Government Internet Shutdowns Cost $8 Billion in 2019

This Global Cost of Internet Shutdowns annual report identifies the total economic impact of every major internet blackout and social media shutdown around the world in 2019.

We collated every national and region-wide incident, determined the duration of the restrictions and used the COST tool to calculate their economic impact.

This tool, developed by internet monitoring NGO Netblocks, uses indicators from the World Bank, ITU, Eurostat and US Census.

We calculated over 19,000 hours of internet shutdowns around the world in 2019 to have cost the global economy $8.07 billion. This represents a 235% increase in impact compared to $2.4 billion in 2015/16, according to the most recently available analysis.

Jump straight to economic impact data by region and by country.

We also found that there were more internet shutdowns in 2019 than ever before. We included in this report 134 major incidents, ie that were national or region-wide in their impact, that took place during the last 12 months.

However once you include the 90-plus smaller blackouts in India^[1] plus other localized and partial restrictions, it’s clear that the previous year’s record total of 196 documented shutdowns has been surpassed.^[2]

What is an internet shutdown?

“An internet shutdown is an intentional disruption of internet or electronic communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable, for a specific population or within a location, often to exert control over the flow of information.” – Access Now^[3]

In this report, we have included social media shutdowns and internet blackouts in our calculations. These types of internet disruption are defined as follows:

• Internet blackouts: where access to the internet is completely cut off. This extreme measure cannot be directly circumvented.
• Social media shutdowns: where access to popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter or YouTube have been blocked. These can typically be circumvented using a VPN service.

In economic terms, disruptions not only affect the formal economy but also the informal, especially in less well-developed nations. There can also be lasting damage with the loss of investor confidence and faltering development, all of which makes our estimates conservative.

See all of our Cost of Internet Shutdowns research

The following data table shows the economic cost of all major internet Internet Shutdowns in 2019 by country where the internet outages occurred. Ranking is highest to lowest economic impact, measured in USD.

Click on the country name links to jump to background information about the individual incidents of internet disruption.

[1] Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh only. Back to top of table.

[2] 338 hours of specified internet outage duration applied to Papua region only. Back to top of table.

[3] Internet outage duration/cost figures refer to 2019 impact only and do not take into consideration preceding months of restrictions over 2018. Back to top of table.

The following table shows the total duration of social media shutdowns by platform in 2019. Note the majority of these disruptions took place concurrently.

Donut chart showing which social media platforms were blocked for the longest time in 2019

The following sections of the report examine the circumstances around each instance of governments cutting or restricting internet access.

We have looked at each country individually and broken out the duration of each type of internet outage. Countries are ordered and grouped according to the total economic impact of their government’s internet restrictions over the course of 2019.

Use the following links to jump straight to the relevant country-by-country section:

• Internet shutdowns costing over $1 billion
• Internet shutdowns costing $100 million-$1 billion
• Internet shutdowns costing $25-$100 million
• Internet shutdowns costing $1-$10 million

Countries with Internet Shutdown Costs Over $1 Billion

Iraq

• Internet blackouts: 325 hours
• Social media shutdowns: 862 hours
• Total cost of internet outages: $2.3 billion

The most significant internet blackouts were in October amid anti-government protests. The internet outages formed part of a harsh government clampdown.^[4][5]

“In cutting communication links, authorities hoped to curtail the demonstrators’ ability to organize.” – The Guardian^[6]

The government also cut internet access in June and September to prevent cheating in national exams.

Sudan

• Internet blackouts: 864 hours
• Social media shutdowns: 696 hours
• Total cost of internet outages: $1.9 billion

January- February: A 68-day social media shutdown that began in December 2018 (NB: we’re only counting financial loss from Jan 1 2019) was implemented after protests broke out across the country calling on Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power for thirty years, to step down.^[7]

“Since December, internet users in Sudan have resorted to VPN circumvention tools to remain connected to social platforms.” – Netblocks^[8]

April: The government blocked access to social media once more as demonstrations increased in intensity. The internet restrictions tried – and failed – to stop the circulation of social media posts like the tweet below, which was retweeted almost 60,000 times, becoming iconic in the process.

Taken by me@lana_hago#8aprile pic.twitter.com/o7pDUsQg84

— Lana H. Haroun (@lana_hago) April 8, 2019

Social media access was restored after al-Bashir finally declared that he would step down.

June – July: Authorities imposed another internet outage, only restoring internet access once protests ended at the beginning of August.^[9]

India

Specific regions only

• Internet blackouts: 4,196 hours
• Social media shutdowns: N/A
• Total cost of internet outages: $1.3 billion

The Indian government imposes internet restrictions more often than anyone else, with over 100 deliberate internet shutdowns documented in 2019.

Many of these internet outages were highly-targeted, even down to the level of blacking out internet access in individual city districts for a few hours while authorities try to restore order. We excluded many of these incidents from this report, which instead focuses on larger, region-wide and national shutdowns.

The full economic impact of internet shutdowns in India is therefore likely to be higher even than our $1.3 billion figure.

The most significant internet outages have been in the turbulent Kashmir region, where after intermittent internet shutdowns in the first half of 2019, internet access has been blocked since August.^[10]

“The [Kashmir] shutdown is now the longest ever imposed in a democracy.” – The Washington Post^[11]

Elsewhere the government cut internet access in many districts of Uttar Pradesh in December, along with the nearby regions of Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya,^[12][13] due to unrest resulting from another change to Indian law, seen as anti-Muslim in intent.

The other major internet outage, in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, and also in the Rajashthan region, also had its root in religious tensions.^[14][15]

Venezuela

• Internet blackouts: 60 hours
• Social media shutdowns: 111 hours
• Total cost of internet outages: $1.1 billion

The Venezuelan government responded with rolling internet restrictions when the nation was plunged into constitutional crisis in January.^[16][17]

The government’s internet outages were highly strategic. Social media blocks were frequent, short and highly-targeted with the aim of preventing live streams of self-declared interim president Juan Guaidó from being widely shared. YouTube was the most heavily targeted platform, often being blocked for just an hour at a time.

Cantv, the country’s largest telecom firm, is a state-owned operator, which made it easier to implement nationwide internet shutdowns.

Several nationwide electricity blackouts also prevented internet access during the crisis, ^[18] however these were excluded from our data as they were not deliberate internet outages.

Notably, the government blocked access to Wikipedia in January, following an “edit war” over the legitimate president.^[19]

Countries with Internet Shutdown Costs of $100 million – $1 billion

Iran

• Internet blackouts: 240 hours
• Social media shutdowns: N/A
• Total cost of internet outages: $611.7 million

Iranian authorities cut internet access in November following widespread protests in response to fuel prices.^[20]

It took at least 24 hours for the internet shutdown to take full effect, due to the large number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) active in the country.

There was a further 24-hour shutdown in December due to anti-government protests.^[21]

Notably, Iran has also been developing its own intranet, the National Information Network, for several years, in similar fashion to Russia’s RUnet.^[22]

Algeria

• Internet blackouts: 47 hours
• Social media shutdowns: 3 hours
• Total cost of internet outages: $199.8 million

June: The Algerians government cut internet access while students were sitting exams.^[23] This was the third year in a row that such harsh, sweeping measures were imposed to prevent cheating.

August: The government blocked Youtube for three hours following the publication of a video by an ex-Algerian minister calling for the public to oust military leader Ahmed Gaid Salah.^[24]

September: A 36-hour internet blackout was imposed at the same time as the announcement of presidential elections to be held in December 2019.^[25]

Indonesia

• Internet blackouts: 338 hours
• Social media shutdowns: 78 hours
• Total cost of internet outages: $187.7 million

National: The 78-hour social media shutdown was implemented following riots in Jakarta in May after presidential election results were announced.^[26]

Papua: Indonesia’s major internet blackouts were confined to the Papua region, where there were two separate shutdowns following civil unrest.^[27] While one was very short, the other lasted two weeks.

Chad

• Internet blackouts: N/A
• Social media shutdowns: 4,728 hours
• Total cost of internet outages: $125.9 million

Chad endured the longest social media shutdown in the world; starting in March 2018 ending in July 2019.

The situation was so severe that Internet Without Borders was forced to intervene and campaign to provide VPN and data access to human rights defenders in the country (full disclosure: Top10VPN.com was a major donor).

Social media restrictions began after the country’s parliament recommended a constitutional change that would allow President Idriss Déby to stay in power until 2033.

Note that the economic impact of this record internet shutdown was greatly limited by the fact that only 6.5% of the population had access to the internet.^[28]

Countries with Internet Shutdown Costs of $25-100 million

Sri Lanka

• Internet blackouts: N/A
• Social media shutdowns: 337 hours
• Total cost of internet outages: $83.9 million

The Sri Lankan government blocked access to social media under the guise of preventing the spread of misinformation following the Easter Sunday attacks.^[29]

VPN usage rocketed dramatically during the internet disruptions, as Sri Lankans depend particularly heavily on Facebook and WhatsApp for communication.^[30]

Myanmar

• Internet blackouts: 4,632 hours
• Social media shutdowns: N/A
• Total cost of internet outages: $75.2 million

The Myanmar government blocked internet access in nine townships in the Rakhine and Chin regions in June 2019. Internet access was restored in five of the townships in September but the internet outages are ongoing in the other four.^[31]

DRC

• Internet blackouts: 456 hours
• Social media shutdowns: N/A
• Total cost of internet outages: $61.2 million

Internet access, along with SMS, was cut completely for 20 days in the Democratic Republic of Congo following elections.^[32]

Ethiopia

• Internet blackouts: 274 hours
• Social media shutdowns: 72 hours
• Total cost of internet outages: $56.8 million

The Ethiopian government imposed a series of internet and social media blackouts over the month of June.^[33]

There was no official comment explaining the internet outages, which were imposed during nationwide exam period. While there was speculation that the internet restrictions were intended to prevent cheating, access remained blocked during weekend periods when there were no exams being held.^[34]

There were also an internet outage imposed later in the month which followed an attempted coup in the Amhara region, which lasted for over 100 hours.^[35]

Zimbabwe

• Internet blackouts: 144 hours
• Social media shutdowns: N/A
• Total cost of internet outages: $34.5 million

The Zimbabwe government cut internet access for a week as it tried to quell unrest over rising fuel prices in January 2019. Mobile VPN downloads surged 250% in 2019 as a result.

Countries with Internet Shutdown Costs Under $25 million

The internet was shut down completely in Syria 12 times between June and August in order to prevent cheating during the exam period, continuing a trend started in 2016.

Authorities cut internet access in Mauritania in late June, following disputed presidential elections.^[36]

Internet access was blocked in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir in September^[37] in response to protests over India’s controversial decision to strip autonomy from the parts of Kashmir under its jurisdiction.^[38]

Egypt continued to heavily censor opposition and news websites throughout 2019.^[39][40] However, the only internet disruption that qualified as an internet shutdown for this report was when Egyptian authorities blocked Facebook Messenger amid protests in September.^[41]

Kazakhstan blocked internet access on its national election day in May after several months of political discontent.^[42]

An internet shutdown was imposed in Bénin in April while citizens cast their votes in national elections.^[43]

The Gabon government enforced an internet blackout for over a day in early January as authorities put down an attempted coup.^[44]

Eritrea, the most censored country in the world in 2019, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists watchdog, strictly controls all internet access within its borders.^[45] Even this limited internet access was revoked in May in the lead up to its Independence Day to prevent potential protestors from organizing online.^[46]

Liberia implemented its first-ever social media shutdown in June as a “security measure” in response to a major planned protest.

We reviewed every documented internet blackout and social media shutdown globally in 2019. The inclusion criteria for an internet shutdown was based on the totality of the cut at the national or regional scale. For the purposes of this research, internet outages due to natural disasters or infrastructural failures were not included, nor were outage days prior to 2019 for ongoing incidents.

Internet shutdown nature, duration and severity was sourced primarily from Netblocks real-time graphic data and reports, and the SFLC.IN Internet Shutdown Tracker. Additional open-sourced information used came from Access Now and reputable news reports.

Internet shutdown costs were derived from the Netblocks Cost of Shutdown Tool based on the Brookings Institution method. Regional internet outage costs were calculated by determining the region’s economic output as a proportion of national GDP.

Regional internet shutdown costs were calculated as a proportion of national costs, based on a region’s economic contribution to national GDP. In the case of Myanmar, where official regional GDP data was not available, costs were based on the internet users in the affected area as a proportion of total internet users.

Internet user data sourced from the World Bank and government reports.

Download the 2019 cost of internet shutdowns data sheet as a Google Sheet or as a PDF.

Additional research by Christine O’Donnell

^{[1] https://internetshutdowns.in/ ↩}

^{[2] https://www.accessnow.org/the-state-of-internet-shutdowns-in-2018/ ↩}

^{[3] https://www.accessnow.org/keepiton/ ↩}

^{[4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50225055 ↩}

^{[5] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-protests-baghdad-internet-blackout-curfew-a9141686.html ↩}

^{[6] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/03/internet-down-across-iraq-third-day-protests ↩}

^{[7] https://qz.com/africa/1589356/sudan-protests-cuts-off-electricity-social-media-shutdown/ ↩}

^{[8] https://netblocks.org/reports/social-media-access-restored-across-sudan-noy9dnB3 ↩}

^{[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/world/africa/sudan-war-facts-history.html ↩}

^{[10] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/145-days-of-internet-shutdown-in-kashmir-no-word-on-service-restoration/articleshow/72996839.cms ↩}

^{[11] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indias-internet-shutdown-in-kashmir-is-now-the-longest-ever-in-a-democracy/2019/12/15/bb0693ea-1dfc-11ea-977a-15a6710ed6da_story.html ↩}

^{[12] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/internet-services-snapped-21-up-districts-dgp-op-singh-1631890-2019-12-27 ↩}

^{[13] https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/amid-anti-citizenship-bill-protests-internet-shutdown-in-tripura-arunachal/story-jqR4jxiJexKbKIivV6XZBP.html ↩}

^{[14] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-50065277 ↩}

^{[15] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/mobile-internet-services-rajasthan-ayodhya-verdict-1617655-2019-11-10 ↩}

^{[16] https://slate.com/technology/2019/01/venezuela-internet-shutdown-censorship-filtering-protests.html ↩}

^{[17] https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/20/americas/venezuela-elections/index.html ↩}

^{[18] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49079175 ↩}

^{[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_of_Wikipedia_in_Venezuela ↩}

^{[20] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50444429 ↩}

^{[21] https://netblocks.org/reports/partial-internet-disruption-registered-in-iran-oAvqX18Y ↩}

^{[22] https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-says-its-intranet-almost-ready-to-shield-country-from-harmful-internet/29952836.html ↩}

^{[23] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/algeria-block-internet-access-during-school-exams ↩}

^{[24] https://netblocks.org/reports/algeria-blocks-youtube-and-google-services-after-publication-of-political-video-W80ZajBK ↩}

^{[25] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/algeria-hold-presidential-election-december-12-gov-190916052258146.html ↩}

^{[26] https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/indonesia-restricts-whatsapp-and-instagram/ ↩}

^{[27] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/indonesia-restores-internet-access-parts-west-papua-190905040815981.html ↩}

^{[28] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/17/africa/chad-restores-internet-intl/index.html ↩}

^{[29] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48022530 ↩}

^{[30] https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/sri-lanka-easter-bombings-investigation-intl/h_47794a389b04c86b2fc7edf2ec753d39 ↩}

^{[31] https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/06/28/myanmar-internet-shutdown-risks-lives ↩}

^{[32] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/dr-congo-internet-restored-20-day-suspension-elections-190120062941741.html ↩}

^{[33] https://qz.com/africa/1646789/ethiopia-tech-startups-hurt-by-social-media-block-internet-shutdown/ ↩}

^{[34] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-48653392 ↩}

^{[35] https://www.voanews.com/africa/internet-restored-ethiopia-10-days-after-assassinations ↩}

^{[36] https://rsf.org/en/news/mauritania-still-violating-press-freedom-after-restoring-internet ↩}

^{[37] https://netblocks.org/reports/pakistan-shuts-down-internet-in-kashmir-restricts-access-in-punjab-and-beyond-3Anw7dB2 ↩}

^{[38] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-49234708 ↩}

^{[39] https://netblocks.org/reports/egypt-filters-34000-domains-in-bid-to-block-opposition-campaign-platform-7eA1blBp ↩}

^{[40] https://cpj.org/blog/2019/05/egypt-tests-new-censorship-law-with-handling-of-al.php ↩}

^{[41] https://netblocks.org/reports/facebook-messenger-social-media-and-news-sites-disrupted-in-egypt-amid-protests-eA1Jd7Bp ↩}

^{[42] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-48187353 ↩}

^{[43] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/04/benin-internet-shutdown-on-election-day-is-a-blunt-attack/ ↩}

^{[44] https://cpj.org/2019/01/gabon-shuts-down-the-internet-and-broadcasting-ser.php ↩}

^{[45] https://cpj.org/reports/2019/09/10-most-censored-eritrea-north-korea-turkmenistan-journalist.php ↩}

^{[46] https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/africa/Social-media-shut-in-Eritrea/4552902-5117462-10haojg/index.html ↩}

Updated Jan 21 2022 to adjust total shutdown duration hours throughout after a small number of data formatting anomalies were discovered in the underlying data.