22 Jul 2025
We’ve made some updates to the way we determine the values in the NetLoss Calculator, the tool that helps model the economic impact of Internet shutdowns. These will have changed some of the values you see when you use the calculator, but we believe the updated methodology makes the model stronger.
Improvements
Switched to a better source of election data
We have been using the data from CLEA, the Lower Chamber Elections Archive as a source when we calculate the potential impact of a real or hypothetical shutdown. But CLEA data is at the level of individual constituencies, which is more detailed than we need, and we have been unsure about the completeness of it, as well as the time it takes to update a database at this level of detail. Its data only goes to April 2023.
We’re now using data from IPU, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which seems to be a more complete, and more up-to-date dataset, including data from elections that have taken place this year. The impact of this change might be seen in new values for both the GDP impact and the unemployment numbers the calculator generates.
Updated how we count shutdowns over time
In the previous methodology, when calculating impact and risk, we factored in any previous shutdowns for a country within that calendar year. This meant that if there was a shutdown in December, the numbers would change drastically on January 1, even if the situation hadn’t actually improved. Now we’ve updated the methodology so that it calculates all the shutdowns over the previous 12 months, making it more accurate.
Bug Fixes
Recalculated all the cached figures to update NetLoss from the start
Based on the improved methodology for shutdown time spans, we’ve recalculated all of the cached figures in NetLoss, from the time we started tracking this type of data. This means that the GDP impact will generally show a slightly smaller number and unemployment figures will show a slightly larger number of job losses for the entire time period NetLoss covers.