Internet Shutdowns With No End Are Rising, Say Experts

Access Now published a report on shutdowns that have no announced end date. Its central claim is that the number of prolonged shutdowns has steadily risen each year, "as perpetrators around the world quietly decide to keep people cut off from the internet indefinitely."

Two current cases anchor the report. In Myanmar, people continue to face repeated and prolonged shutdowns amid deadly violence, and the junta's control and surveillance of communications networks have created an "internet dead zone" where few dare to speak openly against the regime. In Tigray, Ethiopia, new shutdowns are raising fears that the same population that was cut off for over two years during a bloody civil war will be disconnected again and be "in even greater danger."

Access Now describes the common thread as collective punishment. Authorities that use prolonged or repeated shutdowns to control the flow of information, quell protests, manipulate electoral processes, or assert power during or after conflict are, in its words, "collectively punishing and isolating entire populations."

Shutdowns That Never Officially End

The report makes a point that's easy to miss in shutdown statistics: even when authorities claim a shutdown has ended, connectivity often doesn't return in any meaningful way. Access Now says indefinite shutdowns erode trust that "a usable, open, secure, and inclusive internet will ever return," and cites new Vodafone research confirming the profoundly negative consequences for people's lives and livelihoods.

We've seen that pattern in our own coverage. Pakistan-administered Kashmir's partial shutdown passed 100 days in and kept going after the elections it was imposed around had finished. Access Now's data, which we've cited before, put Myanmar at 95 shutdowns in 2025, the highest in the world, ahead of India's 65.

A count of shutdowns can miss this. One that lasts years is a single entry in an annual tally, but for the people living through it, it's the whole story.

What People Living Through It Say

The report draws on testimonies collected through Access Now's Shutdown Impact Stories project and its partners in the #KeepItOn coalition, covering 2024 to 2026 and places including Annobón, Gaza, Myanmar, and Sudan. The Myanmar testimonies come from the Bridging Voices Project. All are anonymized for security.

Three of them open the report: "There is a complete lack of transparency." "Cutting the internet means cutting us off from the outside world." And: "I can say that the internet and communications blackout were as impactful as the bombings, destruction, and killings."

What Access Now Wants Done

Access Now's recommendations are specific. States and international organizations should strengthen norms to prevent, mitigate, and end shutdowns. The Freedom Online Coalition should deepen its condemnation and extend it to under-reported and prolonged shutdowns. Governments, funders, regulators, and satellite providers should invest in alternative connectivity, including rights-based emergency connectivity mechanisms, as called for by the Direct2Cell campaign.

Two recommendations connect directly to stories we've covered. Access Now asks parties to conflict and peace mediators to consider the digital dimension of ceasefires and to fund digital systems in reconstruction. That's the gap we described when we wrote that ceasefire agreements almost never mention telecommunications.

It also asks states to heed court rulings against shutdowns, noting that the ECOWAS Court of Justice and national judiciaries in Sudan, India, and Zimbabwe have found that shutdowns violate rights. India's Supreme Court said this month that internet services "should function unhindered," and Delhi still had eight shutdowns this year.