India No. 1 Offender Position in Global Internet Shutdowns

 Sumendra Tamang

New report on global internet shutdowns puts India into number one offender position with a whopping  116 total internet shutdowns in the country during 2023.

     

Internet shutdowns and platform blockings have been so much frequently used as a means of crushing the voices of the marginalized and targeting the cries of dissent throughout the world. From Europe to Asia to the middle eastern countries, internet shutdowns have been gaining much affinity from the rulers as an apparatus of control. And then misinformation follows. Blocking the information and then spreading misinformation has been the common tactic of every ruling government wherever conflicts, occupation, protests have occurred. The place where I belong from, Darjeeling has seen internet shutdowns for more than two months straight when the cries for self determination and a movement for a separate federal state was on it’s highest during 2017. It is unwarranted and a lot of violent offences are left unnoticed and therefore buried under the diktats of ruling governments. Well India as a country has been tightening its grip upon internet shutdowns since the last decade and the pattern doesn’t seem to stop at any point. Recently a internet shutdown for 212 days was enforced upon the state of Manipur and more than 30 lakh people were directly affected by it. The intention here is to normalise such a tactic as a rule of the law. It is more or less safe to say that internet shutdowns have been used worldwide by different countries and the pattern seems to be exponentially increasing at an increasing rate. And our India leads from the top. Yes, you heard it right.

In 2023, a joint report of Access Now and the #KeepItOn documented 283 internet shutdowns in 39 countries. These are staggering results, marking the highest number of internet shutdown incidents in a single year since they began their monitoring in 2016. This year’s report reflects an additional 82 shutdowns, or a 41% increase, from 2022, when the recorded number was 201 shutdowns in 40 countries. India alone is responsible for 116 shutdowns in 2023, the highest number of shutdown orders worldwide for the sixth consecutive year. Authorities in India continue to use shutdowns as a near-default response to crises, both proactively and reactively. Authorities in India increasingly implemented shutdowns at a regional rather than local level compared with 2021 and 2022 when shutdowns were highly localized, especially in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2023, 64 shutdown orders affected more than one district in the same state, province, or region, driven by 47 shutdowns in Manipur but also including the statewide shutdown in Punjab in March. From May 3 to December 3, 2023, the government of Manipur imposed a statewide shutdown affecting roughly 3.2 million people for 212 days (including a break of only three days) through a series of 44 published shutdown orders. It changed in scope and scale throughout the year, primarily impacting mobile networks but also including a statewide shutdown of broadband and mobile internet lasting two-and-a-half months. The impacts were severe, particularly for women, as the shutdowns made it more difficult to document rampant atrocities, including murder, rape, arson, and other gender-based violence, and thereby hold perpetrators accountable.

 In the state of Punjab, authorities blocked internet access impacting about 27 million people across the state for four continuous days—one of the country’s most extensive blackouts in recent years—as police searched for an alleged separatist on the run. In addition to ongoing nationwide platform blocks, in 2023, people in 13 states experienced local or statewide internet shutdowns, the same total from 2022. Among them, more authorities are repeatedly reaching for the kill switch, with the number of states employing five or more shutdowns in a year increasing from two in 2021 and three in 2022 to seven in 2023. In addition to Manipur and Punjab, authorities in Bihar (12), Haryana (11), West Bengal (6), Maharashtra (5), and Rajasthan (5) imposed shutdowns during protests, religious holidays, and exams. Jammu and Kashmir saw 17 shutdown orders, down from 49 in 2022. Not only were shutdowns implemented at wider geographic scales, but they also lasted longer in 2023. The share of shutdowns in India spanning across five days or more shot up from 15% of shutdowns in 2022 to more than 41% in 2023. When  combined  with nationwide blocking of 14 messaging apps starting in  early  May,  7,502  URL-blocking orders  issued  between January and October 2023, and India’s new telecom law giving the central government nearly unchecked power to impose internet shutdowns, trends in India point not only to a high number of short shutdowns  but  a spectrum of harmful, increasingly  longer, and wider-ranging disruptions shrinking the civic space in the country. Despite clear economic effects, disproportionate impacts on marginalized groups, and the shielding of atrocities, authorities continue to implement shutdowns at all levels across India during protests, exams, elections, and communal violence.

 This data is also a 28% increase from 2019, which was the previous record high with 221 shutdowns. These cases have been monitored closely in 2024, as protest activities continue to rebuild after the COVID-19 outbreak and emerge on new fronts, and elections are underway for nearly half the world’s population. Importantly, conflicts emerged for the first time as the leading driver of internet shutdowns in 2023, and shutdowns intersecting with natural disasters surfaced as a concerning new trend.

Internet shutdown as means of crushing the voices of dissent:

    As people struggle without access to basic amenities, essential platforms and services amid conflict, humanitarian disasters and other moments of upheaval, the impact of internet shutdowns is becoming more and more devastating and increasingly an issue of life and death. More militaries are using shutdowns as part of a deliberate strategy to cut populations off from the world, either as a precursor to atrocities and violence against civilians or as part of a continuous and systematic dismantling of civilian infrastructure. Likewise, the weaponization of internet shutdowns during active conflict has resulted in compounding humanitarian crises. In conflict zones and beyond,2023 is the most violent year of shutdowns on record, with 173 shutdowns corresponding to acts of violence— a 26% increase from 2022.This trend has been increasing at an alarming rate year over year. Authorities continued to give insufficient or ill-defined reasons for implementing shutdowns, such as national security concerns, public safety, or to prevent the spread of misinformation and hate speech, using disruptions either as a disproportionate and ineffective tool for addressing a problem or in obvious efforts to oppress, silence, and control. In the majority of cases, governments took no responsibility and offered no explanation. Out of all our recorded events in 2023, in 93% of cases, the public received no advance notice of an impending shutdown, deepening fear and uncertainty and putting more people in grave danger.

 Conflict was the leading trigger for internet shutdowns for the first time in 2023, with warring parties imposing 74 shutdowns in nine countries (Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, India, Libya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine). This far exceeds the 36 shutdowns in nine countries recorded in 2022.

In 2023, this ongoing wave of anti-government protests met with the eruption of new protests in seven countries that had not seen major protests in the previous five years. In fact, researchers documented the emergence of new protests in at least 83 countries. In this context, governments shut down the internet to crack down on dissent 63 times in 15 countries: Bangladesh, Cuba, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, India, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Mauritania, Mozambique, Pakistan, Senegal, Somaliland, and Suriname.  

Blocking of internet platforms as means of targeting the marginalized:

Other than this, specific internet platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Skype, Clubhouse, Instagram, Facebook, meta services, WhatsApp, Telegram etc.  have been blocked, worldwide in multiple countries throughout the past. The persistent use of platform blocks indicates authorities may perceive them as “more acceptable” or “less harmful,” but disruption of platforms often disproportionately impacts targeted and marginalized communities or people who rely on them as their only viable mode of access to information and communication with oved ones, colleagues, customers, news sources, and service providers.

 The widespread blocking of Grindr— the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people — is an especially telling indicator that authorities are using blocks to deliberately marginalize specific groups of people. This clear repression of LGBTQ+ spaces reflect a global wave of intolerance and discrimination that is dehumanizing and isolating people from vital support networks. LGBTQ+ people already face a wide range of serious threats to their fundamental rights and physical safety, and censorship and shutdowns are only exacerbating the harm and putting people at further risk.

Internet Shutdowns due to natural disasters:

In an alarming new development, we saw at least four internet shutdowns in four countries (Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, Türkiye) coincide with natural disasters in 2023. Rising global surface temperatures and shifts in weather patterns due to the climate crisis fuelling natural disasters including typhoons, floods, wildfires, and cyclones across the world. In 2023, the world was hit hard by a whopping 240 calamities—a tragic record-breaking number of natural disasters—which caused irreparable damage, including deaths and displacement of tens of thousands of people. The impact of the climate crisis coupled with growing political and economic instability is becoming global in scope and unprecedented in scale.

Internet shutdowns due to other reasons: Election, school exams etc.

As a result of internet shutdowns during elections in 2023, the report documented five election-related shutdowns, levelling off at the same number as 2022 following a steady downward trend since the peak of 12 election-related shutdowns in both 2018 and 2019. In 2023, the report recorded 12 exam-related shutdowns in Algeria, India, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, and Syria. This follows a relatively consistent trend of recent years: there were eight such shutdowns in 2022, 11 in 2021, and eight in 2020. Internet shutdowns are always an attack on people’s human rights. But when they come without warning during moments of national tension or as part of deliberate military strategy, they are especially harmful, cutting people off from communications lifelines when they need them most.

These are some findings of the report, but it says more about the present state of the globe in general and India in particular. The growing political tendency is loud and clear.

Looking into this chronology….

In the age of rapid technological development around the world, different forms of technology have been used as means of ruling intentions by various oppressing states. But the growing voices of dissent and protests have been challenging this very means of appropriation of technology by the ruling state (of various forms). Our country which stands tall with flavours of a fascist regime is no exception to it. In fact, it stands amongst them all and leads this game of internet blocking and blackouts. Religious pogroms, ethnic clashes, lynching, mob attacks, state aggression, racism, targeted murders have increased to such a height that it all seems normalized. People talk about them for a day or a week and then the topic is lost somewhere into the subconscious chamber of our daily lives. However bitter this may sound; our present-day India is going through a systematic process of change. The change however tilting towards a more conservative and a fundamentalist religious state where the caste system and its morale hierarchy rules where Dalits are treated like dusts and insects beneath the feet of higher castes and the tribal aboriginals are seen as untouchables and out of this order of casteism. Whereas on the other hand, the minorities of this country have to live a life of fear and uncertainty. This is one of the indicators for the rule of the law sliding into the abyss of fascism and tyranny.

This trend is exponentially increasing since the last decade as this report too suggests. In the name of maintaining peace and harmony, different regimes around the world are continuously undertaking this same tactic of suppression and it is clear to say that the world order is changing due to repeated outbursts of imperialist wars and occupation by force. Be it Israel and Palestine or Ukraine and Russia, innumerable acts of killings and sufferings are being raged against the common people. To make it look justifiable and safe – worthy, internet blocking is being used as a means of control, to suppress and oppress the already exploited section of people around the globe. But the report also points out to growing resistance around the world. People throughout the globe are not happy with this system and hence coming out into the streets to protest against it. This system is afraid of such ripple and is constantly trying to normalize different apparatus of the state such as internet blocking and many other forms of repression. It feels vulnerable, feels afraid and tries to sabotage such acts of defiance as anti nationalists and seditious. This reaction will further ripple out aggravated resistance, at least that much is known.