My people my people.

Ahhh Starlink. The patron saint of saving Zimbabwean internet access. It’s taken over our country’s internet industry by storm and over the past month people have gone from being super excited about it to being confused on how to get it to some getting it and being surprised about a few caveats the product comes with. The biggest one of these however, is probably that Starlink has very strict policies about piracy, which might be a problem for many a Zimbo that have recently installed the internet service.

Now let’s start by being upfront and getting this out of the way: probably every Zimbabwe that was born and grew up her has partaken in piracy somehow. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, considering our country’s history of connectivity limitations and sanctions basically stopping us from getting access to a lot of media( anybody remember the Jack Sparrow days of pirated DVDS? ). However as most of you probably know, piracy is at best a pretty offensive misdemeanor in many countries and at worst, a very serious crime in others. And since Starlink is essentially still a US company that operates mostly under US laws, albeit with local licenses in a lot of countries, it means it’s governed by such laws, and has the responsibility to essentially shut down piracy or piracy based activities if it comes across them.

Simply put, Starlink have the right to suspend or outright shut down your account and internet service if they see you in piracy. This likely won’t happen instantly as individual testimonies on the web show they usually send a warning of some kind for you to stop such activities. However if you continue you can end up with your not-so-legal activities, Starlink can just cut your service off just like that. Some may regard this as unfair but it is a violation of their policy so they are well within their rights. So it pretty much means that if you never want your Starlink cut off, simply don’t engage in Piracy.

Can Zimbos let go of piracy though?

Now it can sound presumptuous or even rude to ask a question like that but again, most of us forget that Zimbabweans are used to piracy because for some forms of media that was the only way to find them. The average Zimbabwean is used to tonnes of music piracy sites, torrents and even jailbroken games for PC and some consoles. And while some of it can be excessive some of this content really wasn’t available for people legally a decade or so ago. How many people do you know who had Netflix or Spotify in 2014? Or access to a Playstation Network account (which still doesn’t support Zimbabwe to this day by the way). All of this made Zimbabweans used to finding the content they love in unorthodox or outright illegal ways, and for a lot it might be hard to break that habit, whether directly or in places like Starlink powered internet cafes or schools.

All of which means if you’re a Starlink owner, you better shake off some of those old habits if you want to protect your $200-$350+ investment(you can’t even sell the kit afterwards if you’re banned). The good thing is more free content is becoming available the internet, whether directly or through a good old VPN. Use switch to US YouTube with a VPN for example and classic movies like terminator 2 become officially available for free. YouTube and Spotify are also amazing gateways for free music, even if ads get in the way. There are also free streaming services like Tubi or Apple TV+ (if you have a student account) that can be accessed through a little legal trickery as well, so you don’t have to use Starlink just for social media and work. And if you own a Starlink installation for a school, internet Cafe where other people might connect and perform pirate activities, you may need to invest in putting up a firewall or using the modems software to block certain websites or connections to torrents. This may not be full proof but it goes a long way toward unwanted activity on your internet connection , and honestly that’s the biggest goal here: not getting anyone banned.

And well, hopefully that’s enough for most of you to protect your Starlink installations from piracy. It’s and odd shift some, but hopefully it still brings the improvements to your life that you thought it would. We’ll be adding more tips on free ways to enjoy the web too so if you want to make the most out of your unlimited internet for (legal) entertainment, keep checking in for more articles. Until then, stay off turbulent(pirated) seas my friends.

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