Gabon is taking an unprecedented step in internet censorship - Sep. 16, 2016

Digital rights organization Access Now has documented 40 major internet disruptions in 25 countries in 2016. Social media or internet outages have coincided with elections in Uganda, Chad, and Congo-Brazzaville. Meanwhile, Ethiopia restricted internet access during protests in August.

"It's difficult to block individual pieces of content on channels, so they have to block everything or nothing. You have to block Facebook, they just can't block a group on Facebook," said Karl Kathuria, CEO of Psiphon, a software firm that provides tools to bypass internet blockages. "[They decide] it's worth the slight damage it causes reputation-wise internationally in order to stop people from communicating on these platforms."