Researchers from Strathmore Law School in Kenya and the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) have published a report after establishing a working partnership at the 2016 Citizen Lab Summer Institute, held on July 6-8 at the University of Toronto. The report details Internet shutdown in Ethiopia in early August, which coincided with nearly 100 deaths and thousands of arrests as part of protests against the persecution of two large ethnic groups in the country, the Oromos and the Amharas.
Protesters were reported to have relied on the Internet to plan and mobilize support, and this time, the researchers speculated that the Ethiopian government may have shut down the Internet to preempt the protests. Internet traffic, as well as the number of tweets sent from the country, dropped sharply on August 5-8. Though this suggests the Internet was probably shut down, it is unclear whether the entire country experienced this, and in what parts specifically this occurred.