The Internet outage planned by the Burmese military government to curb the nationwide protests against the coup d’état on February 1, 2021 caused the country’s economic losses last year to reach US$2.8 billion. The UK-based digital privacy and security research group Top10VPN discovered in a new study released on January 4 that this will cumulatively become the largest loss suffered by a single country in the world due to Internet interruption in 2021. The team is using a special shutdown cost tool provided by London-based on the network security regulator NetBlocks allowing the use of indicators from the world to estimate the economic impact of Internet outages, mobile data outages or app restrictions…
The Internet outage planned by the Burmese military government to curb the nationwide protests against the coup d’état on February 1, 2021 caused the country’s economic losses last year to reach US$2.8 billion. Top10VPN, a UK-based digital privacy and security research organization, found in a report that this will cumulatively become the largest loss suffered by a single country in the world due to Internet outages in 2021. New research Released on January 4.
The group is using a special Cost of shutdown tools Provided by London-based cybersecurity regulator NetBlocks, the organization allows the use of indicators from the World Bank, International Telecommunication Union, Eurostat, and U.S. Census Bureau to estimate the economic impact of Internet outages, mobile data outages, or app restrictions.
The report pointed out that Myanmar was among the top 21 countries that interrupted the Internet for a total of 30,179 hours last year, resulting in a global loss of 5.5 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 36% from 2020. Nigeria and India are close behind Myanmar.
Research shows that in Myanmar alone, Internet outages, mainly used to curb peaceful protests, freedom of the press, and demand for free and fair elections, lasted a total of 12,238 hours, affecting approximately 22 million people.
Internet outage, social media blockade, data speed limitation
The government controls the flow of information through widespread Internet blackouts and social media blockades, or by limiting the speed to a level where anything beyond simple text-based communication becomes impossible.
After the coup, the ruling military government first blocked access to Facebook to “maintain stability.” As a result, demand for virtual private network (VPN) services immediately soared by 7,200% as protesters tried to regain access to Facebook. A social media platform that played a central role in organizing citizens to resist the coup.
After the Facebook blockade, the military government blocked all popular social media platforms during the day and completely shut down all Internet access every night for 72 consecutive nights before April 27, 2021.
Only restore access to “approved” sites and applications
After these outages at the end of May last year, Internet access has been partially restored, but has since been restricted to government-approved websites and mobile applications. According to local sources, since then, Facebook and Twitter can only be accessed via VPN.
Since late August and September, the military government has also shut down Internet access and mobile phone networks in 30 townships in Kachin State, Chin State, Sagaing, Magway, and Mandalay because of the fact that the military and people in these areas The fighting between the Wehrmacht militias intensified. field.
