M7 is generally very misguided and behind times. he should simply come out and tell Ugandans that he has introduced a tax on their data use, which will be borne by Ugandan people or the companies, period. Ugandans will get to pay more for the same product while the rest of the world will feel no impact.

Social media is not a product that should be taxed, its a platform for use, like a book and pens, or a library, etc.

Question is who here has been charged for using facebook, or whatsapp. You buy data, and use it as you wish, some use it to surf porn, others use it to sell their wares etc.

For me its a consumption tax like any other tax, good for the govt as its broad but bad for the people as it makes goods expensive.

Indians and Wazungus wouldn't do it... why because they know about it... the concept is the concept of NET NEUTRALITY.
Heck India just made a law to enshine net neutrality...

anyone who infringes on it will suffer stiff penalties.
At the core of this thing is a "FREE INTERNET" not "FREE" as in "FREE LUNCH" but rather "FREE PRESS".

M7 is brilliant to introduce social media tax. social media is such a distraction, should be classified a little lower than other social evils like smoking and alcohol. Social media , at some level has negative effects on the economy.

When I buy bread, I pay tax on the bread. The producer pays tax to produce the bread. The shop keeper also pays. basically, the way tax is structured, one gets to pay tax for anything that adds value to your life.

In social media, the only beneficiaries for far too long have been the facebook and instagram owners. they collect ad revenue and do not remit a cent to the country where the the ads were broadcast. They actually deplete goverment revenue because companies will claim the ad spend as a tax deductible expense.

Since social media seems to be adding some value to the individuals on it, its ok to tax them. This way, the goverment also benefits. The goverment should go a step further and impose an advertisement tax on all social media platforms that are active in our country. Yes, Google, whatsup, facebook etc should pay to Kenya goverment for the priviledge to allow kenyan eyes to look at their advertisements. Same way County govt charges fees for putting up a billboard.

That's the problem of small brains and a lot of nonsense about small rivers joining big rivers. If facebook decides not to pay for Kenyan viewership, I can bet you any money that other platforms will be smiling with glee to take up that space. Wacha fikira ndogo bwana . Absence of facebook ET al equals a vacuum for entrepreneurs to exploit. Why are Africans scared of making tough decisions that favour Africans. We would rather put VAT on medicines than tax facebook who is spying on us and using our data to make money.

Honestly, this statement about "the problem of small brains and a lot of nonsense"". You really should not have used it.

Ati if Facebook decides not to pay for Kenyan viewership.

Where exactly did you get the notion that FB pays for you to go and talk crap on their platform? Sasa wewe ni mjinga ama umezubaa tu?

Taxing Wanjiru for using Whatsapp or FB will never ever affect FB in any way. Nowhere.

Ama you think it is FB that is paying Museveni's tax?

It is you not FB. FB shall never and charo nefa pay tax in Uganda. Not today not kesho not ever. Ni wewe tu na ngombe za museveni.

I think you are misguided. Facebook is a business. Period. It can be taxed. In fact, I believe facebook would rather pay tax and pass it on to advertisers who target Kenya than vacate the Kenyan space and risk competitors to gain hold and expand. Remember, as a business, if a competitor willing to pay the tax comes into Kenyan market, it won't be long before other African countries follow suite. Then we shall have an African version of facebook which facebook cannot dare risk.

I am not a techie. But I believe GoK can block facebook or any other site and make them pay a fee to be accessible in Kenya. I believe but stand to be corrected, that it's possible to track how much data is used up by facebook in the country. GoK can charge per byte.

FB and other social media sites should be taxed. They take/ mine data from Kenyans and use that data to make profit. If they don't want to pay tax wakwende. I am sure Kenyan owned websites will gladly step into that advertising space and data mining space with glee.. In fact, a tax on FB ET al will improve the well being of Kenyan websites.

We look down on ourselves too much. FB sio githeri ama omena

it's very interesting to see people here thinking that they are the target of facebook... Let me assist people get some new wine skins so that they can take in this wine. the old wine skins will burst if you try to store this wine in it.
Let me give you a simple explanation (analogy). Facebook is like a dance club - it's setup in the US... the business is registered there. it pays taxes there. it hires employees - there. They pay PAYE - there!
You are like a dancer who uses a magical road (called the internet) to go to this club and get 'socialized' THERE... this road takes you near instantly to where you desire. clubs don't not come to you - you go to them. To go there - you need some fuel - this fuel is sold by ISPs... it's data. Gava always taxes this but once you have the fuel you can spend it anyway you want. You can go to this dance club called Facebook... or you can go to a strippers joint called Pornhub or some baraza place called Wazua and educate some people. But let's talk about this club called faceboook. unlike other clubs - Facebook doesn't charge you directly but when you are THERE - they show you ads. The first time you go there - they ask you to fill in a book at the entrance. your name, gender e.t.c. They use this data to show you things they think you should be buying (ads).
The US government comes around and asks how much they have gotten from Ads shown TO EVERYONE who visited and get an amount (tax) from it. So what people consider the club making money from them and complaining is because they realised the registration data they left at the entrance and their behavior within the club is monetized. They don't get charged actual money for joining the service but facebook discovered a way to make sure they can show you enough ads to keep them afloat.

There are over 200 roads that lead to this club and so what M7 has done is that because his government can BLOCK 1 ROAD - he charge you a toll to go THERE... to the dance club. People can find panya routes around the road block (vpns) but that's for the people who know how the road really works. Back to the toll - since this club services almost 2 billion people - it's not going to lift a finger to try and ask M7 to lift the toll. The people using this road are not as valuable to the club when compared to the value of the club to the people on this road.

Sure... enterprenuers can start their own clubs behind the toll station - they have tried... they are trying. the problem is... clubs are not just buildings, tables and chairs! have you ever gone to a dance club on tuesday or monday nights? how is the atmosphere? I am sure it's just a couple of hookers and the bouncers there. for clubs to work you need something called NETWORK EFFECTS. People don't dance ALONE. you show up at a club and no one is in the dancing hall - you don't just go to the dancing hall and dance alone. Let me try and explain NETWORK EFFECTS. with MPESA as an example. Assume I came up with a technical solution... a code that replicated MPESA. what problems would stand on my way? first I will need to get customers to register... these customers need to register and send money to other customers. so if you are the 1st and only customer - the technology is not useful. if you are 2 customers who know each other you have some utility for the technology but the only value is that you can only send money to each other. if a 3rd person joins... it's a bit more interesting each person can send money to 2 people and the total number of possible channels increases to 3. a 4th person -adds another option to send money but the total number of possible channels has increased dramatically to 6, add one more to make 5 people - channels increase to 10 e.t.c. This my friend is what is known Metacalfe's law of NETWORK EFFECTS

Imagine if you had the possibility of increasing this number to 1 billion people. (in reality humans can only be intimate with about 140 people "Dunbar's number" but each of those 1 billion people has to have a huge number of people they are interested in sending money to)

it's the chicken and egg situation. everyone who has ever tried to build a club knows this... it's not the building IT'S THE PEOPLE. Another aspect of this business is that it's not just NETWORK EFFECTS of many people dancing... it's network effects of people willing to show ads. You need to ensure that you can tell them that you have X number of users who come often and they can profit from them. the X number has to be big enough for them if not they go down the road and spend their money on an established club. Think of Ad vendors as agents in MPESA - they don't want to wait until you build your network to a point where they can profit as long as there is MPESA down the road. They will go down the road and wait until you have X number of people that interest them.

A couple of people have created clubs within their areas that have succeeded to capture some market but so far this one club has almost everyone from most countries. China blocked the road completely and has a toll station that filters everything. their local clubs are for 1.6 billion people who speak a strange language that no one speaks. Russia did not block the road but somehow managed to build a club that rivals the facebook club WITHIN their borders - they are hypergood at this thing and started it early. There is a general rule of thumb that seems to appear in the world of this magical roads - that when the dust is settled - the winner generally has 90% of the market. The second and third probably have a total combined 9% and every other player shares that remaining 1%. this rule is almost synonymous to Zipf's law. it's a business area filled with corpses of companies that tried and failed.

So let's talk about the perils of your proposals - unlike other things. this club has some kind of dopamine inducing effect. The builders of the club studied psychology (Skinner, BJ Fogg e.t.c) and built a club that you will want to visit often and you get a dopamine shot when you come and see others. it's a club where you can be anyone who you want to be... brave if your are a coward in real life. beautiful if you are ugly in real life. witty if you are daft in real life. You can be rich there even though you are poor in real life. So your proposal to charge a toll for people who want to come get their shot of dopamine from facebook will be met by resistance by who? THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES. Meanwhile the club booms on as more people come and you hear the music and discover that it's booming without your people... guess what - They will protest and take your government down. That's why government should be careful about this roads thing. you limit people - you pay the price. Remember THE STATE IS A FICTIONAL CREATURE... it exists in our subconscious and if large numbers of us fail to recognize it's existence or authority - it loses authority. A certain government down the road headed by a guy called Mubarak decided to block the road and his 90 million people kicked him out. M7 has put a toll and his dopamine starved people have started protesting.