In the Dark by Rest of World

Over the six months, Rest of World spoke to more than 70 technologists, activists, and journalists from across the globe to understand the growing threat to free expression: government-sponsored internet blackouts.

We saw it when Russia invaded Ukraine in February; not just using well-worn tactics like intimidating journalists, but shutting down social media, using a sprawling censorship infrastructure built on cheap, widely available technology. And Russia isn’t an outlier. From authoritarian governments in Egypt and Azerbaijan to juntas in Myanmar in Sudan, we found an alarming proliferation of the tools of repression, from censorship to surveillance, which threatens not only the rights of people worldwide but also the stability of the internet itself.