Global Voices ON the morning of July 30, 2020, Zimbabweans awoke to the presence of heavily armed soldiers standing ready to crush anti-government protests scheduled to take to the streets the following day. No one was permitted entry into the central business district. The official line was that protests were prohibited in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. A few days prior, social media — particularly WhatsApp and Twitter — was abuzz with citizens sharing Virtual Private Network (VPN) applications to download, just in case the government shut down the internet again, as they did during protests in January 2019. Covid-19 and its subsequent government policies have had far-reaching implications on digital rights and media freedom in Zimbabwe.