World’s worst Internet shutdowns cost India US$2.8bil in 2020

With 8,927 hours of blacked out or curbed bandwidth access, India restricted Internet use more than any other nation, as restrictions originally imposed in 2019 continued throughout 2020, according to the Global Cost of Internet Shutdowns report released by Top10VPN. — Technology photo created by freepik - www.freepik.com

Internet shutdowns cost India US$2.8bil (RM11.22bil), putting the South Asian nation at the top of a list of 21 countries that curbed citizens’ web access in 2020.

India – the second-worst-hit nation by the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of overall confirmed infections – accounted for about three-quarters of the US$4bil (RM16.04bil) lost worldwide to Internet curbs. Its losses more than doubled compared to 2019, a report from a UK-based digital privacy and security research group showed.