Russia’s ban on access to social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and X has cost its economy more than $4.02 billion, according to an independent report.
The ban, first imposed in March 2022 after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, was the most damaging internet restriction of its kind to any economy in the world in 2023, according to data analysis by global monitoring agency Top10VPN.
Top10VPN’s annual report analyzed 196 blackouts in 25 countries and found that in 2023, government-imposed internet blackouts cost the world economy an estimated $9 billion.
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Russia was the hardest hit, followed by Ethiopia and Iran, whose internet outages cost $1.96 billion and $920 million respectively. The Russian ban on Instagram, Facebook and X/Twitter was first imposed in February 2022 and continued in 2023 after a Russian court labeled Meta “extremist”.
The move came in retaliation for the social network’s efforts in the European Union to impose restrictions on state-owned media, including Russia Today and Sputnik, and limit the spread of misinformation.
The longest full internet blackout of 2023 was imposed by Indian authorities in Manipur and lasted more than 5,000 hours. Mobile internet services in the northeastern Indian state were suspended in May last year after ethnic clashes erupted between the minority hill tribes of the Kukis and the majority Meitei community.
The Kukis, who enjoy protected status as a minority, had protested against plans to extend this status to the Meitei community, which represents about 53 percent of Manipur’s population. Doing so would give the Meitei access to the same benefits and quotas in public employment and education as minority tribes.
More than 200 people have been killed and around 60,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since the fighting began.
According to the report, the total cost of the internet decreased by 67 percent compared to 2022, while the duration increased by 18 percent to a total of 79,238 hours.
The researchers also found that nearly 50 percent of state internet blackouts in 2023 were associated with additional human rights violations, mostly restrictions on freedom of assembly.
“State internet disruptions often take the form of complete internet shutdowns or blocking social media,” said Samuel Woodhams and Simon Migliano, authors of the report.
Another censorship tactic is to severely restrict internet speed to the point that anything beyond simple text-based communication, such as live streaming of protests or human rights violations, becomes impossible.
“Such deliberate outages are the most extreme form of internet censorship,” the authors emphasize.
These internet blackouts not only violate citizens’ digital rights, but are also self-destructive to the national economy.
