National shutdown
Another four-hour shutdown of the Internet for everyone in Iraq, in the Iraq government's belief that this will reduce cheating during high school exams. The shutdowns are expected to continue on July 12, 15 in 2023. As we have repeatedly written about here on Pulse, Internet shutdowns cause great harm to a country’s economy and society, and are in our opinion NOT the appropriate mechanism to cope with potential exam cheating.
- Total Duration 4 hours
Iraq
- Population
- 46,042,015
Freedom House rates Internet freedom as Partly Free
Local impact
Another four-hour shutdown of the Internet for everyone in Iraq, in the Iraq government's belief that this will reduce cheating during high school exams. The shutdowns are expected to continue on July 12, 15 in 2023. As we have repeatedly written about here on Pulse, Internet shutdowns cause great harm to a country’s economy and society, and are in our opinion NOT the appropriate mechanism to cope with potential exam cheating.
Other supporting information
Measurements from the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) project at Georgia Tech shows a the shutdown on July 11 following a similar pattern to the previous shutdowns, beginning at 01:00 and ending at 05:00 (UTC).
Social media
12th grade #exams have started in #Iraq, which means another ~5 hour #Internet #shutdown has occurred in Iraq. 12th grade exams are set for June 21, 22 ,24, 25, 26, 27; July 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15.
— IODA (@IODA_live) June 21, 2023
Iraq Internet connectivity in near realtime:https://t.co/3SrU04E7e8 pic.twitter.com/Uz9DFhHQI4
Multiple multi-hour #Internet shutdowns intended to prevent cheating on 9th and 12th grade academic exams took place in #Iraq 🇮🇶 in June, and have continued into July. This round of shutdowns will reportedly conclude on July 15.https://t.co/Mow5q78qvphttps://t.co/cjBToyEIKX pic.twitter.com/ucrHsiUvEd
— Cloudflare Radar (@CloudflareRadar) July 10, 2023