, all internal grumblings will die a silent death… deep in the minds of our citizens, where no hashtags can reach them. The UGANET, on the other hand, is a safe haven where only government officials can post, like, and retweet… in peace.”
Government insiders call UGANET a revolutionary way to eliminate both free speech and complaints in one stroke.
“This is the first step in the wrong direction,” declared MP Muhammad Nsereko proudly. “Without the Internet — or keyboards — citizens can focus on more constructive things, like quietly accepting everything we do.”
All Internet providers in the country have been shut down indefinitely… or until, as the government put it, “we get tired of UGANET.”
Citizens are encouraged to embrace “the quietness of offline living,” since, according to the Ministry of Information, “our forefathers didn’t have the Internet and they didn’t die… immediately.”