The internet is many things to many people. Some of these things are good, while others are bad. Still, it should be fairly uncontroversial to say that the internet has generally done a good job of empowering ordinary people. With the advent of a platform sans gatekeepers, millions of people suddenly had a voice that they would not otherwise have been afforded. The result of this has been the explosion in blogs, podcasts, forums, and other outlets. The internet brings the ability to reach others and that has resulted in an explosion of thought and speech.

It will come as no surprise that plenty of national governments throughout the world aren’t huge fans of their people suddenly having this sort of voice and reach. After all, that kind of free expression can often times come in the form of critiques of those very governments, and that kind of reach can create movements of dissent. You may recall back in April when Glyn Moody detailed Tanzania’s attempt to tamp down this critical speech by forcing bloggers to register with the government at a cost greater than the average per capita income of its citizens. While this was a fairly naked attempt to keep the voices of its citizens from being heard, Glyn pointed out that the Tanzanian government was at least attempting to be cynically subtle about it.

The current Tanzanian government is not very happy about this uncontrolled flow of information to the people. But instead of anything so crude as shutting down blogs directly, it has come up with a more subtle, but no less effective, approach.

What a difference a few months make in the actions of an authoritarian regime. It seems this more subtle approach did not have the desired effect, as the Tanzanian government has now ordered that all unregistered bloggers simply shut themselves down or face criminal prosecution.

Tanzania ordered all unregistered bloggers and online forums on Monday to suspend their websites immediately or face criminal prosecution, as critics accuse the government of tightening control of internet content. Several sites, including popular online discussion platform Jamiiforums, said on Monday they had temporarily shut down after the state-run Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) warned it would take legal action against all unlicensed websites.

Digital activists say the law is part of a crackdown on dissent and free speech by the government of President John Magufuli, who was elected in 2015. Government officials argue the new rules are aimed at tackling hate speech and other online crimes, including cyberbullying and pornography.

If this all sounds familiar to you, it should, because actions like these were very much the precursors to the Arab Spring. These types of attempts to control the internet, a platform that is well-designed to route around this type of control, rarely work for exactly that reason. People will generally find a way if they are motivated enough, which is what makes trying to disappear dissent a government’s first reaction so potentially disastrous.

Critics of this move are predicting the demise of Tanzanian blogging.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders group has said the new online content rules “will kill off Tanzania’s blogosphere”.

Perhaps that’s right. Or, perhaps, a move like this does more to spell the end of an authoritarian regime than the demise of a commonplace internet function that is ingrained into the human spirit.

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