My intent was to say it's difficult without incurring major side-effects to the economy. I've updated my comment to clarify.

Of course, if you don't have a significant economy to begin with or something else has already disrupted it (riots, uprising, etc - which could also be what prompts you to shut down the internet) then it's not a problem.

Or you simply value control over money. The economy is not the primary goal of everyone, not even all governments.

You need some degree of economy to have control though.

But evidence shows countries turning the internet off all the time, let alone specific filtering, and their economies haven't collapsed. India does it dozens of times a year.

In most cases you don't need to completely turn everything off, just shut down the mobile networks, and maybe the big domestic broadband networks, and that's good enough.

Turn off internet or block social networks?

If your country has natural resources it is very easy to heavily control that part of the economy and suppress the less controllable parts of the economy (by shutting the internet down for example).

North Korea says sup

It's simple if you setup your infra in such a way you expect to be able to turn it off. It'd be a lot harder in the US where things are a lot more decentralized. In Uganda, I wouldn't be shocked if all connectivity to outside of the country went through one physical building.

Maybe the US, which is a very large country, but issue an order to the major ISPs (cellular and cable) to stop carrying domestic network traffic and you accomplish pretty much the same thing. Sure there may be some WISPs in the middle of nowhere which aren't affected, but you've accomplished most of your goal.

There's two ways for internet to be shut down.

One is legal -- the government tells registered ISPs "stop forwarding packets". Doesn't matter how good your connectivity is when you simply have to turn it off. Your protection there are courts etc, but it's not technically difficult.

The other approach is extra-legal -- e.g a terrorist attack.

Just look at the effect from a car bomb in Nashville last month, I quote from a newspaper:

> The immediate repercussions were surprisingly widespread. AT&T customers lost service — phones, internet or video — across large parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. There were 911 centers in the region that couldn't take calls; others didn't receive crucial data associated with callers such as their locations. The Nashville police department's phones and internet failed. Stores went cash-only.

> At some hospitals, electronic medical records, internet service or phones stopped working. The Nashville airport halted flights for about three hours on Christmas. Rival carrier T-Mobile also had service issues as far away as Atlanta, 250 miles away, because the company uses AT&T equipment for moving customer data from towers to the T-Mobile network.

The area effected was about 100,000 square miles, roughly the same size as Uganda. From one carbomb outside one building.

I think there's only one major Internet Exchange point in Uganda (just like it seems there was one in the south east of the US), but there's certainly multiple fibres in and out. If you're in Mbarara and sending traffic to Rwanda it's unlikely to go via Kampala.

Here's a network map of one provider in Uganda: https://bcs-ea.com/service/uganda/

The UK has a few exchanges, but almost everything runs through Docklands in London - various Telehouse buildings within a mile of each other, Telecity etc. Almost all internet traffic in the UK runs through London, and the sites that aren't are owned by Linx (IXLeeds is the only one that isn't). A major flood breaching the Thames Barrier will cause chaos.

> One is legal -- the government tells registered ISPs "stop forwarding packets".

This only works as long as people respect the law. It wouldn't surprise me if in many countries they'd keep forwarding packets on the down-low. Black market internet access. At least for extended shutdowns. May not be any incentive if it lasts very short time.

Didn't Egypt end up with citizen-run satellite or mesh networks that crossed borders? I vaguely remember people from other countries organizing on Twitter to provide it somehow.

People always talk about networks like that. But the reality is they tend to only be a few thousand people max, while millions are still left unconnected.

They're good for exfiltrating news.

Iran, last year. Internet was out for like two weeks.