India cutting off internet in Manipur state on May 4 after ethnic conflict broke out did not quell the violence and provided cover for murders, rapes, and arson
Since May 4, the Indian government has shut off the internet in Manipur, giving cover to murders, rapes, and arson. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to . Twitter: @peterguest , @shakirmir , and @gregwilliams718 Mastodon: Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life@mas.to : Many internet critics have tried to blame social media for ethnic violence. The sad reality is that ethnic violence is as old as the Bible and not recently spurred by technology. — It turns out quite often that social media is actually a way for victims to spread word about crimes against them and document. … Twitter: Peter Guest / @peterguest : On May 4, India turned off the internet in #Manipur. Under the cover of the blackout, a civil war raged. Brutal murders and rapes, villages burned down. This is what happened in the dark. Powerful, essential reporting by @parthpunter in @WIRED. https://t.co/... Shakir Mir / @shakirmir : “It's still smoldering, and could burst back into flames at any time.” @WIRED https://t.co/... Greg Williams / @gregwilliams718 : “For three months, hidden from the eyes of the world, Manipur has burned in the dark.” A heartbreaking, disturbing story on what's happening in Manipur. Terrific reporting from @parthpunter https://t.co/...
Context & Ripple Effects
India has made connectivity itself an instrument of crowd control: the Manipur blackout on May 4 extends a playbook that includes the months-long Kashmir shutdown that left pharmacists without drugs and businesses closed, and the cutoff of two states home to 32M people during citizenship-bill protests. The stated rationale each time is public safety.
Manipur is the clearest test yet of whether that rationale holds — and the reporting says it does not: the violence continued, while the shutdown stripped victims of the ability to document and spread word of murders, rapes, and arson. That failure lands just as Access Now records 2023 as the worst year for shutdowns since monitoring began, with India leading all countries at 116.
First-order effects
- Manipur residents lose the channels that let victims document atrocities and reach the outside world, so crimes committed under the blackout go unreported precisely when scrutiny matters most.
Second-order effects
- The documented failure gives civil-society monitors like Access Now their strongest case yet against India's shutdown habit, even as the government's own usage keeps climbing toward its 116 shutdowns in 2023.
Third-order effects
- If blackouts persist despite failing at their stated purpose, the pattern points to shutdowns functioning less as violence prevention than as impunity cover — a structural shift where states treat connectivity as revocable at will, with documentation gaps shielding perpetrators from accountability.
The trend: Governments are normalizing internet shutdowns as a first-response tool for unrest even as the evidence — Manipur being the latest example — shows they fail to stop violence while erasing the record of it.