Internet Censorships happen in most Countries when the government tries to impose certain restrictions on internet content due to specific reasons. In some countries, internet restriction is a common practice while in some countries, internet restrictions are imposed from time to time. Last year, 196 internet restrictions by the government were reported and millions of people got affected. China is one of the countries which imposed full internet restriction on some platforms like Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and Twitter. There are also certain keywords that China has censored on the internet like names of some of its leaders, political protest and massacres etc.

Top10VPN shared an annual report which stated which countries had imposed a temporary internet censorship to block some content. The 196 biggest internet censorships were in 25 countries and Iraq was at the top with blocking the internet over 66 times in one year. The Indian state, Manipur, had the longest internet shutdown that went on for 5,000 hours. If we talk about platform based lockdown, Twitter was at the top for blocking various types of content that mostly includes political content that the government tried to restrict. Other apps include Instagram, TikTok and Facebook that were restricted to use temporarily.

Economic Cost of Internet Shutdowns in 2023: $9.01 Billion, Affecting 747 Million People

Infographic: Digital Information World

There were also some messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram which got restricted for some time because these types of apps are used for arranging protests and spreading information to people that the government wants to keep hidden. All these types of internet blocks were imposed by repressed governments to stop protests about politics and elections. When a government wants to stop internet access to the public, it doesn’t restrict the internet completely. The government reduces the internet speed to the degree that it is not able to stream and circulate media like images and videos. While these types of internet censorship are a violation of human rights, the public also loses millions when the internet is shut off.

Chart: Top10VPN 

Chart courtesy of Top10VPN 

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