Year after year, governments around the world resort to internet shutdowns for reasons such as protests or conflicts, elections, and even national exams. These incidents not only infringe on people’s digital rights, but also take a considerable toll on the country’s economy.
Cost of Internet Blackouts 2020-2024
2024: 167 Internet outages in 28 countries that lasted 88,788 hours and cost 7.69 billion dollars. Pakistan was the worst affected nation.
2023: 196 Internet outages in 25 countries that lasted 79,238 hours and cost 9,010 million dollars. Russia was the most affected nation.
2022: 114 Internet outages in 23 countries that lasted 50,095 hours and cost 24.61 billion dollars. Russia was the most affected nation.
2021: 50 Internet outages in 21 countries that lasted 30,179 hours and cost 5.45 billion dollars. Myanmar was the worst affected nation.
2020: 93 Internet outages in 21 countries that lasted 27,165 hours cost $4.01 billion. India was the worst affected nation.
According to the latest data from Top10VPN, government-imposed internet shutdowns cost $7.69 billion in 2024. Pakistan was the worst-affected nation ($1.62 billion), followed by Myanmar ($1.58 billion) and Sudan ($1.12 billion). of dollars).
While 2024 wasn’t the most expensive year to date (2022 and 2023 cost $24.61 and $9.01 respectively), it did manage to break some (negative) records.
2024 was the year with the highest number of countries affected. Citizens in 28 countries suffered 167 self-imposed major Internet outages, affecting 648.4 million people. Internet outages were also the longest ever recorded: 88,788 hours, a 12% increase from 2023. Despite being widespread, social media outages decreased overall in 2024 compared to previous years.
This last finding was especially surprising, according to Simon Migliano, head of research at Top10VPN. He told TechRadar: “This was probably due to disruptions like the shutdown of
Internet shutdowns are the most extreme form of Internet censorship, as even the best VPN apps cannot help citizens bypass restrictions. They occur when a government decides to completely cut off the Internet in the country.
These incidents can be limited to specific areas (this is what has often happened in India, where regions such as Jammu, Kashmir, Manipur and Punjab have been affected in the past) and target only mobile or fixed connections or the entire infrastructure.
Every year, various motivations push governments around the world to disconnect the Internet despite the economic repercussions. Experts found that in 2024 civil conflict was one of the main reasons: restrictions imposed by governments, undoubtedly the one that had the greatest economic impact.
Iraq again suffered the highest number of internet outages last year, with 61 incidents. All of these were triggered by school exams. However, as mentioned above, Pakistan suffered the biggest economic impact following internet and social media shutdowns linked to elections and anti-government protests. Similarly, internet outages in Myanmar and Sudan were all related to the conflict.
Citizens can use a virtual private network (VPN) or similar circumvention tool to bypass government-imposed social media blocks. This security software masks the real location of users’ IP address to make it look like they are browsing from different countries with just a few clicks.
This is exactly why VPN usage has skyrocketed globally in 2024. Throughout the year, Proton VPN documented spikes in subscriptions in at least 15 countries.
X (formerly Twitter) was the most blocked social media platform in 2024 due to the prolonged block imposed in Pakistan (where the platform has been blocked since February), Myanmar and Venezuela.
TikTok did the same. Experts found that the TikTok shutdown in Kyrgyzstan, implemented in April (and still ongoing), is the main cause, accounting for the majority of the 8,115 hours of blocks on the platform. “Shorter but still significant blocks” are also found in Senegal and New Caledonia. The latter was especially relevant since it was the first time that a Western democracy (France) imposed such a restriction on the Internet.
