Governments Shut Down the Internet More Than 50 Times in 2016 (thewire.in)

An anonymous reader writes: Governments around the world shut down the internet more than 50 times in 2016 -- suppressing elections, slowing economies and limiting free speech. In the worst cases internet shutdowns have been associated with human rights violations, Deji Olukotun, senior global advocacy manager at digital rights organisation Access Now told IPS. "What we have found is that internet shutdowns go hand in hand with atrocities," said Olukotun. "In Ethiopia there's been consistent blocking this year of social media and internet." Dozens of people have died in protests in Ethiopia in 2016, "many of them during the kind of blackout where it's difficult to report on what's happening," he said. Several leaders used internet shutdowns to affect democratic processes, including elections. "In Uganda in February 2016 there was a shutdown of social media networks by President Museveni and that again happened in Gambia (in December) surrounding the election," Olukotun added. In other cases, three governments chose to shut down the internet because they thought that it would stop students from cheating on their exams, he said. "On the whole most governments want to expand internet access," said Olukotun. However governments do not seem to have taken into account the potential repercussions of the shutdowns, beyond the limits of free speech. According to an estimate, internet shutdowns resulted in a loss of $2.4 billion in 2015.

Comments

That's not how the internet works

[wonkey_monkey]

Governments around the world shut down the internet more than 50 times in 2016

No, no they didn't...

Re:What if your ISP is unstable...

[drew_kime]

I knew there'd be some self-centered person in the US who'd figure out some way to spin this to make it about America.

How about this?

Republican lawmakers have proposed fining Congressional representatives who stream live video or post photos from the House floor, in an apparent attempt to stop a repeat of last year’s Democratic live-streamed sit-in protest.

Now can we talk about how this applies to America, too?

Democrats want to censor the net in the USA

[knorthern knight]

They're pissed off because their near-monopoly of the lib-left newspapers, CNN (Clinton News Network), MSNBC (Most Socialist Network on Basic Cable), etc was easily bypassed. That's what cost Hillary the election.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-j...

> Three years before Matt Drudge changed the world and how news would be
> consumed, President Bill Clinton's White House feared that the Internet was allowing
> average citizens, especially conservatives, to bypass legacy gatekeepers and
> access information that had previously been denied to them by the mainstream press.

http://www.freerepublic.com/fo...
3 years later, it happened. One of the "legacy gatekeepers", Newsweek was considering doing a story breaking the Clinton-Lewinski scandal. But management killed the story. Instead a lowly store clerk with a modem broke the story... you've heard of Matt Drudge http://www.drudgereport.com/ Hillary clinton's reaction was to whine about the lack of "gatekeepers".

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08...
What would've happened if Hillary had won?
> Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign has sent out a fundraising
> email arguing the website Breitbart News has no "right to exist,"
> and suggests that if elected, the website will be shut down entirely.