African Countries Recorded Over 190 Internet Shutdowns Since 2016
For millions across Africa, logging on to the internet at any time isn’t always guaranteed. Internet shutdowns linked to political unrest, protests, and conflict are increasingly becoming one of the defining tools of repression in Africa. What was once rare is now disturbingly routine, with governments reaching for the “kill switch” whenever dissent threatens to spill into the streets or onto the screens.
This alarming trend is not new, and it is still very much happening in 2025, even under governments that call themselves democratic. As recently as June 2025, Kenya imposed sweeping restrictions on media and internet use during the protests on June 25. The Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) instructed broadcasters to halt live coverage of demonstrations, while Telegram and other digital platforms were suddenly suspended.
It wasn’t the first time. In 2023 and 2024, Kenyan authorities restricted internet services during national examinations, claiming it was necessary to curb cheating. In 2024, during the #RejectFinanceBill protests, authorities again disrupted online communication. For millions of Kenyans, these shutdowns cut deeper than inconvenience; they silenced voices in a moment when the right to speak, organize, and resist mattered most.
Kenya’s example is only the latest in a growing notoriety across the continent. Research published by the African Digital Rights Network shows that between 2016 and 2024, 41 African countries shut down the internet at least once, accounting for more than 190 incidents. The numbers are staggering: Ethiopia leads with 30 shutdowns, Sudan with 21, and Algeria with 14. Since 2018, these three countries have disrupted digital access every single year.
The trend is rising. In 2016, just 14 shutdowns were recorded. By 2024, that number had doubled to 28. The report reveals that these shutdowns, ordered mostly by governments and implemented by internet service providers, are often used to crack down on peaceful protests or political opposition, and warns of the risk of internet shutdowns being used to reinforce authoritarian control.
“These are not accidental outages,” says Tony Roberts, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and co-editor of Internet Shutdowns in Africa. “Each internet shutdown violates human rights and damages the economy. As internet becomes a medium for people to increasingly communicate, study and work online, these shutdowns necessarily violate citizens’ right to work and their freedom of expression, association and participation.”
A continent coming online
To understand why governments are turning so often to shutdowns, it helps to understand the backdrop: Africa’s digital revolution.
In just over a decade, internet and mobile adoption across the continent has skyrocketed. Africa is now home to more than 1.2 billion mobile connections, surpassing the continent’s population, driven by individuals holding multiple SIM cards for various purposes. As of 2024, nearly 44% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa is subscribed to a mobile service, amounting to 540 million subscribers, a figure expected to reach 890 million by 2030, according to projections by GSMA Intelligence.
This explosion of digital access has reshaped not just how people talk, but what they talk about, and who gets to join the conversation. WhatsApp groups have replaced village squares as the hub of community debate. X (formerly Twitter) hashtags now frame national conversations. From #EndSARS in Nigeria to #RejectFinanceBill in Kenya, social media has become a stage for protest, a space for political organization, and a megaphone for young voices long excluded from traditional politics.
The demographics matter here. Africa has the world’s youngest population, with around 70% under the age of 30, as stated by the United Nations. This generation is digitally native. Many people skipped landlines and newspapers entirely, opting instead for smartphones and social media. They are debating presidents in real time, fact-checking officials live on air, and organizing marches through encrypted apps.
It is precisely this shift that makes governments nervous. Political debates that once unfolded in closed rooms or through tightly controlled media are now happening in public, online, and in ways authorities cannot easily manage. The smartphone has become a democratic tool, and, in the eyes of many leaders, a threat.
That threat explains the turn to shutdowns. When hashtags trend too loudly, when protests gather too much momentum, when political opposition starts to organize, cutting the internet becomes an easy way to seize back control of the narrative.
Shutdowns as political weapons
The book Internet Shutdowns in Africa, published by the African Digital Rights Network and convened by the Institute of Development Studies, lays out how shutdowns are increasingly normalized as tools of political control.
Ethiopia offers perhaps the starkest illustration of this experience. During the Tigray conflict, the government repeatedly used blackouts to isolate millions, not only muting dissent but also obstructing humanitarian response. Sudan, too, has made internet disruptions a near reflex during moments of political upheaval, most recently during the ongoing conflict and waves of civil resistance.
Each time, the shutdowns served as digital weapons to cripple civil resistance.
Felicia Anthonio, a global expert on shutdowns and co-editor of the book, warns:
“Across Africa, governments are normalising the use of internet shutdowns to suppress dissent, quell protests, and manipulate electoral outcomes. These blackouts are growing in scale and frequency, with devastating consequences for rights and lives, in an ever-more digitally connected world.”
Some shutdowns grab international headlines, sparking condemnation. Many more happen quietly, unnoticed beyond borders, particularly in states where independent media is under threat and civil society is shrinking. That invisibility is part of the danger.
The human and economic costs
It can be easy to think of shutdowns in technical terms, as if they are about apps, cables, and satellites. But on the ground, they are about people.
In examples cited in the book, when Sudan shut down the internet in 2019 during mass protests, medical workers lost contact with patients who relied on online consultations. In Uganda, a shutdown during the 2021 election left journalists unable to verify results and citizens unable to share reports of irregularities. In Cameroon, repeated shutdowns in the Anglophone regions have deepened mistrust, cutting communities off from news, education, and commerce.
Every blackout comes with an economic price tag, too. The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) estimates that internet shutdowns have cost African economies billions of dollars in lost business, trade, and productivity. Small-scale entrepreneurs, who increasingly depend on platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, and mobile money for survival, are often the hardest hit.
For citizens, the damage is more personal. “When the internet goes off, I feel invisible,” a young activist in Kampala told researchers. “It’s like they want to erase us.”
Conclusion
The new research calls this what it is: digital authoritarianism. The shutdowns are not just about switching off apps or blocking social media; they are deliberate acts to control the narrative, tilt power, and keep regimes insulated from citizen pressure. And every time a government gets away with it, the practice becomes easier to repeat.
As Africa becomes more digitally connected, researchers warn that the stakes will only grow higher. They urge governments, regional institutions, telecom providers, and civil society to resist the slide into normalizing shutdowns and to maintain human rights commitments to free expression, association, and political participation.
Because when the internet goes dark, it’s not just screens that go blank. It’s people’s voices. It’s accountability. It’s democracy itself.
