Governments Are Suddenly Shutting Down The Internet - Here’s Why

this video is brought to you by Aura hi welcome to another episode of Cold Fusion imagine this a group of students have taken to the streets they're angry about the reintroduction of a controversial policy that affects public sector jobs the protests have been mostly peaceful but over the span of a few weeks chaos unfolds and violence erupts many are killed and hundreds injured the government gets involved police roam the streets cracking down on protesters concerned you're seeing all of this unfold things are really getting out of hand now so you go online to keep tabs

on what's going on are your friends and family safe and what are other people saying on social media then all of a sudden every website that you visit stops loading every text that you send keeps bouncing back a slow realization Dawns on you the internet has gone dark and to your horror it was the government who had shut it down this sounds like an episode of a new season of Black Mirror but in reality this was indeed the story of citizens in Daka Bang adesh on July 18th 2024 along with a curfew the sudden removal

of the internet didn't last for a few hours or even a day there was no internet for an agonizing 5 days for the entire country think about this for a second how do you do your banking communication and commerce as a whole we observed the network in in Bangladesh started going down and we found statements from the government that they intentionally shut it down people weren't able to communicate for 5 days they had a change of prime minister and the Prime Minister resigned left the country the internet shut down again for a couple of hours

around that departure so you can imagine that that was also government mandated it's insane but Bangladesh isn't alone in this according to access now 2023 was the worst full year of internet shutdowns at a record 283 incidents so I know what you're thinking some of you might look at this map and think H this only applies to far away countries with tyrannical governments but the fact of the matter is that the mechanisms to achieve this do exist in Western countries the UK and Australian governments have an internet kill switch in place but we'll get to

this later in the episode this is a topic that I haven't seen much discussion about but really for something as important as the internet a tool that allows us to express ourselves connect with others and do Commerce it's a topic worth looking into so in this episode we'll look into government internet shutdowns a topic overlooked but underrated I also sat down with internet analysis expert John heiderman to get his thoughts on all of this okay so let's get into it while we still have an internet connection you are watching T Fusion TV before we continue

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coldfusion to get started on your free trial you can click the link in the description or scan the QR code okay thank you now back to the episode it seems so unbelievable that the internet could be completely shut down but the world's second largest economy did that in one of its regions for almost an entire year we all know about China's great firewall it's an advanced system for filtering the internet for population control China runs the world's most complicated censorship machine the government actually requires Chinese internet companies to employ armies of human sensors to police

user generated content on their platforms but the Chinese government also has control over internet service providers this allows them to enforce National or Regional shutdowns as needed in 2009 the internet was cut off for 312 days in the Xing Jang region in response to riots meanwhile in 2019 Russia passed the quote Sovereign internet law that gives the government the power to isolate its internet from the rest of the world CH commmunications companies are large corporations and there's usually only a few of them it's very easy for the government to reach out to the heads of

those corporations and say we think it's in the interest of the nation to make a change the internet has something called routing which is how we decide where to send traffic and routing is managed by telecommunications companies other countries sometimes have very sophisticated means of intercepting some Communications but not all but where does the USA stand in all of this the Obama Administration tried to pass an internet kill switch bill called the quote protecting cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 it was introduced to the Senate but was heavily criticized and never passed in

the United Kingdom if there's an emergency that can cause quote serious damage to political administrative or economic stability the government can shut down the internet the communications Act of 2003 and the Civil contingencies Act of 2004 gives emergency powers to the government to suspend the internet and this is done by ordering service providers to shut down internet operations a UK government representative said quote it would have to be a very serious threat for these powers to be used something like a major Cyber attack these powers are subject to review and if it was used inappropriately

there could be an appeal to the competition appeal tribunal any decision to use them would have to comply with the public law and the Human Rights Act end quote and the passing of this act hasn't been without its detractors and critics but as usual with government power there is the risk of abuse and some governments flat out just abuse this power after Libya's devastating flood disaster in 2023 Dera one of the Cities hit hardest by the floods experienced a significant communication blackout and complete internet shutdown initially some people thought it was because of the natural

disaster but the real reason was to stop online criticism and potential riots against how badly the government was handling the crisis and this was at a time when 11,300 were reported dead and 40,000 displaced the government obviously didn't have their priorities right and if this isn't an absurd abuse of power I don't know what is a lot of countries have proposed we should have a kill switch the United States the UK Australia have all proposed kill switches and I was just looking before joining you what I saw was a news report saying Australia actually has

a kill switch in Australia an internet shutdown mechanism exists under Section 581 of Australia's Telecommunications Act of 1997 it grants the Australian government significant authority over telecommunications networks including the power to stop internet access in the interest of National Security in 2003 in the wake of the war on terror the Act was amended so that the attorney general who was the chief law officer of the Commonwealth of Australia could direct a telecommunications carrier to kill the internet quote either generally or to a particular person or particular persons end quote before executing the ACT he must

ask the Prime Minister and Minister for communications approval first the amendment was rushed through giving only four working days for anyone to raise concerns concerns were indeed raed so the language was changed the law now couldn't be used to turn off the internet for an individual or organization only the internet as a whole so that's comforting I guess in 2024 Malaysian Minister aelina oan SED recently announced the government's plans to implement an internet kill switch the minister issued a statement that the quote new legislation that includes the provisions regarding the procedure and enforcement of a

kill switch end quote is for the purpose of analyzing digital security that's probably as thinly veiled as it gets the legislation will reach the Malaysian parliament in October as mentioned earlier around 39 countries around the world have in one way or another completely shut down access to the internet we as citizens of Nations need protection if only in the interest of being prudent in 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted something called the UN Declaration of Human Rights an international legal document that outlines fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms such as the Right to Life Equity

and non-discrimination right to freedom of work freedom of education and so on but what about a right to the internet just 15 years ago this might have sounded absurd but today the internet is the infrastructure on which modern society is built because of this it's no wonder that the UN has declared internet access a human right and deemed internet kill Es as illegal and this was in 2016 in practice however while there's significant International pressure against internet shutdowns there's no binding international law that bans governments from doing such actions in Bangladesh the primary reasons to

shut down the internet as cited by the government was to stop misinformation and rumors from spreading but does it actually help the busy streets of taka are deserted with burnt vehicles and Bricks strewn across the roads and the protesters have gone on a rampage at many police stations in government establishments there's a complete internet and Telecom shutdown that is in effect in a move to curb the violence so misinformation is a real Challenge and I guess if you shut the internet off nobody's looking at Facebook in that sense it's quote successful it's a very heavy-handed

maneuver though the other thing I was thinking about in misinformation I mean in the United States right now there's been some debate about what role the government should have in intervening in the spread of misinformation on social media I don't think anyone's proposing shutting down the internet but people are talking about the role of interactions between the government and social media sites and how do you label misinformation on social media and I think those are things we all have to Grapple with and there's different points of view about [Music] that shutting down the internet to

curtel protest like in Bangladesh Egypt in 2011 during the Arab Spring and for election periods in Venezuela like in 2019 are the more common excuses to kill the internet but there's a very strange reason why some countries might end up doing it in 2024 from May 26th through to June 13th the internet in Syria went dark the reason High School exams this is actually a common tactic used in many countries including Syria Iraq Algeria and many others the purpose is to stop students cheating in exams by using online methods if this method really is that

effective remains to be seen but it hasn't stopped 12 shutdowns recorded in 2023 alone but the question is what does everyone else in the country do at that time I guess they just sit around and twiddle their thumbs but it does bring up an interesting point though what is the cost of an Internet shutdown beyond the tragic loss of life and injuries the recent internet shutdown in Bangladesh has seen immense economic damage as you can imagine according to net block and their cost of shutdown tool the total Financial impact to Bangladesh has been around $393

million for 5 days of Internet shutdown for the United States daily e-commerce trade is valued at $2 billion and the daily digital economy is about 5.5 billion so a complete internet shutdown for one day in the United States could amount to losses in the range North of $7 billion at a bare minimum just for one day but back to Bangladesh and the internet shutdown it's estimated that there's over 1 million Freelancers that operate out of Bangladesh that's a million people who depend entirely on the internet for their careers and this isn't just for work within

the country but to deliver projects abroad and suddenly their entire livelihood is gone and the worst part is that they have no idea when it's coming back and this isn't to mention the impact on hospitals Banking and other critical industries that rely on the internet to operate so it's not just the dollar value but humans and their daily life is at stake with internet shutdowns imagine the economic damage that would have if if your internet was shut off for 5 days you know I think a government's got to think very carefully before they take such

a decision because of the economic implications much less the social implications according to the internet Society quote so far in 2024 four governments have ordered an internet shutdown or suspended internet services during or following elections time this number could grow and it's a tempting solution for authoritarian governments but not only that as discussed the mechanisms for an internet shutdown do exist in Western countries and other countries you may not expect so what happens in the future if governments can readily order shutdowns of the internet what does it mean for us and is there anything that

we can do well one solution is satellite internet things like starlink and huset it's a pretty straightforward solution but Mass scale adoption of such constellations require government particip and a lot of Regulation I think the role of starlink to help during internet disruptions is very important or other kinds of Wireless Communications also critical is the ability to quickly roll out and do repairs a few years ago a hurricane ran across the island of Puerto Rico and they had major infrastructure damage for many months and so the ability to quickly recover is critical to the people

whose lives depend on who who need to communicate for Media or for work or for all all the things we care about for there is a more libertarian solution though you see during the internet shutdowns of Hong Kong and Iran protesters use something called a decentralized mesh Network and this allows devices like smartphones computers or routers to connect directly through each other instead of a central ISP but perhaps the best shot we have for future proofing internet access is to make internet access a fundamental human right it might sound like a funny concept still now

but in 50 years time we may be glad that we have it whether that's through legislation or judicial oversight yes we all hate political flame Wars misinformation arguing confusion fake generative AI content but even in times of unrest there has to be a better way to combat this without shutting down the entire internet so I'm going to pass the question off to you guys what do you think about government shutting down the internet and how do we move forward in society where the internet is not only available to everyone but we all have a right

to use it free from the pressure of external Powers I'd love to hear your thoughts down below so also just some housekeeping I've partnered with ABC Australia again to make a miniseries on online scams the first episode goes through the types of wild scams that are out there now and the second episode is all about how to protect yourself I'll leave a link to it in the description below anyway that's about it from me so that's what's going on with government and shutting down the internet okay so my name is goo and You' been watching

cold fusion and I'll see you again soon for the next episode cheers guys have a good [Music] one cold fusion it's new thinking