National shutdown
Internet Services
Another day, 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 8, 9, 10, 11, 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
- 47,020,774
Freedom House rates Internet freedom as Partly Free
Local impact
Another day, 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 8, 9, 10, 11, 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.
Related documentation
Below is a screenshot of the Iraq High School exam schedule for June and July 2023 as per the Iraqi Ministry of Education page on Facebook.
Other supporting information
Cloudflare Radar shows the Internet shutdown on 6 July 2023.
Measurements from the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) project at Georgia Tech shows a similar drop 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