Digital democracy|Digital freedom
Internet shutdowns in 2025: a global overview
Throughout 2025, internet censorship worldwide continued to evolve. New restrictions emerged in response to political unrest, protests, and social issues, while some remained in place from the year before. In this article, we will take an in-depth look at global internet restrictions, exploring their types, causes, and key developments, as well as highlight notable shifts that occurred in 2025 compared to the past.
47 internet restrictions were already in place at the start of 2025
2025 began with 47 internet restrictions imposed by 22 countries. Notably, some of these restrictions have already been in place for over 15 years. For example, Oman, Iran, China, and Turkmenistan all imposed long-term social media restrictions in 2009, and these measures are still in place today.
81 new restrictions in 2025
Throughout the year, 81 new restrictions were introduced across 21 countries.
As in 2024, Asia was once again in the lead¹: the governments of 10 Asian countries imposed 56 new restrictions. These restrictions affect about 2.2 billion people, or roughly 27% of the world’s population. Africa followed second, with 20 new cases introduced by 8 countries, collectively impacting a total of 344 million people.
India again secured the top spot as the country with the most internet restrictions in Asia. In 2025, it imposed 24 new restrictions, marking a slight increase from 23 imposed in 2024.
Other Asian countries and territories grappling with internet restrictions included Iraq (9 cases), Afghanistan (7 cases), Jammu and Kashmir (5 cases), Iran (4 cases), Turkey and Nepal (2 cases each), Pakistan, Vietnam, and Yemen (1 case each). In September 2025, Afghanistan started imposing multiple temporary regional internet shutdowns and, in addition, banned Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, which are still in effect to this day. Notably, after a one-year ban on X (formerly Twitter), Pakistan restored its access², but the country still had one incident in 2025 when it shut down the internet in the Azad Kashmir region.
With 5 new cases, Cameroon played a significant role in Africa’s ranking in 2025. The country once again imposed multiple restrictions on social and messaging platforms, as well as several internet shutdowns leading up to and during the elections. Cameroon already had a history of imposing internet censorship during elections, as it restricted access to Facebook and WhatsApp on the eve of the 2018 election results. Tanzania had 4 cases, and 3 of them, similarly to Cameroon, were related to elections. X (formerly Twitter) was also banned in Tanzania, and the ban is still in effect to this day. New restrictions were also registered in Kenya (3 cases), Guinea, Sudan, and DR Congo (2 cases each), and Nigeria and Togo (1 case each).
Most notable internet restrictions in 2025
As mentioned before, India imposed the most restrictions in 2025. Of these restrictions, 14 were related to political turmoil (such as multiple shutdowns in the Uttar Pradesh region amid communal clashes), and 11 were related to protests (for example, as a precaution before a farmers' protest against an ethanol plant in Hanumangarh).
In mid-2025, Vietnam imposed a permanent ban on the messaging platform Telegram after the technology ministry ordered the service’s suspension for failing to cooperate in combating alleged user crimes. Around the same time, Nepal also banned Telegram, citing a rise in online fraud and money laundering.
In Europe, only Albania imposed new internet restrictions, banning TikTok for one year. The ban began in March 2025. The decision was made after a conflict on the social media platform resulted in the death of a teenager.
Turkey continues to impose temporary bans on social media platforms to deal with protests and other incidents. In 2025, it restricted social media twice; in 2024, five times. The first social media restrictions began in 2016, and since then, such measures have become a common occurrence, especially in recent years.
In South America, only Venezuela has imposed internet restrictions. On one occasion, it restricted access to Telegram for a day in connection with election day, and on another, it banned TikTok after the platform failed to appoint a local representative in Venezuela.
In North America, only Panama has imposed internet shutdowns, doing so twice as a response to protests by banana plantation workers.
Iraq shut down nationwide internet connectivity a total of nine times, continuing a pattern of internet shutdowns as an apparent measure to prevent cheating during school exams. These shutdowns lasted between 2 and 12 hours each time.
Why are countries restricting internet access?
In 2025, 51 out of 81 new restrictions were linked to various forms of political turmoil — a significant increase compared to 2024, when only 23 such restrictions were imposed. These types of restrictions occurred in 14 countries and affected 2.1 billion people in 2025. Notably, most of the cases happened in India, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran, indicating that these countries are willing to use internet restrictions as a tool to silence the public or limit the spread of news on a regular basis.
Four countries implemented internet restrictions during elections in 2025: Cameroon, Tanzania, Guinea, and Venezuela. Cameroon led with five separate cases of repeated network failures ahead of the elections and imposed restrictions on social media during the election period. Tanzania enforced a five-day nationwide internet shutdown during elections, followed by widespread restrictions on multiple social media and messaging platforms afterwards. Guinea restricted access to social media and messaging platforms at the end of 2025 while awaiting election results. Lastly, Venezuela restricted access to Telegram while President Maduro was sworn in for his third term.
In 2025, six countries imposed internet restrictions in response to protests. India ranked as the top country for protest-related internet restrictions, implementing them 10 times. Although this is lower than last year’s 13 cases, it still demonstrates that such measures are standard practice in India. Meanwhile, Panama imposed internet restrictions for the first time to deal with protests, doing so twice, while Kenya, Turkey, Togo, and Pakistan each imposed restrictions once.
As in the previous year, the most common type of internet restriction in 2025 was local network disruption, where access was limited to specific regions or cities. The most extreme form — nationwide network shutdowns affecting a significant portion of the population or the entire country — was implemented by 7 countries in 22 instances, marking an increase from 18 cases in 2024. Iraq was affected by such large restrictions nine times in 2024, followed by Iran and Cameroon with four each, Tanzania with two, and Afghanistan, Sudan, and Yemen with one each.
Social media restrictions
Social media was targeted in 21 out of 81 internet restrictions introduced in 2025, a slight increase from 18 social media restrictions in 2024. Overall, new instances of social media restrictions were observed in 14 countries, compared to just 7 in 2024. These social media restrictions were imposed due to political turmoil (9 instances), protests (3), elections (6), and internet law (3).
Telegram was the most frequently blocked social media platform in 2025, facing restrictions from seven governments on nine occasions. By comparison, in 2024, Facebook was the most frequently blocked platform, with five governments imposing nine restrictions. In 2025, Facebook came in second with seven cases, followed by YouTube and Instagram with six cases each, and X (formerly Twitter) and WhatsApp with five cases each.
In terms of duration, six countries in 2025 imposed permanent bans on specific social media platforms, while Albania banned TikTok for one year. Examples include Telegram being banned in Nepal and Vietnam, Facebook in Afghanistan, and X (formerly Twitter) in Tanzania. In addition to these permanent bans, there were 14 cases of temporary social media bans, which usually lasted 1–5 days, except for a few notable cases: in Kenya, Telegram was restricted for 19 days; in India, there was a regional ban on all social media for 7 days; and in Cameroon, social media was banned for 6 days during the election.
How did restrictions change in 2025 compared to the past?
In 2025, there was a 29% increase in the number of new restrictions compared to 2024 (81 cases versus 63). This figure is also slightly higher than the 76 observed in 2023. The number of countries with new internet restrictions also increased in 2025, up to 21 countries, compared to 17 in 2024. Despite this increase, almost the same number of people were affected by new restrictions in 2025. The total reached 2.54 billion people — about 30.6% of the world’s 8.2 billion population — marking a 1.5% decrease from 2.58 billion in 2024.
The total number of internet restrictions, including ongoing cases before the end of the year, increased to 130 in 2025, compared to 112 cases in 2024. Internet shutdowns, including long-term censorship in countries like China or the UAE, affected 4.62 billion people in 2025 — over half the global population. Furthermore, in 2025, we saw 27 out of 196 analyzed countries and territories blocking social media or Voice over IP (VoIP) services, a 29% increase from 21 in the previous year.
In terms of restrictions that commenced in the year of interest, there was an increase in new cases in 2025 compared to 2024. This increase can be explained by 7 new cases in Afghanistan and 9 in Iraq, totaling 29 in 2025, whereas there were no new instances in 2024 in these countries. Additionally, the total number of countries that imposed new restrictions increased to 21 in 2025, up from 17 in 2024.
Ongoing restrictions
As 2025 ended, a total of 55 ongoing cases were reported at the time of publishing this research, 8 of which were introduced in 2025.
New ongoing restrictions were imposed in Guinea, Afghanistan, Sudan, Nepal, Nigeria, Vietnam, Tanzania, and Albania. Most of them were related to limiting access to specific social media and messaging platforms, such as a ban on Telegram in Nepal or multiple restrictions of TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook in Guinea.
Looking at older ongoing restrictions, we can see that there are decades-long bans on social media platforms in China, Iran, Oman, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, North Korea, Eritrea, and Russia. As a result, citizens of these countries often have limited access to independent news and international social networks, making it easier for governments to push their agendas and spread misinformation.
The struggle for internet freedom remains
In 2025, internet restrictions increased globally, with more new cases than last year and additional ongoing measures set to continue into 2026. More than half the world’s population is now affected by these restrictions. Asia and Africa remained the regions with the most cases, though several countries from other continents also introduced one or two restrictions each. Political unrest became the main reason for shutdowns in 2025, replacing protests as the leading cause in 2024. Social media bans became more common, with Telegram, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram among the most frequently targeted platforms. Overall, internet freedom continued to shrink in 2025, as more governments relied on blocking access to control information.
Methodology and sources
Please refer to the Internet Shutdown Tracker’s methodology page³ for methodology, data sources, and data spreadsheet.
For the complete research material behind this study, visit here.
