How Governments Turn the Internet Into a Weapon

Bruce Schneier and Zach Rosson study deliberate internet shutdowns - more than 240 in 2025 - as means of silencing societies. They argue that our increasing reliance on the internet means that shutdowns become increasingly harmful, especially in countries without robust digital infrastructure. "The more centralized the internet infrastructure, the easier it is to implement a shutdown. If a country has just one cellphone provider, or only two fiber optic cables connecting the nation to the rest of the world, shutting them down is easy," they write for Gizmodo.