Despite Cost to Economy, Iraq Imposes Internet Shutdown During Exams

Iraq

1 June, 2023 04:00 - 08:00 (4 hours)

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.

Cause Documentation

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

Data and Analysis

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

Conversations

https://twitter.com/CloudflareRadar/status/1664228819459268609

https://twitter.com/IODA_live/status/1664249666798583809

Internet Shutdowns

Iraq