Internally Cloudflare has had an alert system for potential Internet disruptions, that we use as an early warning to shifts in network patterns and incidents. This internal system allows us to see these disruptions in real-time, and after many conversations with civil society groups that track and report these shutdowns, such as The Carter Center, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, Internet Society, Internews, The National Democratic Institute and Access Now, it was clear that they would benefit from such a system, fine-tuned to report Internet traffic drops quickly and reliably. We then built an additional validation layer and a notification system that sends notifications through various channels, including e-mail and social media.
Now, as we detect these drops in traffic, we may still not have the expertise, backstory or sense of what is happening on the ground when this occurs — at least not in as much detail as our partners. We are excited to be working with these organizations to provide alerts on when Cloudflare has detected significant drops in traffic with the hope that the information is used to document, track and hold institutions accountable for these human rights violations.
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