researchers say. It’s the digital equivalent of
seizing control of the local TV and radio station
that was part of the pre-internet playbook for
despots and rebels.
“Internet shutdowns have been massively
underreported or misreported over the years,”
said Alp Toker, founder of internet monitoring
organization Netblocks. The world is “starting
to realize what’s happening,” as documenting
efforts like his expand, he said.
Last year there were 93 major internet
shutdowns in 21 countries, according to a report
by Top10VPN, a U.K.-based digital privacy and
security research group. The list doesn’t include
places like China and North Korea, where
the government tightly controls or restricts
the internet. Shutdowns can range from all-
encompassing internet blackouts to blocking
social media platforms or severely throttling
internet speeds, the report said.
Internet cuts have political, economic, and
humanitarian costs, experts warned. The effects
are exacerbated by COVID-19 lockdowns that
are forcing activities like school classes online.
The shutdowns highlight a wider battle over
control of the internet. In the West, efforts
to rein in social media platforms have raised
competing concerns about restricting free
speech and limiting harmful information, the
latter sometimes used by authoritarian regimes
to justify clampdowns.
In Myanmar, internet access was cut for about 24
hours last weekend, in an apparent bid to head
off protests against the army’s seizing of power
and the detention of leader Aung San Suu Kyi
and her allies. By Sunday afternoon, internet