The World Problems Index

Humanitarian

← Back to the index
GlobalHumanitarianSince 2016Curatedmedium confidence

Internet Shutdowns

Governments switch off connectivity during exactly the moments it matters most.

Severity score

30.9

Limited · default weighting

Trajectory

Worsening

What this is

Deliberate shutdowns during elections, protests and military operations block emergency services, banking and reporting. The number of shutdowns and the number of countries imposing them both continue to rise.

Score breakdown

Loss of life

10

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

58

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

32

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

1

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

68

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.