Exams disrupt access in Syria

Syrian Arab Republic (the)

30 May, 2022 (1 day)

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.

Data and Analysis

The disruption as seen from Internet measurement providers

IODA Signals for Syrian Arab Republic

Second round of exams

Cloudflare Radar

Internet traffic change in Syria

Second round of exams

Google Transparency Report

Product traffic in Syria from May to June 2022

Second round of exams

Product traffic in Syria from July to August 2022

Conversations

The 3rd of four scheduled exam-related #Internet shutdowns took place in #Syria between 0200-0530 UTC today.

As seen during past shutdowns, Web traffic drops to zero, and DNS queries can egress, but replies can't return, leading to retry floods.

Track: https://t.co/wlMV19iGzl pic.twitter.com/JOiDTPgnmL

— Cloudflare Radar (@CloudflareRadar) June 6, 2022

#Syria 🇸🇾 once again shuts down the #Internet nationwide during certificate exams.@CloudflareRadar shows outages between 0200-0530 UTC on May 30 & June 2. Outages also expected June 6 & 12.

Track: https://t.co/wlMV19iGzl
Exam schedule: https://t.co/OpY53iMPki
h/t: @gatech_ioda pic.twitter.com/DN3cqaC2ob

— Cloudflare Radar (@CloudflareRadar) June 2, 2022

Syrian Telecom has cut off the #Internet for national exams now twice this week. The #shutdowns occurred from 5:00 AM to 8:30 AM local time Monday May 30th and Thursday June 2nd.

Track Syria on the IODA dashboard:https://t.co/HMgxL7Uhwg

Exam Shutdowns: https://t.co/DXZ2He4Inz pic.twitter.com/qfU0F0gdlE

— IODA (@IODA_live) June 2, 2022

Internet Shutdowns

Syrian Arab Republic (the)

The disruption as seen from Internet measurement providers