Infrastructure Accountability

Citing a record 313 deliberate internet shutdowns across 52 countries in 2025 affecting roughly 800 million people, Vodafone Group published a report calling on governments to treat network shutdowns only as an exceptional last resort. Chief External & Corporate Affairs Officer Joakim Reiter proposed a 'Transparent Governance Framework' requiring a clear legal basis, a legitimate public policy objective, evidence of necessity and proportionality, written orders, independent oversight, access to judicial challenge, and public reporting on rationale and impact for any shutdown.

On September 15, 2026, a three-judge bench of Kenya's High Court (Justices Francis Gikonyo, Roselyn Aburili and Teresia Wanjiku) declared null and void the Kenyan government's sale of a 15% Safaricom stake to Vodacom for KES 204.3 billion (plus KES 40.2 billion paid in advance against future dividends), part of the June 30, 2026 transaction that raised Vodacom's Safaricom ownership from roughly 35% to 55%. The court found the transaction violated the Constitution through inadequate public participation, concealment of material information from the public and Parliament, an arbitrary pricing process, failure to address national-security concerns, and mischaracterizing what was effectively a takeover as a partial divestiture. Kenya's Court of Appeal fast-tracked the government/Vodacom's substantive appeal on October 13, 2026 rather than ruling separately on a stay request; as of the sweep date, Vodafone Kenya remains the registered shareholder and the purchase money remains held pending the appeal, so the July 31, 2026 governance changes handing Vodacom expanded board and CEO-nomination control remain in place but legally unresolved.

Following Vodacom's June 30, 2026 completion of a deal buying a controlling 55% stake in Safaricom (KES 204bn/EUR1.36bn for 15% from the Kenyan government plus KES 68bn/EUR450m for 5% from Vodafone), Safaricom sought and won shareholder approval on July 31, 2026 to remove long-standing governance protections tied to Kenyan-government ownership. The changes give Vodafone/Vodacom the right to nominate the CEO and all executive and shareholder-appointed directors (previously requiring board/government input), remove the requirement for government approval before regional expansion including into Ethiopia, eliminate the requirement that the executive committee be 'predominantly Kenyan', replace prior 10%/40% ownership-threshold protections with a single 50% threshold, and drop the mandatory dividend policy. Vodacom subsequently appointed two South African executives to Safaricom's board, increasing its board representation to 5 seats while Kenyan-government ownership fell from 35% to 20%.

Starting July 20, 2026, Indian authorities issued a series of at least seven consecutive orders directing Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea to suspend mobile internet service across a roughly 1.5km radius of central Delhi around Jantar Mantar, in response to a student protest (organized by group 'CJP') at the site. The shutdown, repeatedly extended through July 25, became the longest mobile internet suspension in Delhi's history. Jio and the other operators confirmed receiving the government orders and complied, but the government did not publish copies of the suspension orders in the public domain as required by India's Telecommunications (Temporary Suspension of Services) Rules, 2024, and telecom providers reportedly had not received a formal revocation order even after service was restored. Digital rights group SFLC.in challenged the shutdown's legality in the Delhi High Court, arguing it violated transparency and proportionality standards set by the Supreme Court in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020).

Iraq's Ministry of Communications ordered federally-licensed ISPs to cut internet access every exam morning to prevent cheating, across two rounds (June 13-July 4 and August 26-September 12, 2026). Network measurement by GeoCables and ISOC Pulse showed Earthlink (AS199739) and Noor Al-Bedaya dropped to zero connectivity on all 16 monitored exam mornings, each lasting 50-90 minutes at the same hour, cutting 66-71% of national connectivity. Kurdistan Region providers were unaffected because the semi-autonomous region runs its own exam calendar outside Baghdad's jurisdiction, not because they declined to comply.

During Iran's nationwide internet blackout beginning January 8, 2026 -- described by the BBC as one of the most extreme shutdowns in history and accompanying a crackdown that killed dozens of protesters -- MTN Irancell CEO Alireza Rafiei was dismissed after reportedly delaying compliance with a security-body order to cut internet access, according to IRGC-linked Fars news agency reporting cited by Iran International. Ranking Digital Rights' 2026 Telco Giants Index found that MTN Group, despite ranking 2nd of 12 major telcos overall on transparency, consistently omits data about government surveillance and network-shutdown demands handled by its Irancell subsidiary -- an omission RDR called 'particularly glaring' given Iran's use of shutdowns to suppress dissent. MTN was one of only a few companies in the index praised for disclosing shutdown-demand data in other markets, making the Irancell gap notable as a carve-out.

During a December 20, 2025 power outage in San Francisco, Waymo robotaxis stalled across the city, blocking intersections and emergency vehicles. Mayor Daniel Lurie texted Waymo's CEO reporting a car blocking a fire truck from reaching an active fire. In subsequent regulatory proceedings, a judge scolded Waymo after the company refused to disclose how many robotaxis had stalled, claiming the information was a trade secret.

A September 18, 2025 Optus network outage, triggered by a botched routine network upgrade, left customers unable to reach Australia's Triple Zero (000) emergency call service for roughly 14 hours; about 75% of 605 Triple Zero call attempts failed during the outage, which was linked to two deaths. A review commissioned by Optus and led by Kerry Schott (released December 2025) found as many as ten compounding mistakes by Optus and contractor Nokia, plus poor risk management, internal audit, and customer/stakeholder communication. On July 30, 2026, Australia's communications regulator ACMA filed Federal Court proceedings against Optus Mobile Pty Limited alleging 1,005 separate occasions on which it failed to provide access to the emergency call service, breaching the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 and the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination 2019. Optus subsidiaries had already paid over A$12 million in ACMA infringement notices after a similar November 2023 Triple Zero failure.

In June 2025, Waymo suspended service in parts of San Francisco and Los Angeles after multiple robotaxis were vandalized during protests against ICE activities and the Trump administration. The vehicles had become symbolic targets of resistance to the tech industry's perceived close ties to the Trump administration. Earlier in February 2024, a Waymo was set on fire in SF's Chinatown during Lunar New Year celebrations. The incidents reflect growing community tension over the presence of autonomous vehicles in urban neighborhoods.

In October 2024, following sustained criticism over the UNC5537 mass breach chain, Snowflake announced it would require multi-factor authentication by default for newly-created accounts and would deprecate password-only logins for new admin accounts by 2025. CISO Brad Jones acknowledged the company's product defaults had been a contributing factor to the breach and the company committed to additional secure-by-default investments. The change took effect for new accounts in early 2025.

In September 2024, Mullenweg publicly attacked WP Engine as a 'cancer to WordPress' and demanded 8% of revenue ($32M) as trademark licensing. When WP Engine declined, he blocked their access to WordPress.org, disrupting over a million websites. He then seized WP Engine's ACF plugin without review. WP Engine sued for extortion, unfair competition, and defamation. A court granted a preliminary injunction restoring WP Engine's access. 159 Automattic employees (8.4%) took buyout packages to leave.

In September 2024, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg escalated a trademark dispute with WP Engine by publicly calling them a 'cancer to WordPress,' blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources, and demanding they pay trademark licensing fees. WP Engine sued Automattic. The dispute disrupted the WordPress ecosystem and drew widespread criticism for using control of WordPress.org infrastructure as leverage in a commercial dispute.

Beginning in April 2024, threat actor UNC5537 used credentials stolen via prior infostealer malware to access approximately 165 Snowflake customer tenants that lacked multi-factor authentication, exfiltrating hundreds of millions of records belonging to downstream customers including Ticketmaster (560M records), Santander, AT&T (~110M wireless customers), Advance Auto Parts, LendingTree, Neiman Marcus, and others. Snowflake initially attributed responsibility to customer credential management while critics noted Snowflake's product defaults did not require MFA. Snowflake later enabled MFA-by-default policies for new accounts.

An October 2023 FAA report to Congress projected that without changes to Starlink satellite deorbit design, debris surviving reentry from the planned Starlink mega-constellation would cause approximately one human casualty every two years by 2035. SpaceX disputed the FAA's modelling methodology but the report renewed scrutiny over Starlink's orbital-environment footprint, after astronomers had already documented Starlink trails systematically degrading ground-based observation. SpaceX committed in 2024 to demisable-by-design improvements for newer satellite versions.

On September 26, 2023 Notion Labs blocked all access from mainland China IP addresses, citing inability to comply with China's Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) requirements around data localization without compromising the service's core architecture. The decision affected an estimated millions of Chinese users including students, knowledge workers and independent creators who had used Notion under sustained workarounds. Notion did not provide a transition path, data export reminders or grace period before the cutoff.

In late 2022, Musk secretly ordered engineers not to enable Starlink satellite connectivity near the Crimean coast, disrupting a Ukrainian submarine drone attack on the Russian naval fleet. The drones lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly. Musk said he feared Russia would respond with nuclear weapons. Ukrainian officials begged him to restore service. Musk claimed Starlink was never active over Crimea and that Ukraine made an 'emergency request' to activate it to Sevastopol. The incident highlighted the risks of one individual controlling critical military communications infrastructure.

In September 2022, Elon Musk refused a Ukrainian government request to activate Starlink coverage to Sevastopol, Crimea, which would have enabled a drone submarine attack on the Russian naval fleet. Musk stated enabling it would make SpaceX 'explicitly complicit in a major act of war.' This decision by a private company effectively determined the outcome of a military operation, raising concerns about unprecedented private control over critical wartime infrastructure. The incident was revealed in Walter Isaacson's 2023 biography.

In September 2022, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unilaterally refused to enable Starlink connectivity near Crimea during a planned Ukrainian drone attack on Russian naval forces, fearing escalation into a 'major act of war.' This decision, made by a private citizen controlling critical military communications infrastructure, raised serious concerns about private power over geopolitical affairs. The Pentagon subsequently questioned whether future military contracts need explicit terms preventing service denial. Reports also emerged of Russian forces illegally acquiring and using Starlink terminals, which SpaceX was aware of but allegedly failed to prevent.

On February 26, 2022, two days after Russia's invasion, Ukrainian minister Mykhailo Fedorov requested Starlink assistance on Twitter. SpaceX activated country-wide service and delivered the first shipment of terminals by February 28. By May 2022, over 150,000 Ukrainians used Starlink daily. Terminals supported hospitals (600 received in one month), schools, railways, government communications, and President Zelenskyy's broadcasts. SpaceX donated 3,667 terminals and initially waived subscription fees. Ukrainian officials called Musk 'one of the biggest private donors' of Ukraine's future victory.

On December 7, 2021, a major AWS outage in the US-EAST-1 region caused widespread disruptions lasting approximately 5 hours. Affected services included Amazon's own Ring doorbells, Alexa voice assistant, and third-party services like Disney+, Robinhood, and McDonald's mobile ordering. The outage highlighted systemic risks of cloud infrastructure concentration, as thousands of businesses depend on a single AWS region.