Social media taxation and its impact on Africa's economic growth

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2004
• Date: 01 May 2020
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Adam A. Alli,Abdulhamid Mpoza,Aisha Kasujja Basuuta,Juma Kasadha

COMMENTARY

Social media taxation and its impact on Africa's economic

growth

Juma Kasadha

1,2

| Adam A. Alli

3

| Aisha Kasujja Basuuta

4

| Abdulhamid Mpoza

5

1

Department of Media and Communication,

City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong

Kong, SAR, China

2

United Nations University Institute on

Computing and Society (UNU-CS), Macau,

SAR, China

3

Department of Computer Science and

Engineering, Islamic University of Technology,

Gazipur, Bangladesh

4

Department of Islamic Banking and Finance,

Islamic University in Uganda, Mbale, Uganda

5

Institute of Communication Studies (ICS),

University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

Correspondence

Juma Kasadha, Department of Media and

Communication City University of Hong Kong

5/F, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre,

18 Tat Hong Avenue Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Email: jkasadha2-c@my.cityu.edu.hk

Technology affordances enable citizens to digitally connect and collectively act

towards realization of established economic goals of a given country. This paper con-

tributes to scholarly discussions on the effects of social media tax on Africa's eco-

nomic growth. For African economies to grow, there is need to abolish social media

tax and device means through which social media discussions that generate billions

of data are captured and analyzed to guide policymaking processes aimed at eco-

nomic growth. We connote that social media tax disengages the government from its

citizens that access information through social media platforms. The tax is a hin-

drance to realization of the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa

(STISA-2024) and the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063.

1|INTRODUCTION

In today's era of technological development, shared information on

interactive platforms such as social media platforms creates greater

opportunities for economic growth, especially in Africa's developing

economies. Existing body of literature suggests that Africa has millions

of social media subscribers. There are more than one hundred and

twenty million Facebook users in Africa (Kasadha, 2019; Parke, 2016).

The increased number of social media users evidences an increase in

information accessed and shared digitally through the various social

networking sites. However, the same social networking sites have

“posed”political threats in several African “dictatorial”countries such

as Egypt, Tunisia, and recently in Sudan where citizens have increas-

ingly become politically active (Bior, 2019; Tufekci & Wilson, 2012).

In Sudan after the ousting of Al-Bashir, social media users are

changing their profiles to blue as a sign of solidarity with the

oppressed and dozens of killed protesters (Bendimerad & Faisal,

2019). The Sudan protests were a result of a collapsing economy in

which its citizens used the available social media platforms to mobilize

support against a government that was reluctant to respond to the ris-

ing prices of bread (AFP-JIJI, 2019; Aljazeera, 2018). Other than the

feared citizen mobilization through social media platforms, African

economies should use the same widely used platforms to engage citi-

zens into enterprising activities that contribute to economic growth of

a state. These can range from ensuring all government agencies use

the available social media platforms to update citizens on existing gov-

ernment services and even solicit probable suggestions from the citi-

zens on what the ministries or agencies should consider in bettering

the delivery of the various services to the communities.

In Uganda, recent studies evidence social media as the second pre-

ferred source of information (Kasadha, 2019). In his study, Kasadha

(2018) further evidences the use of social media platforms as mediums

through which digitally networked actions such as mobilization of

communities into collective and connected actions based on societal

needs are achievable. In the case of Uganda, through Facebook, citi-

zens were digitally mobilized into collecting of sanitary towels for dis-

tribution among school going girl children that missed school due to

lack of sanitary towels. However, the increased use of social media in

Uganda (Kasadha, 2019) has been labeled as a tool that fosters “gos-

sip”and derails citizens from engaging in productive activities that

would foster economic growth (AFP, 2018a). The decision by several

sub-Saharan economies (Benin, Zambia, and Ugandan government) to

tax its citizens' use and access of the different social media platforms

raises various questions that necessitate scholarly exploration. In this

Received: 22 July 2019 Accepted: 23 July 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2004

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