NEW DELHI: Internet outages It cost India $ 2.8 billion, putting the South Asian nation at the top of a list of 21 countries that restricted citizens’ access to the web in 2020.
India, the second most affected country by the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of confirmed infections overall, accounted for around three-quarters of the $ 4 billion lost worldwide to internet restrictions.
Its losses more than doubled compared to 2019, a report by a UK-based digital privacy and security research group showed.
Some countries known for limiting internet access or censoring material such as China and North Korea were not included in the report because the researchers relied on publicly available open source information and documented internet and social media shutdowns.
With 8,927 hours of bandwidth access blocked or restricted, India restricted internet use more than any other nation, as restrictions originally imposed in 2019 continued throughout 2020, according to the Global Cost of Internet Shutdowns report. Internet published by Top10VPN.
Blackout costs
Bandwidth restrictions in Kashmir, where the government revoked in 2019 the special autonomous status of the country’s only Muslim-majority state, affected access to medicines, businesses and schools despite easing a seven-month shutdown in March. , said.
The information and technology ministry did not respond to an email requesting a response to the report’s findings.
The cost of internet blackouts was calculated using group indicators that included world Bank, International Telecommunication Unionand the Software Freedom Law Center, based in Delhi. Include social media closures in your calculations.
Belarus suffered the most economically after India, with $ 336.4 million lost in 218 hours of blackouts and curbs affecting 7.9 million people, amid protests following a controversial presidential election.
During the period of restrictions, the report documented a 650% increase in demand for virtual private networks in Belarus, according to the report.
Myanmar imposed blackouts and reduced bandwidth for 5,160 hours in 2020 amid continued restrictions in the Chin and Rakhine regions, it said. Yemen lost $ 237 million in 912 hours of internet outages.
At 27,165 hours, the major internet outages recorded worldwide in 2020 were 49% higher compared to the previous year and affected 268 million people, according to the report.
About 42% of the closures were associated with additional human rights abuses, including restrictions on freedom of assembly, electoral interference and violations of freedom of the press, it said.
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