Past

National shutdown

This is the seventh year that Syria has shut the Internet down during high school exams.  This is recorded for 30 May 2022. State-owned operator announced the scheduled disruption on platforms like Facebook, describing four outages, each scheduled to last for three and a half hours. The Syrian government has unplugged the Internet every year during student exams time since 2016, after exam questions began appearing on social media prior to the exams. Yet there is growing evidence that shutdowns are an ineffective way to prevent cheating, as questions still get leaked in spite of an Internet blackout.

  • Total Duration 0 hours

Flag of Syria Syria

Population
23,594,623

Freedom House rates Internet freedom as Not Free

View full country profile for Syria

Local impact

This is the seventh year that Syria has shut the Internet down during high school exams.  This is recorded for 30 May 2022. State-owned operator announced the scheduled disruption on platforms like Facebook, describing four outages, each scheduled to last for three and a half hours. The Syrian government has unplugged the Internet every year during student exams time since 2016, after exam questions began appearing on social media prior to the exams. Yet there is growing evidence that shutdowns are an ineffective way to prevent cheating, as questions still get leaked in spite of an Internet blackout.

Other supporting information

The disruption as seen from Internet measurement providers

Second round of exams

Cloudflare Radar

Internet traffic change in Syria

Second round of exams

Social media