The Effect of Internet Shutdowns on Protest Activity in India: an Empirical Investigation

The role of the Internet as a factor of collective action is now widely recognized in the literature. Social media coverage and, more generally, Internet coverage received significant research attention and have been used to explain various phenomena. However, the effect of Internet regulation policies on collective action is a much less understood subject. We investigate the effects of Internet shutdowns on protest activity in India. We describe several empirical strategies and show how statistical estimates of shutdown effects differ across these strategies. We also propose several modifications to our strategies with the goal of improving the model quality in the future.