Shutdown Watch: Building A Community Against Internet Shutdowns in Bangladesh

On 17 July, mobile Internet services in Bangladesh were shut down amid protests by students and citizens. The following day, broadband Internet was also suspended, plunging the country into a near-total communications blackout. 

By 23 July, limited broadband access was restored, but widespread Internet services resumed only on 24 July, after significant police violence had claimed hundreds of lives. Although government officials initially denied involvement in the shutdowns, investigations later confirmed that the blackout was state-directed. Full Internet access was finally restored on 5 August, coinciding with the resignation of the then-government.

This recent shutdown is not an isolated event.

Bangladesh’s History of Internet Shutdowns

Internet shutdowns have been a recurring reality in Bangladesh, with citizens experiencing disruptions nearly every year since 2009. These shutdowns range from complete network blackouts to blocking communication, social media apps, and even intentional reductions in Internet speed. According to a survey by The Optima Project, an international initiative focused on Internet shutdowns, Bangladesh experienced 17 incidents from 2012 to mid-2022.

For many Bangladeshis, the state of Internet freedom remains a concern. In 2022, Bangladesh was among the top five countries with the most Internet shutdowns, as highlighted by Access Now, a New York-based digital rights organization, which recorded six shutdown incidents that year alone.

In response to the ongoing restriction of digital rights, three Internet freedom advocates based in Dhakawe launched a youth-led collective called Activate Rights in late 2021, Bringing together like-minded youth across Bangladesh. This initiative promotes Internet freedom by prioritizing advocacy, digital rights documentation, network measurement, and circumvention strategies. The goal is to foster a more democratic and open digital landscape, supporting small, volunteer-based youth activist groups nationwide.

Building a Community 

In 2022, we observed frequent Internet shutdowns at opposition party rallies across district and divisional cities in Bangladesh, particularly outside the capital. Many of these regional shutdowns went undocumented due to limited media coverage and low public awareness about digital rights, contributing to a lack of understanding of Internet freedom in the country.

Amid this backdrop, Activate Rights began supporting local and international organizations to document digital rights violations, such as Internet shutdowns. This work was entirely voluntary and non-profit.

Recognizing the need for structured training and a dedicated community, with support from Digitally Right, a leading digital rights organization in Bangladesh, we established a network of individuals trained to document and share data on Internet shutdowns and censorship. We also helped equip journalists with the skills to report these incidents accurately. Through this collaborative effort, we aimed to foster greater public awareness and resilience against Internet shutdowns in Bangladesh.

Shutdown Watch: Bangladesh’s First Live Internet Shutdown Monitoring Dashboard

In our work against Internet shutdowns, we noted that while various global groups address these issues, they face challenges in collecting standardized, reliable data at the country level.

While Activate Rights has collaborated with the KeepItOn Coalition for data collection and advocacy, connecting with other organizations handling Bangladesh-specific shutdown data remained difficult. To bridge this gap, we developed an open-source Shutdown Watch platform to make Bangladesh’s Internet shutdown data freely accessible.

Activate Rights received support from civic technologists to bring this vision to life. Subinay Mustafi Eron, co-lead of Activate Rights and civic technologist Nayeem Reza co-developed the platform.

Our data collection process begins with reports from our ground-level measurement community, now active across nearly every division in Bangladesh. We supplement these reports with insights from local journalists, Internet service providers, and, occasionally, anonymous information from telecommunications officials. Each incident is carefully verified, often with the assistance of digital rights activists and representatives from national telecom organizations, although cooperation from telcos has been limited.

To further ensure accuracy, we cross-reference our data with external sources, including Cloudflare Radar, IODA (Internet Outage Detection and Analysis), and the Internet Society Pulse Shutdown Tracker. Only after completing these steps do we add the validated data to the Shutdown Watch dashboard, providing a comprehensive, reliable resource on Internet shutdowns in Bangladesh.

Looking to the Future

Although Shutdown Watch is a small initiative, it is vital in supporting the free flow of information. Sustaining such efforts requires ongoing resources and support. We plan to release an open-source version of the Shutdown Watch dashboard, enabling communities worldwide to set up their own monitoring platforms tailored to their unique contexts.

Shoeb Abdullah is a digital rights activist and co-founder of Activate Rights.

The views expressed by the authors of this blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Internet Society.