World's Worst Internet Clampdown Cost This Country $3 Billion In 2021

Myanmar topped 21 countries that disrupted the internet for a total 30,179 hours last year, leading to global losses of $5.5 billion -- up 36% from 2020.

Internet outages by Myanmar's military junta to curb nationwide protests over a coup in 2021 cost the country $2.8 billion, the biggest losses in the world, according to a study.

The Southeast Asian nation topped 21 countries that disrupted the internet for a total 30,179 hours last year, leading to global losses of $5.5 billion -- up 36% from 2020. Nigeria and India followed Myanmar, a report from UK-based digital privacy and security research group Top10VPN showed Tuesday.

Nigeria lost $1.5 billion in 2021 and India, the world's biggest democracy that had topped the list in 2020, lost $583 million. Governments controlled the flow of information by total internet blackouts and social media blocks, or by throttling speeds to levels where anything beyond simple text-based communication becomes impossible.

Twitter was the most blocked social media platform with a total 12,379 hours of outages, followed by Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and YouTube, according to the report.