Observing Internet Outages in Ethopia
Over the past week, Ethopia has experienced widespread Internet shut-down.
According to some sources, the government has taken this radical step to prevent students from cheating in the national exam. Nationwide Internet shut-downs have been used by other African nations, such as Algeria and Somalia, to counter student cheating during exam period.
The IP-Observatory is monitoring the situation in real-time.
So far, we measured three outages: 4hrs, 12hrs, and now 39hrs .
The total connectivity time lost so far: 55hrs (2.3 days)
We continue our measuring efforts and keep you posted.
However, the timing of the shut-down, during national innovation week and one day after a major ICT conference, has led to some critique on social media.
Ethiopia has only one major Internet Service Provider, which is basically controlled by the government. This makes it relatively easy for the government to restrict access and shut-down the Internet.
Past events have shown, that government does not only interfere with the Internet to upheld academic integrity but also to undermine the free flow of information.
