Governments Shut Down the Internet More Often Than Ever, Report Says 27
More countries shut down the internet in 2022 than ever before, according to a new report by digital rights researchers, as the threat of "digital authoritarianism" races up the agenda of many governments worldwide. From a report: Authorities in 35 countries instituted internet shutdowns at least 187 times, according to the New York-based digital rights watchdog Access Now. Nearly half of these shutdowns occurred in India, and if that nation is excluded, 2022 saw the most number of shutdowns globally since the group began monitoring disruptions in 2016. Access Now relied on technical assessments as well as news articles and personal accounts to compile its report, which spans complete blackouts, suspensions of specific phone networks or social media apps, and the slowing down of internet speeds.
Triggers for shutdowns have included large protests, conflict situations, elections and even examinations. Whatever the situation, they make it substantially more difficult for people to communicate and receive or send news, and they incur significant economic costs, which prompted the United Nations last year to call for governments to avoid using such a blunt tactic. "This can be a big warning sign of how the human rights situation is deteriorating, and shutdowns are often associated with increased levels of insecurity and other restrictions," said Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman at the U.N. Human Rights Office in Geneva. India is the most prolific at suspending the internet, topping Access Now's list for the fifth year in a row.
Triggers for shutdowns have included large protests, conflict situations, elections and even examinations. Whatever the situation, they make it substantially more difficult for people to communicate and receive or send news, and they incur significant economic costs, which prompted the United Nations last year to call for governments to avoid using such a blunt tactic. "This can be a big warning sign of how the human rights situation is deteriorating, and shutdowns are often associated with increased levels of insecurity and other restrictions," said Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman at the U.N. Human Rights Office in Geneva. India is the most prolific at suspending the internet, topping Access Now's list for the fifth year in a row.
News until they don't like it... (Score:1)
Notice what has happened to American news...
-CNN Headline News has become HLN True Crime channel, casting away its last anchor in exchange for running the same morning show as the main channel.
-Dateline NBC has expanding to channels all over the dial including some channels NBC doesn't own under the name Dateline, but the show is no longer about famous romantic dating, it's about tear-jerking crime.
-Oxygen just to be a woman's rights channel, from Oprah and Jessica Corbin. Now the bug reads "Oxygen, True Cr
Re: (Score:2)
I liked CNN HLN back in the day when it was just highlights of the news repeated on an hourly basis.
When Tech TV was a channel about "all topics tech" I found it interesting at times, even useful on occasion.
I never watched Dateline NBC, which used to be about NBC investigators entraping people into crimes, or Oxygen.
I remember The Weather Channel being a go-to place for weather info. Now it's almost disappeared from cable.
I am certain there are other channel that were once valuable but are now useless.
It i
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I never understood the change in headline news. It was good for catching up on the important news in 5 to 10 minutes. Then it added talking head shows, and bad talking head shows by deranged people. Then the half hour of "entertainment" news being fitted in during the day. Now it's not worth even flipping to it (for those few still on cable).
Re: (Score:2)
CNN (Clearly Not News /s), admitted they were entertainment:
Jeff Zucker, former president of CNN: The idea that politics is sport is undeniable, and we understand and approached it that way. -- interview to New York Times Magazine, April 2017
Mainstream media (MSM) is a joke, while the comedians tell the actual news.
allsides [allsides.com] shows a balanced perspective and reports on media bias [allsides.com].
Re: (Score:3)
I don't recall Dateline, ever really being about dating, but it used to be more news-oriented, perhaps with some celebrity stories creeping in?
You forgot:
-Sci-Fi channel, which changed to SyFy and eventually had only programming as awful as the new name.
-The Learning Channel, which changed to TLC, and then dropped pretty much any programming you could learn from.
-Music Television (MTV), which used to have music.
-The main channels for CNN and Fox News, which started as bad ideas, and still are, since there i
China (Score:3)
I wonder how well this research looks at China. I mean yes India is pretty bad but I personally think China set the example first. It doesn't need to shut down the internet because it's already heavily filtered.
I'm a bit torn on this issue... that there needs to be some balance especially for large platforms. Some twat on slashdot wants to post about p0sitive white nationalism daily, the impact is minimal. I think "darker corners" of the internet should exist but pushed back from the larger soap boxes. Too many idiots these days to eat the dog food. However, the opposite solution seems to be the heavy hand of true censorship. I say true censorship because Trump getting kicked off Twitter isn't censorship, it's telling him to take his ball and play some where else which has always been the right of "owners". But China does play a different way and India Funny enough is becoming like it's opposition. Not really a new story.
They shut down the Internet? (Score:2)
That's impressive. It's even more impressive that the shutdown hasn't impacted my work (or my time spent on Slashdot).
They shut down Captain Obvious (Score:1)
Dictators are dicks, who knew?
Read up on what happened in Egypt (Score:5, Insightful)
The events of 2011 Egypt are an interesting case-study. Unrest for a month, the government decides to cut off the internet and, 3 days later, it falls.
What happened was that most people were just upvoting, liking and sharing posts about the revolution. But when the internet was cut, the only option they had left was to actually go out.
The "old" censorship ways of just cutting the flow of information, 1984 style, are relics of the past. What we will be witnessing more and more of is a flood of information and fake info, Brave New World style. People won't even try to discern what's real and what's fake when they have to choose between what pleases them and what doesn't. And the truth often doesn't.
The result of too much security (Score:5, Insightful)
The more the internet's protocols shut out governments from intruding, the more governments are forced to use harsher methods to crack down on people. Just making a connection hard to inspect doesn't mean the government just _gives up_. It will simply use more draconian methods to achieve its aims.
Re: (Score:2)
The tactic seems to be a wire cut... basic Level 1 failure.
Re: Famous Last Words (Score:2)
That quote was about Usenet not the internet as a whole.
Re: Famous Last Words (Score:2)
Just use StarLink during a blackout. Make a pretty penny and sell access to your neighbor in the form of being a WISP. Stay small and out of govt control.
Free Internet? (Score:1)
When most of us joined the internet, it was for freedom of speech, sharing information and self educating.
I'd argue that freedom of speech is under attack just about everywhere, sharing information is all scanned and logged everywhere, and the majority of internet usage isn't about getting smarter.
Corporations and governments drive a large amount of the rhetoric on the internet and amplify the sensational to no ones benefit.
I'm not sure its totally outrageous to remove the internet. You may hurt 1%, while
Re: (Score:1)
when it was just me and people like me it was fine but now everyone is here and i don't like them so make it go away
Triggers for shutdowns have included .. (Score:2)
Fill the furnace, quick! (Score:2)
Hurry up and shovel more and more books in! Or else people will think we are not on the up and up.
It's what governments do, isn't it? (Score:2)
Ban stuff, steal from you, and generally stand in the way of progress. People seem to have forgotten now, but they shut down a whole lot more than just the internet in 2020, and the sheep seemed ok with it.
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Hey, the Internet was designed to survive medium risks like nuclear war, not extreme risks like governments.
They're just shooting themselves in the foot. (Score:2)
India? (Score:2)
Half the shutdowns are in a single country? India?
Why?