With a total of 40 internet disruptions between January and June 2019, India topped the number of ‘intentional disruptions’, according to Facebook’s 'Transparency Report' released by on 13 November.
Algeria came a distant second with seven recorded disruptions while Ethiopia came third with four disruptions.
The restrictions placed in India together amount to 8 weeks, 2 days and 22 hours.
INTERNET DISRUPTION – WHAT IS THAT?
The social media giant’s Transparency Report defines internet disruptions as:
“Internet disruptions are intentional restrictions on connectivity that limit people’s ability to access the internet or specific websites and applications.”
However, it is important to note that the Facebook report talks about the disruptions placed on their products alone.
WHO PLACES THESE RESTRICTIONS, WHERE WAS IT PLACED?
The government.
Recorded between 1 Januray 2019 and 30 June 2019, the report shows that with 31 out of 40 restrictions, the most number of disruptions inside India was placed in the Kashmir valley.
A spike in these restrictions were seen in February-March 2019 period – in the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack and the Balakot airstrikes and retaliations that followed. It is important to note that these restrictions are before the abrogation of Article 370 that has lead to a prolonged internet disruption in the Valley.
Restrictions were also placed in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh (1) and Rajasthan’s Sikar (2).
Odisha and West Bengal also faced disruption of Facebook services on two separate days.
Northeastern states of Tripura, Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh also witnessed the deliberate disruption of Facebook.
Across the world, the tech giant identified 67 disruption of Facebook services in 15 different countries, as compared to 53 disruptions in nine countries in the latter half of 2018.
GOVT REQUESTS TO USE FACEBOOK DATA
Overall requests by governments for Facebook user data rose 16 percent to 128,617 in the first half of this year.
While the United States topped the total number of government requests 50,741, India made the second-most number of them with 22,684 requests.
In its report, Facebook stated that it has complied to an average of 55 percent of these requests where some data was produced.
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