Governments pay a significant price when they disrupt access and connectivity to the Internet because such shutdowns undermine economic growth, jeopardize lives and erode confidence, the Brookings Institution said in a study.
Between July 1 last year and June 30 this year, 81 temporary Internet blackouts in 19 nations cost those economies at least US$2.4 billion, Brookings Institution Center for Technology Innovation director of governance studies Darrell West wrote in the report.
The figure is a conservative estimate as it does not include lost tax revenue or loss of trust from investors, consumers and businesses, West said.
From Egypt’s five-day shutdown of the Internet during the 2011 Arab Spring protests to Burundi’s block on WhatsApp and Viber during its presidential election in the spring last year, governments are increasingly interfering with normal online operations.
The number of such disruptions rose to 111 in 2010 from one in 1995, University of Washington researchers found in a 2011 study.
“As long as political authorities continue to disrupt Internet activity, it will be difficult for impacted nations to reap the full benefits of the digital economy,” West wrote.
India suffered the biggest impact, valued at more than US$968 million, while North Korea was the lowest at US$313,666, the report said.
There had been 14 shutdowns of national apps such as Twitter or Facebook, which was the most costly type of disruption at US$1.04 billion.
There were 36 instances of nationwide Internet access cutoff, making that the most frequent type of disruption.
The analysis is based on 2014 World Bank GDP data and the Boston Consulting Group’s projections for how much each nation’s GDP is derived from the Internet economy.
It also measured the financial impact of turning off mobile devices using information about subscriptions and referenced a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study on how free messaging apps help growth.
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