The 2011 Arab Spring uprisings were a pivotal moment in the history of protests. The new use of social media and digital technologies has allowed citizens to organize mass demonstrations and spread the wave of opposition across borders. At the same time, massive censorship came to the Internet for the first time.
Now, 11 years later, internet blackouts and social media censorship have become common practice among governments around the world to silence protesters and hide abuses.
However, citizens around the world have learned to combat these bans. And the answer always lies in digital technology. Security and circumvention software such as VPN services have thus become everyone’s favorite weapon in times of conflict.
It seems that the demand for VPN has increased after Instagram and WhatsApp bans in Iran recently. VPN downloads in the country jumped 3,000 percent above normal. This is also true in regions of the world where there is unrest and war.
Incredible increase of 17,000 percent
VPN downloads increased by 3,400 percent after mobile internet access was restricted in Kazakhstan. In April this increase reached incredible proportions in Sri Lanka; It was seen as 17,000 percent. When the government saw that the social media bans had become completely dysfunctional due to the VPN, it had to lift the bans. After the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, the demand for VPNs in this region increased by 2,700 percent. Indonesia saw a 196% increase after the PayPal and Twitter ban.
VPN software, which is short for virtual private network, hides the user’s IP address and allows data exchange to be made over a secure VPN tunnel. Thus, it is possible to bypass the restrictions imposed on the internet in a country.
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