An election is currently underway in Tanzania, but the incumbent has effectively silenced any potential challengers, leaving her as the sole choice on the ballot. This has led to poll protests that have escalated to an estimated 700 deaths in just two days [1]. This is a stark contrast to the usually polite and subdued nature of Tanzanians. Unfortunately, obtaining information about the situation is extremely difficult due to the complete internet blackout [2] (Starlink is also illegal and ineffective) and the absence of functioning television stations.

@HN community What's the best way to mitigate this government mandated shutdown and allow information to flow out of such a situation? Can there be a decentralised peer to peer network (ad-hoc?) that can be used to bridge across hundreds of KMs to another country? How do citizens find out what's going on in their neighbourhoods in such a situation?

Basically my questions boil down: a. Peer to peer within a neighbourhood b. Ad-hoc networks that can allow data transfer across hundreds of km by hopping across these P2P neighbourhood networks.

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0x8vdvkjgo 2. https://radar.cloudflare.com/tz