Internet shutdowns cost countries a total of $2.4 billion in 2015, according to a new study.
Governments around the world threaten the vitality of the internet by powering down the technical infrastructure or blocking certain online applications and services. (RELATED: Obama Admin Wants To Surrender US Control Over Internet To Global Bureaucracy)
The number of government interferences with digital networks since 1995 is increasing exponentially, with a huge escalation of instances (45 to 82) from 2006 to 2007, according to a report conducted by Darrell M. West of the Brookings Institution.
Government officials justify domestic disruption to the digital world in many different ways, whether that is diminishing public dissidence, fighting terrorism, or even “protecting local businesses.”
“Economic losses include $968 million in India, $465 million in Saudi Arabia, $320 million in Morocco, $209 million in Iraq, $116 million in Brazil, $72 million in the Republic of the Congo, $69 million in Pakistan, $69 million in Bangladesh, $48 million in Syria, $35 million in Turkey, and $20 million in Algeria, among other places,” the study reads.
Estimates are probably conservative since the study only considers “reductions in economic activity and do not account for tax losses or drops in investor, business, and consumer confidence,” the report reads. It also doesn’t account for impact on worker productivity, and “barriers to business confidence,” which are hard factors to quantify.
“Shutting down access to popular services or to the whole internet – even for a short period of time – undermines economic growth, puts lives in jeopardy, separates people from friends and family, and erodes confidence in the governments that take such drastic and ill-advised steps,” the report concludes. (RELATED: Internet Crashes Will Be Hard To Stop After Obama’s Internet Giveaway)
Even though the report includes only rough estimates, the findings are still revealing of an important dynamic arguably crucial to any economic activity relying on internet connectivity (which is almost all economic activity.) And that dynamic specifically entails the willingness by governments around the world to block access to online services and apps in the event of an attack, potentially harming economic growth or worse, if the study is accurate.
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