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Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

monitor.co.ug

31–40 of 41 posts

Re: Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

#31

My key takes on this article are: 1) Gov needed more $$$. They could either reform/progress the state and let the economy generate freely the extra $$$ in 2-5-10 years OR impose a new tax "on those slackers who spend all day in social media". They chose the latter as they can create a narrative to convince the masses on the validity of this new tax. Edit/addition: And the fact that reforming the state requires change…

> "Sample" of 2700 and then calling it "National IT Survey" in a 20.7m population is a joke/travesty.

For well designed, stratified and representative surveys 2700 is actually pretty good sample size and will get you to +/- couple of percent points accuracy. There's a whole well studied sciencee behind "design of experiments" that goes into pretty much any R&D or market research effort. Nothing will save you however if you don't design and administer the research well.

If you don't believe this and know a bit of programming, simply whip up a Monte Carlo program to repeatedly randomly sample 2700 without replacement from a dataset of 10 million a few thousand times, measure and histogram your estimtes and see the range where you end up most of the time. I actually do this when teaching introductory stats to new analysts and market researchers because seeing is the first step to understanding :-)

Re: Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

#32
Is there a term for the confusing use of comma in headlines like that?

I noticed it initially in USA print newspapers but it seems to be propagating over the Web.

It is no more efficient than using an ampersand.

In this case I wondered how "mobile money" and "social media tax" were related.

Re: Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

#33

Is there a term for the confusing use of comma in headlines like that? I noticed it initially in USA print newspapers but it seems to be propagating over the Web. It is no more efficient than using an ampersand. In this case I wondered how "mobile money" and "social media tax" were related.

In print journalism, it's common to use a comma in headlines that way. The comma is more efficient than an ampersand because it is less wide in variable width fonts.

Re: Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

#34
I'm concerned from the perspective of VPN usage that I've seen happen during social media blockades. People invariably turn to free VPN services. Suddenly people are walking around with known malware injectors, and the worst of the worst behaved VPN provider apps giving them "protected" browsing because they don't know any better.

An app developer without ethics could probably create some template for generating apps and sites for "free" VPN services, and liaise with the government to create a perfect cycle of people using apps that spy on them. And people would still probably fall for it.

Re: Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

#36
post #35
post #30

"Africa is poor because she is not free" - George Ayittey

They’ve had the same amount of years we all have had to form advanced civilisations. If they haven’t it’s their fault.

With the small detail some of those years were nicely explored by our advanced civilizations, and uproars were quickly put to rest with powder against arrows.

Re: Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

#37
post #35
post #30

"Africa is poor because she is not free" - George Ayittey

They’ve had the same amount of years we all have had to form advanced civilisations. If they haven’t it’s their fault.

So, let's all go there and steal/enslave. /s

Re: Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reach some conclusions which are lacking. This is strong premise. I don't think we need more data when you have studies that show that social media as the same effect as cocaine. We specially don't need another tax.

There are also studies that say the same thing about Oreos

And they're right. Sugar highly addictive.

Re: Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

#39
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’ve had the same amount of years we all have had to form advanced civilisations. If they haven’t it’s their fault.

So, let's all go there and steal/enslave. /s

Sounds like a solid plan to me. One sec while I grab my pith helmet and elephant gun.

Re: Uproar as Uganda telecom companies implement mobile money, social media taxes

#40
post #36
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’ve had the same amount of years we all have had to form advanced civilisations. If they haven’t it’s their fault.

With the small detail some of those years were nicely explored by our advanced civilizations, and uproars were quickly put to rest with powder against arrows.

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