Past

National shutdown

Despite positive comments from the Iraq Ministry of Communication that they would consider not shutting down the Internet to prevent cheating during academic exams in Iraq, the government did go ahead and shut down the Internet for a four-hour period. Measurements from Cloudflare, IODA, and OONI all document this shutdown. 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

Flag of Iraq Iraq

Population
46,042,015

Freedom House rates Internet freedom as Partly Free

View full country profile for Iraq

Local impact

Despite positive comments from the Iraq Ministry of Communication that they would consider not shutting down the Internet to prevent cheating during academic exams in Iraq, the government did go ahead and shut down the Internet for a four-hour period. Measurements from Cloudflare, IODA, and OONI all document this shutdown. 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.

Related documentation

Local news programs indicated that the Iraq Ministry of Education announced the shutdown.

Other supporting information

IODA measurements show a drop in Internet connectivity in Iraq beginning around 12:40 UTC and resuming around 5:00 UTC.

Chart from IODA showing a drop in connectivity in Iraq during the shutdown.

Cloudflare Radar shows a similar outage.

Chart from Cloudflare Radar showing the outage in Iraq

Social media

USD $569,428

estimated negative impact on national economy

Netloss Calculator

Shutdown history

  • 47 shutdowns in the last 12 months
  • 160 shutdowns since 2018
  • 11,915 shutdown hours since 2018

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