At around 5.00pm local time, a letter from Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the regulator of the communications sector in the country, ordering the shutdown until further notice started circulating on social media.
The decision to shut down the internet, which dwarfs similar 2016 measures, was reached following a joint security meetings and after an assessment that the shutdown of social media and digital distribution platforms was not effective.
Internet shutdowns have become a growing technique by governments around the world to control the sharing of information particularly in developing countries and increasingly led in African countries.
Many Ugandans including government officials backing the actions on social media already had Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) installed on their device and would normally be able to circumvent a social media block, but an internet block means even VPNs are of limited use for most people.
