In 2025, governments around the world imposed 212 major internet outages across 28 countries, lasting a combined 120,095 hours and costing the global economy $19.7 billion.
That’s a 70% increase in disruption hours compared to the year before, which was itself a record. Yet the majority of people in countries that were never affected noticed nothing, heard little about it, and assumed the open internet was doing fine. That assumption is getting harder to defend.
The Scale of What’s Actually Happening
Internet shutdowns used to be rare enough that they made international headlines. A government would cut access during a crisis, the story would run for a day, and things would go back to normal. That’s no longer how it works.
Shutdowns Are Becoming Routine Policy
Global internet freedom has declined for the 15th consecutive year, with conditions worsening in 28 out of 72 countries assessed. Shutdowns are no longer emergency measures.
They’re a standard tool in the governance toolkit for an increasing number of governments, used to manage protests, suppress election coverage, and control the flow of information during crises.
As 2026 began, there were 75 shutdowns across 33 countries still ongoing from 2025, up sharply from 54 in 26 countries at the same point the previous year.
These aren’t temporary blackouts. Some of them have been running continuously for months, cutting entire populations off from the communication infrastructure the rest of the world takes for granted.
Myanmar and Equatorial Guinea each experienced shutdowns lasting the full year in 2025. That’s 365 days of enforced disconnection for communities that rely on internet access for healthcare information, financial services, and contact with family abroad.
Who Gets Cut Off and Why It’s Not Random
The pattern behind internet shutdowns is consistent. Conflict is the most common trigger, driving shutdowns in 14 countries in 2025, often used to conceal military operations from outside observation. Political unrest is the second most common cause, with 51 of 81 new restrictions in 2025 linked to some form of political instability.
Elections as a Flashpoint
Four countries imposed internet restrictions during elections in 2025: Cameroon, Tanzania, Guinea, and Venezuela. Tanzania enforced a five-day nationwide internet shutdown during its October election period, followed by broad restrictions on social media platforms.
For citizens trying to access independent reporting, verify results, or communicate with observers, that blackout wasn’t an inconvenience. It was a deliberate information blockade.
Countries like Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela have seen the most severe declines in internet freedom over the past 15 years, with governments in each case escalating surveillance of electronic communications and imposing stricter penalties for online dissent, particularly during periods of public protest.
For anyone living or working across borders, whether as a traveler, remote professional, or journalist, these shutdowns represent a direct operational threat. Planning a trip to a country with a history of internet restrictions means planning for the possibility that your connection disappears without warning.
A reliable tool like PureVPN allows users to route their traffic through servers in countries with stable internet access, maintaining connectivity even when local infrastructure is deliberately disrupted.
Social Media Blocking Is the New Shutdown
Full blackouts are dramatic, but governments have gotten smarter about targeted suppression. Social media bans are now more common than total internet shutdowns, and they’re harder to document because they can be implemented at the ISP level with no public announcement.
The Platforms Being Targeted
In 2025, X was blocked for over 18,000 hours globally, followed by Telegram at nearly 17,000 hours and TikTok at over 14,000 hours. These aren’t random targets. They’re the platforms most commonly used for organizing, reporting, and sharing information about government actions. Blocking them doesn’t stop the internet entirely, but it removes the tools that matter most during a political crisis.
Russia’s approach in 2025 illustrated how sophisticated internet restriction has become. With 57 separate shutdowns documented, Russia led all countries in deliberate disruption, using a combination of full blackouts, throttling, and protocol-level filtering that’s significantly harder to detect than a simple block.
For remote workers, journalists, and digital nomads operating with an android VPN on mobile devices, having encrypted traffic that doesn’t rely on local routing becomes essential in regions where social media suppression is routine.
Mobile internet is often the last connection standing during a shutdown, and unprotected mobile traffic is the easiest to filter.
The Broader Trend Isn’t Slowing Down
Seven new countries joined the list of shutdown offenders in 2025, meaning people in 100 countries have now experienced a government-imposed internet shutdown since tracking began in 2016.
The technology used to implement these shutdowns is also advancing, with governments increasingly targeting satellite internet services that have historically served as backup connections during blackouts.
The conversation about internet freedom has been dominated for years by debates about content moderation and algorithmic bias.
Those are real issues. But the more fundamental problem, governments cutting off access entirely for millions of people at a time, is growing faster, affecting more people, and receiving less attention than it deserves.
