Internet Shutdown: Does it really do the needful? | by Vaibhav Bansal

Imagine yourself sitting in the room, doing some important work over internet and suddenly the internet speed on the status bar disappears. Next, you go to look for your mom’s mobile hotspot but there also you find the same situation. Then you scroll through your phone and refresh your news feed to find the news, “Government to shut down internet service in the next two hours due to massive protests”. How are you feeling now? Frustrated? Angry?

Driven largely by the reasons of political and national security concerns, internet shutdown has become a game for Government today.

INTRODUCTION

The term “Internet Shutdown” implies, intentional disruption of internet based communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unavailable, for a specific population or location or mode of access, often to exert control over the flow of information. Telecom companies are forced to suspend internet services on government orders. Internet shutdowns originated during the Egypt uprising in 2011, when authorities shut down internet for nearly about a week to disrupt communications of protesters. Since then, the use of internet shutdowns as a political measure is becoming more and more common. The statistics can be observed as steadily rising over the years like 75 internet shutdowns in 2016, 106 in 2017 and 196 in 2018. But the thing that prompted me to write this, is the fact that in 2019 solely India has observed over 100 internet shutdowns. Also since 2012, India has had over 373 internet shutdowns documented. Also India accounts for 67% of the total internet shutdowns in the world. The nation with second largest number of internet users after China has maximum internet shutdowns. What an irony! After the abolition of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, internet shutdown was implemented for more than 145 days. Due to protests against Citizenship Amendment Act, internet shutdowns had been done in many parts of the country, especially in Assam and the trend is still continuing.

THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF INTERNET SHUTDOWNS

Internet shutdowns have a lot of negative impacts, be it in the terms of economic cost or social well-being of citizens and their rights. According to a report by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, 16,315 hours of internet shutdown in India from 2012 to 2017 have costed around $3 billion. Telecom companies incur a loss of about ₹24.5 million in revenue for 1 hour of internet shutdown. On one hand, our economy is on the path of digitizing everything. Government is providing a lot of funds and help for digitization and making economy cashless but at the same time the government, by using the measure of Internet Shutdown, is failing the very purpose of these policies. Doesn’t it seem contradictory? The situation is like Government is trying to extend one wall but at the same time it is bringing the other wall closer to it. The ultimate effect being zero.

Whenever an internet shutdown is being done in an area, it leads to huge economic losses. For example, various online food delivery services like Zomato and Swiggy are disrupted, taxi services like Ola and Uber gets struck out, online ticket bookings and payments can’t be done, net banking services get hampered and corporates & business houses cannot transfer their essential information among other things.

Talking in terms of its social impact, it hampers the very basic right of “Right to Expression” of the citizens of our country. It doesn’t let people of the affected area to express their true grievances, sufferings and circumstances, and ultimately it completely becomes a media oriented game which in fact presents false information in most cases. Also, nowadays as students are bending towards e-learning, it creates further problems for them also as they are not able to access the various resources.

Must say that the measure of internet shutdown might or might not control the violent protests, but it makes the condition of the residents of the affected areas worst. Also this move seems to be unjust, undemocratic and a temporary one as it may cure one problem at the cost of origin of many other problems.

POSITIVE ASPECT: DOES IT ACTUALLY SERVE THE PURPOSE?

Now let’s try to look for some positivity in the measure. The question arises, “Does it actually serves the very purpose?” i.e. how able is this measure to manage the riots being spread by negative elements of the society? It has been observed that to some extent the negative messages, hate speeches, messages seeking support in the name of caste, community, religion or area over social media, invoking general masses to take the path of violence and communal riots can be controlled using this measure. But by analyzing the measure further, from a clearer point of view, we can say that this doesn’t provide a complete or permanent solution for the problem. In fact it may further lead to more problems for common man.

CONCLUSION

What we can conclude from the above facts and points is that, internet shutdown in no way is a permanent solution for the problem. The measure to some extent is helpful in reducing the problem, but it can’t be cited as a permanent solution for the problem. Internet shutdown for a limited period, say 4 or 5 days, somehow sounds reasonable and can be managed by common people, but internet shutdown for a period of over 145 days, as seen in Jammu and Kashmir, in no way sounds reasonable. Protesting is the right of citizens of any nation, but violent protests and riots must be controlled. However, the measure of internet shutdown seems an unfit one to cure this problem.

Thus, alternative measures must be viewed for such situations. For example, China is using surveillance technology to keep an eye on negative messages over social media, we can adopt somewhat a similar measure. General awareness must be created among people to not spread negative messages or support seeking messages, invoking general masses for violent protests and communal riots. Also, the Government should verify the accuracy of all the information being released or law being passed because the major cause of riots is molding of information by the people. In making these thing clear, internet itself can play a major role. Also Government can go for restricting net services for social media sites as these are the major mediums for quick spread of infuriating information.

Thus it can be concluded that internet shutdown in no manner is a permanent solution. It may cure the problem to some extent, but not completely, and also may further lead to many problems. Thus Government must look for something else.