34 | RISING REPRESSION MEETS GLOBAL RESISTANCE: INTERNET SHUTDOWNS IN 2025 VIII. Recommendations for stakeholders The global rise in internet shutdowns despite their many negative impacts is a clear call to action for all who care about human rights. The use of shutdowns to assert control, manipulate elections, and hide human rights violations is causing deep, preventable harm,219 including the loss of lives.220 In Myanmar, Iran, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Sudan, and elsewhere, countless people have suffered and died under the cover of internet blackouts. These deliberate disruptions must never be normalized. Stakeholders from across sectors must take immediate concrete steps to end internet shutdowns and hold perpetrators accountable. With the sharp increase in the targeting of LEO satellite internet systems further exacerbating multiple humanitarian crises around the world, it’s imperative that governments, regulators, satellite providers, and international institutions develop more robust and inclusive governance processes,221 and support and implement solutions such as direct-to-cell satellite connectivity.222 Below we provide specific recommendations for stakeholders, including states and international and regional bodies, private companies, humanitarian organizations, and funders, who can play a pivotal role in the fight for an open, secure, and inclusive internet for all. They are organized along four themes: strengthening norms, improving humanitarian response, resourcing civil society resistance, and investing in alternative connectivity. STRENGTHENING NORMS States and international organizations: • States and international organizations must continue to develop and strengthen norms to ensure the practice of internet shutdowns comes to an end. In 2025, the UN General Assembly undertook its 20th review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to assess problems and challenges. In the outcome document adopted by consensus, world leaders stressed “the importance for all Member States and stakeholders, to promote universal, free, open, interoperable, safe, reliable, and secure use of and access to the internet by respecting and protecting human rights and by refraining from internet shutdowns and measures that target internet access.”223 This represents a significant normative win, and a high-level affirmation of a decade of advocacy against internet shutdowns at intergovernmental forums. International actors such as the UN Secretary-General, Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies (ODET), High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and other key mandate holders should continue to advance this work both through ongoing norm development and through accountability and implementation. • States must refrain from shutting down the internet, and instead strengthen their commitments to respect and protect universal, free, open, interoperable, safe, and secure use of and access to the internet for everyone. • State parties to conflict should immediately halt any behavior resulting in shutdowns affecting civilian communities and the humanitarian system. 219 See supra note 13. Access Now (2025). 221 See supra note 112. Access Now (2025). 220 See supra note 32. Amnesty International (2025). 222 WITNESS (2026). Civil society coalition launches campaign calling for direct-to-cell satellite connectivity amid Iran’s internet shutdowns. https://www.witness.org/civil-society-coalition-launches-campaign-calling-for-direct-to-cell-satellite-connectivity-amid-irans-internetshutdowns/ 223 United Nations (2025). World Summit on Information Society +20. https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/80/173/