Internet Shutdowns

Syrian Arab Republic (the)

30 May - 21 June, 2022 (23 days)

Local Impact

This is the seventh year that Syria has shut the Internet down during high school exams.  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.

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