2025 started with 47 ongoing Internet disruptions, while 81 new restrictions were imposed during the year, according to Surfshark’s internet shutdowns yearly recap.
Government-imposed Internet shutdowns affected 4,6-billion people in 2025. Asia continues to lead the world in internet censorship cases. The governments of 10 Asian countries imposed 56 new restrictions.
“Internet shutdowns, including long-term, systemic censorship, affected 4.6 billion people in 2025, more than half of the world’s population. Despite growing global recognition of internet access as a fundamental human right, the scale and reach of digital restrictions continue to expand year after year. In 2025 alone, two new countries – Albania and Panama – implemented internet restrictions for the first time, highlighting how government-mandated shutdowns are no longer confined to a small group of repeat offenders, but are becoming an increasingly used tool of control worldwide,” says Luís Costa, research lead at Surfshark.
As for the past few years, Asia was once again in the lead: the governments of 10 Asian countries imposed 56 new restrictions, affecting 2-billion people. Africa followed second, with 20 new cases introduced by eight 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 (nine cases), Afghanistan (seven cases), Jammu and Kashmir (five cases), Iran (four cases), Turkey and Nepal (two cases each), Pakistan, Vietnam, and Yemen (one 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 access, but the country still had one incident in 2025 when it shut down the internet in the Azad Kashmir region.
With five 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 four cases and three 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 (three cases), Guinea, Sudan, and DR Congo (two cases each), and Nigeria and Togo (one case each).
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.
Social media the target
In 2025, social media was the focus of one-fourth of all internet restrictions. Twenty-one new instances of social media restrictions by 14 countries were observed — a higher number than the 18 cases in seven countries in 2024.
Of all social media platforms, Telegram is the most targeted by autocratic governments and remains highly censored 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.