According to a new study surfshark, about half of the world’s population suffered from turning off the Internet for political motives in 2022. Last year, 19 countries introduced new restrictions for citizens to use the Internet, as a result of which the total number of countries that took such repressive measures reached 32.
According to Surfshark, “authoritarian governments limited the Internet and social networks to preserve their rule and take control of civil unrest, opposition political parties, freedom of speech and impending socio-economic problems.
In 2022, Russia, Iran and India became the most censored countries, which attracted the attention of international media to their efforts to control content on their territory.
In the first place in the list is Asia. Most of the restrictions in the region (almost 76%) were introduced by India in response to protests in the state of Bihar. Internet restrictions in Iran arose during protests in the country because of the death of an arrested girl.
According to Surfshark, in 2022, 4.2 billion suffered from the restrictions and prohibitions of the Internet in the world. We remind that in November 2022 the population of the world reached 8 billion people.
surfshark added that nationwide failures in the work of the Internet are the most strict and most destructive form of censorship from an economic point of view and are usually used to suppress protests.
The previous study showed that in 2021 the authorities deliberately disconnected the Internet at least 182 times in 34 countries, exceeding 2020 indicators. The authorities in Burkina-Faso, Cuba, Chade and other countries turned off the Internet in response to protests, and in the gas sector, Myanmar and Ethiopia, disconnection from the network was carried out during military conflicts. The largest violator was the government of India, which turned off the Internet in some parts of the country at least 106 times. India heads this list for the fourth year in a row.