although it might be possible to spin it in the context of the recent unrest in the Middle East
Thinking about recent unrest in the Middle East seems to make the case considerably weaker—here are a handful of cases where things went pretty badly, but there was nothing even resembling a complete blackout of information.
There was a serious attempt at disrupting communications in Libya, which included both cutting international phone connections and active jamming of television signals. The cell phone network was offline for a month until rebels rewired it. While information flow was not completely cut off, because some people had satellite internet connectivity, it was greatly reduced, and the reduction was not in the volume of communication per person but in the number of people able to communicate. And we can’t count on people having satellite dishes, because they’re hard to hide, and banned in Iran.
Thinking about recent unrest in the Middle East seems to make the case considerably weaker—here are a handful of cases where things went pretty badly, but there was nothing even resembling a complete blackout of information.
Is there something I am missing?
There was a serious attempt at disrupting communications in Libya, which included both cutting international phone connections and active jamming of television signals. The cell phone network was offline for a month until rebels rewired it. While information flow was not completely cut off, because some people had satellite internet connectivity, it was greatly reduced, and the reduction was not in the volume of communication per person but in the number of people able to communicate. And we can’t count on people having satellite dishes, because they’re hard to hide, and banned in Iran.