The losses caused by the blocking of the Internet during the bac exams in Algeria, are estimated at more than 500 million dollars.
According to the NGO “NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool” (COST), the 5 days of interruption and strong disruption of the Internet during the recent baccalaureate exams caused losses of $ 509 million to the Algerian economy
COST experts observe that the bill is very steep and the damage is enormous for a country already weakened for many by a nagging and suffocating financial crisis.
These temporary internet cuts, decided by the Algerian government during the baccalaureate exams, have dealt a serious blow to companies in various sectors, whose shortfall amounts to several hundreds of millions of dollars, are alarmed at their loss. side of the experts cited by the same media.
Some economic enterprises have complained, in turn, of the systematic use of these practices, which have a considerable impact on their activities.
According to these experts, hundreds of millions of dollars are lost each year during high school exam days.
Worse still, the trend of online browsing restrictions, and even Internet shutdowns, is increasingly worrying because it becomes recurrent, especially during Hirak gatherings, they regret.
They recall that resorting to Internet shutdowns, without this being justified, is prohibited by international law (UN) and Algeria will never admit that it systematically resorts to it.
“The fact remains that reality is visible and is the best witness to it, as is the case during the baccalaureate exams even though the Ministry of Education has declared that there would be no cut-off for this session, ”they detailed.
Estimates focus on the economic impact of an internet disruption, mobile data outage, or application restriction using indicators from the World Bank, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Eurostat and the US census.
Relaying this analysis, the Algerian media note that the evaluation is very serious because Netblocks is one of the most reliable sources on internet traffic and its economic impact on countries around the world.
It is a very influential Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), founded in 2017, which oversees cyber security and internet governance by monitoring freedom of internet access.
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