After a steep fall in 2020, the number of internet shutdowns grew in 2021 as several countries cut off access for the first time and others grew more aggressive in their use of the tactic.
As the world slowly began to re-open in 2021, the number of documented internet shutdowns rose by nearly 15 percent, according to the latest report from the digital human rights group Access Now. The group documented 182 internet shutdowns — intentional interference with internet-based communications networks by state and quasi-state actors — in 34 countries last year, a return to trend after the number fell in 2020.
And this alarming trend has grown dramatically over the last decade, from just a handful to a peak of 213 shutdowns in 33 countries in 2019. That number declined in 2020 to 159, likely due in significant part to restrictions relating to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that curtailed protests in much of the world. The pace of shutdowns picked up substantially in the second half of the year as COVID restrictions eased. More than 70 percent of internet shutdowns in 2021 took place after we prepared the Internet Shutdowns Issue of the Current in September of last year.
The majority of shutdowns in 2021 took place in South and Southeast Asia, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa, and then the Middle East and North Africa. In Myanmar, 15 internet shutdowns were instituted by the Burmese military, known as the Tatmadaw, following their seizure of power and the disbanding of civil government on February 1, 2021. The use of DNS interference to block Twitter in the country, part of the ongoing effort to disrupt civilian opposition to the coup, affected internet users well outside the country, stretching as far as western India, Access Now reports.
As in prior years, domestic political instability and popular protests were the most common triggers of internet shutdowns. Eswatini, the last kingdom in Africa, cut access to the internet for the first time in its history in response to pro-democracy protests that took place in May of last year.
In addition to the overall rise in internet shutdowns last year, Access Now reports a growing trend of shutdowns becoming much more targeted, increasingly preventing specific regions, cities, neighborhoods, and even individuals from accessing the internet rather than cutting off the entire country. In Cuba — the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean to shut down the internet in 2021 — reports circulated following demonstrations in July that the government had revoked individual SIM cards, targeting activists and journalists.
New regulations that came into effect in Cuba in August not only granted legal authority to the government to shut down communications networks but also to require that network providers bar individual users for a wide array of vaguely defined offenses. The tendency of repressive governments to learn and adopt tactics from each other and the proliferation of SIM card registration laws in recent years, which facilitate these individualized access bans while simultaneously introducing numerous other obstacles to internet access, make it likely that this technique will grow more common in years to come.
Despite the negative trend, the report does contain several bright spots. Historically, internet shutdowns have commonly been ordered around elections, preventing voters from accessing information and interfering with the work of elections observers and journalists. In 2021, Access Now documented seven election-related shutdowns, down from 10 in 2020, and 12 each in 2019 and 2018. Several countries which had previously shut down the internet during major national events, including Benin, The Gambia, and Iraq, remained fully online during their elections in 2021. And in Zambia, the High Court ordered all services be restored just two days after the government instituted a ban on social media and messaging apps on election day.
Human rights activists likewise secured a judicial victory in Sudan, where a judge ordered internet services be restored on November 11, 2021 after they had been cut following the coup on October 25. Telecommunications companies initially resisted the order, only restoring access after the judge authorized an arrest warrant for their executives. In Nigeria, a lawsuit challenging the seven month ban on Twitter that followed the company’s deletion of a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari is awaiting judgment before the ECOWAS Court of Justice, which previously held that an internet shutdown in Togo violated Togolese human rights.
The renewed growth of internet shutdowns presents grave concerns for the protection of basic human rights, and the trend shows little signs of abating. A number of shutdowns have already taken place in 2022, including in Kazakhstan at the very beginning of the year when 95 percent of internet users were kicked offline in response to protests over fuel prices.
The strict controls that Russia has placed on the internet — blocking not only Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, but also Google News, BBC News, NPR, the Bild and Amensty International — following their invasion of Ukraine along with the dissolution of independent media raise acute concerns over the information environment in the country that are only likely to extend and intensify the prosecution of the war. Recognizing the vital importance of preserving access to information for residents of Russia, the Global Network Initiative has called on governments to disavow broad retaliatory measures that could further isolate the Russian internet.
Shutdowns upend local economies, disrupt education, and have devastating effects on personal and public health. You can learn more about internet shutdowns, and what’s being done to curb them, in our report in the Current and on Access Now’s website.
