Internet shutdowns that take place around the globe come with a shocking cost.
Each year, you might be appalled to learn how the effect on the economy is mind-blowing. We’re talking about a loss comprising billions of dollars.
Thanks to researchers at Top 10 VPN, we’re being made aware of what the consequences of such behavior have been over the years. And it's all due to their state-of-the-art internet shutdown tracking device.
When we look at the impact that has occurred during the period 2019 to 2022, you’ll be amazed to learn how 52 different nations were affected in different intensities. And the major shutdowns go up to 333.
The total cost is a loss of $35 billion when we look at all the outages that have taken place. This year alone, around 68 outages have occurred and 21 nations have been involved. Interestingly, the year is far from over. And there are no surprises to guess which nation was affected the most. It’s Russia of course who preferred a total blackout to censor many things that were related to the war as propaganda took center stage.
In 2021, there were about 50 internet shutdowns and Myanmar was the most severely affected nation of them all. India and Nigeria closely followed up in that regard.
Then in 2020, we saw a huge shutdown of 93 shutdowns in around 21 countries. Here, India was massively affected, followed by the likes of Yemen and Belarus. Finally, in 2019, around 134 internet outages occurred and 22 nations were affected. Iraq was adversely affected as were India and Sudan.
The index used to calculate such findings tracked how the outage affected the economy and the world of social media as a whole. There was a complete shutdown and the intentional disruption really took the form of the most severe internet censorship out there. In the end, we saw how such effects infringed the digital rights of the common man and provided harm to the economy.
As far as how the costs of such outages were calculated are concerned, well, it had to do with a huge monitoring task taking place at both the national level and a regional level. These were put out by different governments of different nations.
The duration of such shutdowns and the extent to which restrictions were placed had been calculated with a tool called COST that’s used for the purpose. In terms of what was included, well, we had the likes of internet blackouts, social media shutdowns, and even ISP throttling.
In simpler terms, internet blackouts occurred when internet access was removed as a whole by government officials. Then the social media shutdown was linked to the removal of all popular apps like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. And extreme throttling had to do with the internet speeds getting reduced to just 2G. That means only SMS and phone calls may be used for communication.
The authors also explained the reason for such studies as a way to raise awareness of the harmful effects of such behavior. They felt it was time the world knew the reality of how much damage such actions may have.
In 2022, Russia’s Kremlin blocked complete access to social media after the country’s army invaded Ukraine. And soon, this ban was official. So many sites that were putting out accurate data about the war had been blocked. This resulted in the huge demand for VPNs and till now, is how much people in Russian and Ukraine are benefitting from internet access.
Then we saw the likes of Kazakhistan also have its fair share of outages due to violence carried out against the government’s rulings. And Iran suffered from a similar scenario as many protested against the country’s morality police and the forceful wearing of the hijab for women.
Read next: New Study Proves Most Twitter Users Don’t Follow ‘Elite’ Political Accounts
Each year, you might be appalled to learn how the effect on the economy is mind-blowing. We’re talking about a loss comprising billions of dollars.
Thanks to researchers at Top 10 VPN, we’re being made aware of what the consequences of such behavior have been over the years. And it's all due to their state-of-the-art internet shutdown tracking device.
When we look at the impact that has occurred during the period 2019 to 2022, you’ll be amazed to learn how 52 different nations were affected in different intensities. And the major shutdowns go up to 333.
The total cost is a loss of $35 billion when we look at all the outages that have taken place. This year alone, around 68 outages have occurred and 21 nations have been involved. Interestingly, the year is far from over. And there are no surprises to guess which nation was affected the most. It’s Russia of course who preferred a total blackout to censor many things that were related to the war as propaganda took center stage.
In 2021, there were about 50 internet shutdowns and Myanmar was the most severely affected nation of them all. India and Nigeria closely followed up in that regard.
Then in 2020, we saw a huge shutdown of 93 shutdowns in around 21 countries. Here, India was massively affected, followed by the likes of Yemen and Belarus. Finally, in 2019, around 134 internet outages occurred and 22 nations were affected. Iraq was adversely affected as were India and Sudan.
The index used to calculate such findings tracked how the outage affected the economy and the world of social media as a whole. There was a complete shutdown and the intentional disruption really took the form of the most severe internet censorship out there. In the end, we saw how such effects infringed the digital rights of the common man and provided harm to the economy.
As far as how the costs of such outages were calculated are concerned, well, it had to do with a huge monitoring task taking place at both the national level and a regional level. These were put out by different governments of different nations.
The duration of such shutdowns and the extent to which restrictions were placed had been calculated with a tool called COST that’s used for the purpose. In terms of what was included, well, we had the likes of internet blackouts, social media shutdowns, and even ISP throttling.
In simpler terms, internet blackouts occurred when internet access was removed as a whole by government officials. Then the social media shutdown was linked to the removal of all popular apps like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. And extreme throttling had to do with the internet speeds getting reduced to just 2G. That means only SMS and phone calls may be used for communication.
The authors also explained the reason for such studies as a way to raise awareness of the harmful effects of such behavior. They felt it was time the world knew the reality of how much damage such actions may have.
In 2022, Russia’s Kremlin blocked complete access to social media after the country’s army invaded Ukraine. And soon, this ban was official. So many sites that were putting out accurate data about the war had been blocked. This resulted in the huge demand for VPNs and till now, is how much people in Russian and Ukraine are benefitting from internet access.
Then we saw the likes of Kazakhistan also have its fair share of outages due to violence carried out against the government’s rulings. And Iran suffered from a similar scenario as many protested against the country’s morality police and the forceful wearing of the hijab for women.
Read next: New Study Proves Most Twitter Users Don’t Follow ‘Elite’ Political Accounts
