A new report dubbed the Global Cost of Internet Shutdown 2019 has assessed the total economic impact of all the major Internet and social media shutdown in the year 2019.

The report made use of the Cost of Shutdown Tool (COST) developed by Netblocks, to estimate in a timely and efficient manner the shutdown that occurred globally.

The key findings as captured by the report include the following:

• US$8.05BN:economic cost of internet shutdowns globally in 2019 -an increase of 235% since 2015/16

• 122 major shutdownstook place in 21 countries during 2019

• 18,225 hours:total duration of major shutdowns around the world

• Internet blackouts:11,857 hours

• Social media shutdowns:6,368 hours

• Iraq:most economically-impacted nation, followed by Sudan and India 

• WhatsApp:most-blocked platform with 6,236 total shutdowns