According to the Top10 VPN cost of internet shutdown report, the economic cost of Nigeria’s internet shutdown decreased from $1.45 billion in 2021 to $82.7 million in 2022.
According to the report, Nigeria’s social media shutdown was reduced to 287 hours last year from 5,040 hours in 2021.
“The Nigerian government extended the nationwide Twitter ban, which was imposed in June 2021, until January 2022. The ban came after President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet was removed from Twitter because it violated the platform’s rules.”
“Although the Nigerian government announced plans to restore Twitter access in October 2021, subject to the social media platform being used for “business and positive engagement,” the ban would not be lifted until the following January. The 222-day ban cost the Nigerian economy a total of $1.54 billion over two calendar years, according to the report.
Shutdowns are generally imposed without much transparency, justification, or judicial or democratic oversight, according to Ilze Brands Kehris, assistant secretary general of the United Nations human rights office.
“Internet outages cause significant harm to our societies. Governments should avoid imposing shutdowns due to their indiscriminate and disproportionate impact. “It is a tool that is difficult, if not impossible, to justify under international human rights law,” she said, adding that such shutdowns can also have unintended consequences, such as disruptions in supply chains or health and welfare systems.
The cost of a government shutdown increased by 325 percent, from $5.6 billion in 2021 to $23.79 billion in 2022, according to the report.
However, there were 114 major deliberate Internet outages in 23 countries last year, bringing the total number of hours of government internet disruptions to 45 percent, or 50,095 hours during the review period.
Internet blackouts lasted 23,097 hours, according to a breakdown of the shutdowns. The downtime caused by internet throttling was 134 hours, while social media blocks took another 26,865 hours.
In addition, deliberate internet outages affected 710 million people in 2022, a 41 percent increase year on year.
Twitter was the most blocked social media platform, with 21,650 hours of intentional disruption, 56% more than Instagram and 64% more than Facebook. According to the report, Russia has been hit the hardest ($21.59 billion), followed by Iran ($773 million) and Kazakhstan ($410.7 million).
Similarly, 51% of government internet outages were linked to additional human rights violations, a 30% decrease from 2021: 51% of all internet disruptions were linked to restrictions on freedom of assembly. Election interference accounted for 3%, and press freedom violations accounted for 11%.
According to the report, which calculates the total economic impact of every major deliberate internet outage and social media shutdown worldwide, these outages violate citizens’ digital rights while also causing economic self-harm.
In other to calculate the cost of internet shutdown the report explained that “We monitor every national and region-wide internet outage and social media shutdown imposed by governments around the world in order to determine the duration and extent of the restrictions. Using the COST tool, we can now accurately calculate the economic impact of each internet shutdown.”
Netblocks, an internet monitoring NGO, created this tool. It is based on World Bank, ITU, Eurostat, and US Census data.
