Government-mandated internet shutdowns cumulatively cost economies more than US$7.6 billion in 2024, with the longest shutdowns happening in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, according to a report by independent VPN review platform Top10VPN.
- With 22.7 million internet users being affected, Kenya lost US$75 million and 511 hours in 2024, mainly during the Telegram outage in November, compared to US$27 million and 192 hours lost in 2023.
- Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa experienced the longest duration of government-sanctioned outages; respectively losing US$4.64 billion and US$1.56 billion.
- The internet shutdowns were mainly driven by civil conflicts, the need to control information, elections, and widespread protests.
“This kind of deliberate outage is internet censorship in its most extreme form. Not only do they infringe on citizens’ digital rights but they are also catastrophic acts of national economic self-sabotage,” the report highlights.
The most common forms of internet interference include full-blown blackouts, social media shutdowns, and throttling of speeds.
In June last year during the Anti-Finance Bill protests, internet users accused the government of forcing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to reduce network speeds. According to Top10VPN, the seven-hour internet shutdown on June 25th cost the country US$4.08mn.
Although the government and major ISPs denied this claim and instead blamed it on ‘outages in undersea cables’, netizens believed that such an action was taken to censor communication amidst suspected human rights violations by organs of state. The Kenyan civil society also reported that the regime contemplated a full shutdown of internet, live coverage by mainstream media, and shadow banning popular hashtags.
The events following the protests further soured relations between many Kenyans and Safaricom PLC, the country’s largest telco. Satellite internet company Starlink gained significant uptake in the country during this period.
In late October, the government directed telcos to throttle popular messaging platform Telegram claiming it was “being misused to perpetuate criminal activities, including compromising on the integrity of the ongoing national examinations.” The three-week shutdown cost the country US$70.937mn.
States vs Internet
Other governments blocked specific social media networks considered to be ‘agoras’ of political activism. X (formerly Twitter) had the highest duration of shutdowns with over 20,000 hours. It was followed by TikTok with 8,115 hours, Signal 2,880 hours, and Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) with around 2,000 hours each.
“While the cost of internet shutdowns may have dropped by 15.8% in 2024 compared to last year, there were more hours of deliberate internet disruption than ever before. The duration of internet shutdowns was up 12% in 2024 compared to 2023. This was the highest number of hours in a single year to date,” the report said.
