  We examine the impact of a new tool for suppressing the expression of
dissent---a daily tax on social media use. Using a synthetic control framework,
we estimate that the tax reduced the number of georeferenced Twitter users in
Uganda by 13 percent. The estimated treatment effects are larger for poorer and
less frequent users. Despite the overall decline in Twitter use, tweets
referencing collective action increased by 31 percent and observed protests
increased by 47 percent. These results suggest that taxing social media use may
not be an effective tool for reducing political dissent.
