Weaponizing cyber defamation: Digital authoritarianism and elite impunity in Cameroon

This commentary critiques a weaponisation of cyber defamation laws in Cameroon as an instrument of digital authoritarianism and political oppression, highlighting how power relations and infrastructural dynamics shape these processes. Drawing from my own arrest and prosecution for allegedly attacking the ‘honour and reputation’ of a prominent Cameroonian political figure when a video leaked of me decrying my experience being defrauded by his wife, I evaluate the digital reincarnation of colonial-era libel and sedition laws under the mantel of cybersecurity. Cameroon possesses one of the most detailed and punitive legal frameworks for policing online expression on the African continent and, indeed, in the world. Yet such laws have largely been deployed for criminalising speech online: ostensibly designed to protect digital spaces, they are mobilised to surveil, intimidate, and prosecute citizens in a tightly networked political-legal sphere dominated by an elite minority. Within broader regional practices, cyber defamation can function as a tool of digital authoritarian recomposition, camouflaging repression in legal and technological legitimacy.