Pakistan Suffered The Most Losses Via Govt Internet Shutdowns: Report

A new report from Top10VPN reveals the staggering economic impact of government-imposed internet shutdowns in 2024, with global losses reaching $7.69 billion. Pakistan emerged as the hardest-hit nation, shouldering losses of $1.62 billion, while Myanmar and Sudan followed closely behind with damages of $1.58 billion and $1.12 billion respectively.

Governments persistently resort to internet blackouts as a means of control. From managing civil unrest and political protests to overseeing elections and preventing exam cheating, these digital disruptions have become an increasingly common tool of state power, wreaking havoc on civil liberties and economic stability.

Though 2024’s financial toll was significant, it fell short of the record-breaking figures in previous years. The economic impact in 2022 reached an unprecedented $24.61 billion, while 2023 saw losses of $9.01 billion. Despite the comparative decrease, experts note that 2024 still set several concerning precedents in terms of shutdown frequency and duration.

This is because, in 2024, a record-breaking 28 nations implemented digital blackouts. These disruptions amounted to 167 major outages, affecting 648.4 million people worldwide. Most notably, the cumulative duration of these shutdowns stretched to 88,788 hours, marking a 12% increase from the previous year and setting a new record for the longest period of disruptions ever documented.

Interestingly, despite the overall surge in internet restrictions, social media blockades showed a downward trend compared to prior years.

Simon Migliano, Head of Research at Top10VPN, said in an interview with TechRadar:

This was probably due to disruptions like Pakistan’s shutdown of X generating a lot of attention, whereas the long-running internet blackouts in regional Myanmar and Azerbaijan fell off the agenda after a while.