Syria enters second day of internet blackout

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Syria has entered a second day without any internet connection to the outside world.

Google’s transparency report showed traffic to its pages suddenly stopped and have continued to show no activity.

Landline phones have also been down in the country which is embroiled in a civil war that has lasted more than 2 years.

Dan Hubbard, chief technology officer at OpenDNS said, “Effectively, the shutdown disconnects Syria from Internet communication with the rest of the world. It’s unclear whether Internet communication within Syria is still available.”

There has been speculation that the cut was an attempt by the government to disrupt any rebel communication.

However, the state news agency blames a fault in the optical fibre cables, quoting a communications official it said: “Efforts are ongoing to fix the faults and to bring Internet and telephone services back up as soon as possible.”

Google’s senior manager for free expression Christine Chen said it has happened twice before, “This happened in Syria last November and in Egypt during the Arab Spring.” Experts have said it is impossible to determine the cause of disruptions.

Google said its Speak2Tweet service was still up and running, as it was during the Arab Spring disruptions.

A screen shot from Google’s traffic data in Syria.

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