tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/online-censorship-34912/articlesOnline censorship – The Conversation2023-06-08T20:07:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2070332023-06-08T20:07:12Z2023-06-08T20:07:12ZWhat is the ‘splinternet’? Here’s why the internet is less whole than you might think<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530739/original/file-20230608-28-h3pjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=125%2C188%2C5712%2C2802&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Splinternet” refers to the way the internet is <a href="https://theconversation.com/country-rules-the-splinternet-may-be-the-future-of-the-web-81939">being splintered</a> – broken up, divided, separated, locked down, boxed up, or otherwise segmented.</p>
<p>Whether for nation states or corporations, there’s money and control to be had by influencing <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-future-of-the-internet-looks-brighter-thanks-to-an-eu-court-opinion-109721">what information people can access and share</a>, as well as the costs that are paid for this access. </p>
<p>The idea of a splinternet isn’t new, nor is the problem. But recent developments are likely to enhance segmentation, and have brought it back into new light. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/meta-just-copped-a-a-1-9bn-fine-for-keeping-eu-data-in-the-us-but-why-should-users-care-where-data-are-stored-206186">Meta just copped a A$1.9bn fine for keeping EU data in the US. But why should users care where data are stored?</a>
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<h2>The internet as a whole</h2>
<p>The core question is whether we have just one single internet for everyone, or whether we have many.</p>
<p>Think of how we refer to things like the sky, the sea, or the economy. Despite these conceptually being singular things, we’re often only seeing a perspective: a part of the whole that isn’t complete, but we still experience directly. This applies to the internet, too.</p>
<p>A large portion of the internet is what’s known as the “deep web”. These are the parts search engines and web crawlers generally don’t go to. Estimates vary, but a rule of thumb is that approximately 70% of the web is “deep”.</p>
<p>Despite the name and the anxious news reporting in some sectors, the deep web is mostly benign. It refers to the parts of the web to which access is restricted in some ways.</p>
<p>Your personal email is a part of the deep web – no matter how bad your password might be, it requires authorisation to access. So do your Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive accounts. If your work or school has its own servers, these are part of the deep web – they’re connected, but not publicly accessible by default (we hope).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/searching-deep-and-dark-building-a-google-for-the-less-visible-parts-of-the-web-58472">Searching deep and dark: Building a Google for the less visible parts of the web</a>
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<p>We can expand this to things like the experience of multiplayer videogames, most social media platforms, and much more. Yes, there are parts that live up to the ominous name, but most of the deep web is just the stuff that needs password access.</p>
<p>The internet changes, too – connections go live, cables get broken or satellites fail, people bring their new <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-things-every-consumer-should-know-about-the-internet-of-things-78765">Internet of Things devices</a> (like “smart” fridges and doorbells) online, or accidentally open their computer ports to the net.</p>
<p>But because such a huge portion of the web is shaped by our individual access, we all have our own perspectives on what it’s like to use the internet. Just like standing under “the sky”, our local experience is different to that of others. No one can see the full picture. </p>
<h2>A fractured internet poised to fracture even more</h2>
<p>Was there ever a single “Internet”? Certainly the US research computer network called <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/ARPANET">ARPANET</a> in the 1960s was clear, discrete, and unfractured.</p>
<p>Alongside this, in the ‘60s and '70s, governments in the Soviet Union and Chile also each worked on similar network projects called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGAS">OGAS</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn">CyberSyn</a>, respectively. These systems were proto-internets that could have expanded significantly, and had themes that resonate today – OGAS was heavily surveilled by the KGB, and CyberSyn was a social experiment destroyed during a far-right coup.</p>
<p>Each was very clearly separate, each was a fractured computer network that relied on government support to succeed, and ARPANET was the only one to succeed due to its significant government funding. It was the kernel that would become the basis of the internet, and it was <a href="https://home.cern/science/computing/where-web-was-born">Tim Berners-Lee’s work on HTML at CERN</a> that became the basis of the web we have today, and something he <a href="https://theconversation.com/snowden-and-berners-lees-campaign-for-an-open-internet-24329">seeks to protect</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530749/original/file-20230608-25-jdt55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pencil drawing on a stamp showing a smiling man next to two computer screens with www on them" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530749/original/file-20230608-25-jdt55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530749/original/file-20230608-25-jdt55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530749/original/file-20230608-25-jdt55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530749/original/file-20230608-25-jdt55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530749/original/file-20230608-25-jdt55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530749/original/file-20230608-25-jdt55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530749/original/file-20230608-25-jdt55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Marshall Islands released a postal stamp in 1999 celebrating English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee as the inventor of the World Wide Web.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/marshall-islands-circa-2000-postage-stamp-150910184">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Today, we can see the unified “Internet” has given way to a fractured internet – one poised to fracture even more.</p>
<p>Many nations effectively have their own internets already. These are still technically connected to the rest of the internet, but are subject to such distinct policies, regulations and costs that they are distinctly different for the users.</p>
<p>For example, Russia maintains a Soviet-era-style surveillance of the internet, and is far from alone in doing so – thanks to Xi Jinping, there is now “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown">the great firewall of China</a>”.</p>
<p>Surveillance isn’t the only barrier to internet use, with harassment, abuse, censorship, taxation and pricing of access, and similar internet controls being a major issue <a href="https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/a4_predateur-en_final.pdf">across many countries</a>.</p>
<p>Content controls aren’t bad in themselves – it’s easy to think of content that most people would prefer didn’t exist. Nonetheless, these national regulations lead to a splintering of internet experience depending on which country you’re in.</p>
<p>Indeed, every single country has local factors that shape the internet experience, from language to law, from culture to censorship.</p>
<p>While this can be overcome by tools such as VPNs (virtual private networks) or shifting to blockchain networks, in practice these are individual solutions that only a small percentage of people use, and don’t represent a stable solution.</p>
<h2>We’re already on the splinternet</h2>
<p>In short, it doesn’t fix it for those who aren’t technically savvy and it doesn’t fix the issues with commercial services. Even without censorious governments, the problems remain. In 2021, Facebook <a href="https://theconversation.com/stuff-up-or-conspiracy-whistleblowers-claim-facebook-deliberately-le">shut down Australian news content</a> as a protest against the News Media Bargaining Code, leading to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wechat-model-how-facebooks-ban-could-change-the-business-of-news-155629">potential change in the industry</a>.</p>
<p>Before that, organisations such as Wikipedia and Google <a href="https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/">protested the winding back of network neutrality provisions</a> in the US in 2017 following <a href="https://sopastrike.com/">earlier</a> <a href="https://www.battleforthenet.com/sept10th/">campaigns</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/facebooks-news-blockade-in-australia-shows-how-tech-giants-are-swallowing-the-web-155832">Facebook's news blockade in Australia shows how tech giants are swallowing the web</a>
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<p>Facebook (now known as Meta) attempted to create a walled garden internet in India called Free Basics – this led to a massive outcry about corporate control in late 2015 and early 2016. Today, <a href="https://theconversation.com/meta-just-copped-a-a-1-9bn-fine-for-keeping-eu-data-in-the-us-but-why-should-users-care-where-data-are-stored-206186">Meta’s breaches of EU law</a> are placing its business model at risk in the territory.</p>
<p>This broad shift has been described in the past by my colleague Mark Andrejevic in 2007 as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10714420701715365">digital enclosure</a> – where states and commercial interests increasingly segment, separate and restrict what is accessible on the internet.</p>
<p>The uneven overlapping of national regulations and economies will interact oddly with digital services that cut across multiple borders. Further reductions in network neutrality will open the doors to restrictive internet service provider deals, price-based discrimination, and lock-in contracts with content providers.</p>
<p>The existing diversity of experience on the internet will see users’ experiences and access continue to diverge. As internet-based companies increasingly rely on exclusive access to users for tracking and advertising, as services and ISPs overcome falling revenue with lock-in agreements, and as government policies change, we’ll see the splintering continue.</p>
<p>The splinternet isn’t that different from what we already have. But it does represent an internet that’s even less global, less deliberative, less fair and less unified than we have today.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tim-berners-lees-plan-to-save-the-internet-give-us-back-control-of-our-data-154130">Tim Berners-Lee's plan to save the internet: give us back control of our data</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robbie Fordyce is affiliated with the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network.</span></em></p>There’s really no such thing as one global internet – it all depends on your perspective. But the internet is poised to fracturing even more.Robbie Fordyce, Lecturer, Communications and Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1872772022-07-20T20:08:00Z2022-07-20T20:08:00ZEven if TikTok and other apps are collecting your data, what are the actual consequences?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475053/original/file-20220720-27-dzfe0b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>By now, most of us are aware social media companies collect vast amounts of our information. By doing this, they can target us with ads and monetise our attention. The latest chapter in the data-privacy debate concerns one of the world’s most popular apps among young people – TikTok. </p>
<p>Yet anecdotally it seems the potential risks aren’t really something young people care about. Some were <a href="https://twitter.com/theprojecttv/status/1548962230741487617">interviewed</a> by The Project this week regarding the risk of their TikTok data being accessed from China. </p>
<p>They said it wouldn’t stop them using the app. “Everyone at the moment has access to everything,” one person said. Another said they didn’t “have much to hide from the Chinese government”. </p>
<p>Are these fair assessments? Or should Australians actually be worried about yet another social media company taking their data? </p>
<h2>What’s happening with TikTok?</h2>
<p>In a 2020 Australian parliamentary hearing on foreign interference through social media, TikTok representatives <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=committees/commsen/1a5e6393-fec4-4222-945b-859e3f8ebd17/&sid=0002">stressed</a>: “TikTok Australia data is stored in the US and Singapore, and the security and privacy of this data are our highest priority.”</p>
<p>But as Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyst Fergus Ryan has <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/its-time-tiktok-australia-came-clean/">observed</a>, it’s not about where the data are <em>stored</em>, but who has <em>access</em>. </p>
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<p>On June 17, BuzzFeed published a <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access">report</a> based on 80 leaked internal TikTok meetings which seemed to confirm access to US TikTok data by Chinese actors. The report refers to multiple examples of data access by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, which is based in China. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/concerns-over-tiktok-feeding-user-data-to-beijing-are-back-and-theres-good-evidence-to-support-them-186211">Concerns over TikTok feeding user data to Beijing are back – and there's good evidence to support them</a>
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<p>Then in July, TikTok Australia’s director of public policy, Brent Thomas, wrote to the shadow minister for cyber security, James Paterson, regarding China’s access to Australian user data.</p>
<p>Thomas denied having been asked for data from China or having “given data to the Chinese government” – but he also noted access is “based on the need to access data”. So there’s good reason to believe Australian users’ data <em>may</em> be accessed from China.</p>
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<h2>Is TikTok worse than other platforms?</h2>
<p>TikTok collects rich consumer information, including personal information and behavioural data from people’s activity on the app. In this respect, it’s not different from other social media companies. </p>
<p>They all need oceans of user data to push ads onto us, and run data analytics behind a shiny facade of cute cats and trendy dances. </p>
<p>However, TikTok’s corporate roots extend to authoritarian China – and not the US, where most of our other social media come from. This carries implications for TikTok users.</p>
<p>Hypothetically, since TikTok moderates content according to Beijing’s foreign policy goals, it’s possible TikTok could apply censorship controls over Australian users. </p>
<p>This means users’ feeds would be filtered to omit anything that doesn’t fit the Chinese government’s agenda, such as support for Taiwan’s sovereignty, as an example. In “shadowbanning”, a user’s posts appear to have been published to the user themselves, but are not visible to anyone else. </p>
<p>It’s worth noting this censorship risk isn’t hypothetical. In 2019, information about Hong Kong protests was reported to have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing">censored</a> not only on Douyin, China’s domestic version of TikTok, but also on TikTok itself. </p>
<p>Then in 2020, ASPI <a href="https://www.aspi.org.au/report/tiktok-wechat">found</a> hashtags related to LGBTQ+ are suppressed in at least eight languages on TikTok. In response to ASPI’s research, a TikTok spokesperson said the hashtags may be restricted as part of the company’s localisation strategy and due to local laws.</p>
<p>In Thailand, keywords such as #acab, #gayArab and anti-monarchy hashtags were found to be shadowbanned. </p>
<p>Within China, Douyin complies with strict national content regulation. This includes censoring information about the religious movement Falun Gong and the Tiananmen massacre, among other examples. </p>
<p>The legal environment in China forces Chinese internet product and service providers to work with government authorities. If Chinese companies disagree, or are unaware of their obligations, they can be slapped with legal and/or financial penalties and be forcefully shut down. </p>
<p>In 2012, another social media product run by the founder of ByteDance, Yiming Zhang, was forced to close. Zhang fell into political line in a <a href="https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-new-era/">public apology</a>. He acknowledged the platform deviated from “public opinion guidance” by not moderating content that goes against “socialist core values”. </p>
<p>Individual TikTok users should seriously consider leaving the app until issues of global censorship are clearly addressed.</p>
<h2>But don’t forget, it’s not just TikTok</h2>
<p>Meta products, such as Facebook and Instagram, also measure our interests by the seconds we spend looking at certain posts. They aggregate those behavioural data with our personal information to try to keep us hooked – looking at ads for as long as possible. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/holding-facebook-accountable-for-digital-redlining">Some real cases</a> of targeted advertising on social media have contributed to “digital redlining” – the use of technology to perpetuate social discrimination. </p>
<p>In 2018, Facebook came under fire for showing some employment ads only to men. In 2019, it settled another digital redlining <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/28/facebook-ads-housing-discrimination-charges-us-government-hud">case</a> over discriminatory practices in which housing ads were targeted to certain users on the basis of “race, colour, national origin and religion”. </p>
<p>And in 2021, before the US Capitol breach, military and defence product ads <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-profits-military-gear-ads-capitol-riot">were running</a> alongside conversations about a coup. </p>
<p>Then there are some worst-case scenarios. The 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html">revealed</a> how Meta (then Facebook) exposed users’ data to the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica without their consent. </p>
<p>Cambridge Analytica harvested up to 87 million users’ data from Facebook, derived psychological user profiles and used these to tailor pro-Trump messaging to them. This likely had an influence on the 2016 US presidential election. </p>
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<span class="caption">To what extent are we willing to ignore potential risks with social platforms, in favour of addictive content?</span>
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<p>With TikTok, the most immediate concern for the average Australian user is content censorship – not direct prosecution. But within China, there are recurring instances of Chinese nationals being <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3176605/crackdown-chinas-moderate-rights-voices-how-tweets-are-now">detained or even jailed</a> for using both Chinese and international social media. </p>
<p>You can see how the consequences of mass data harvesting are not hypothetical. We need to demand more transparency from not just TikTok but all major social platforms regarding how data are used.</p>
<p>Let’s continue the <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/tiktok-s-privacy-fundamentally-incompatible-with-australia-20220713-p5b18l">regulation debate</a> TikTok has accelerated. We should look to update privacy protections and embed transparency into Australia’s national regulatory guidelines – for whatever the next big social media app happens to be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ausma Bernot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s pretty common to find people who are apathetic about their data being harvested and funnelled into unknown corners. But that’s usually because they don’t know what’s at stake.Ausma Bernot, PhD Candidate, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1820202022-06-30T12:31:49Z2022-06-30T12:31:49ZKremlin tightens control over Russians’ online lives – threatening domestic freedoms and the global internet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470666/original/file-20220623-52151-pttnpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3543%2C2360&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russia has pioneered the concept of digital sovereignty and used it to severely restrict Russians' access to the internet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/binary-code-with-the-word-runet-displayed-on-a-laptop-news-photo/1239050451">NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine in late February 2022, Russian internet users have experienced what has been dubbed the descent of a “<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dg4kb/russias-digital-iron-curtain-is-starting-to-take-shape">digital iron curtain</a>.”</p>
<p>Russian authorities blocked access to all major opposition news sites, as well as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Under the <a href="https://theconversation.com/pranks-and-propaganda-russian-laws-against-fake-news-target-ukrainians-and-the-opposition-not-pro-putin-pranksters-179795">new draconian laws purporting to combat fake news</a> about the Russian-Ukrainian war, internet users have faced administrative and criminal charges for allegedly spreading online disinformation about Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Most Western technology companies, from Airbnb to Apple, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/what-companies-have-left-russia-see-the-list-across-tech-entertainment-and-financial-institutions/">have stopped or limited their Russian operations</a> as part of the broader <a href="https://som.yale.edu/story/2022/almost-1000-companies-have-curtailed-operations-russia-some-remain">corporate exodus from the country</a>.</p>
<p>Many Russians <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-russia-vpn-idCAKCN2LB1UD">downloaded virtual private network software</a> to try to access blocked sites and services in the first weeks of the war. By late April, 23% of Russian internet users <a href="https://www.levada.ru/en/2022/04/22/internet-social-networks-and-vpn/">reported using VPNs with varying regularity</a>. The state media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, <a href="https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/79803/">has been blocking VPNs</a> to prevent people from bypassing government censorship and <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/new-vpn-crackdown-underway-in-russia-government-confirms-220603/">stepped up its efforts</a> in June 2022.</p>
<p>Although the speed and scale of the wartime internet crackdown are unprecedented, its <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2022/04/15/how-russia-makes-laws-to-support-networked-authoritarianism/">legal</a>, <a href="https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/11693/10124">technical</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23738871.2018.1546884">rhetorical</a> foundations were put in place during the preceding decade <a href="https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/russias-quest-digital-sovereignty">under the banner of digital sovereignty</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://globalmedia.mit.edu/2020/08/05/the-diverse-meanings-of-digital-sovereignty/">Digital sovereignty for nations</a> is the exercise of state power within national borders over digital processes like the flow of online data and content, surveillance and privacy, and the production of digital technologies. Under authoritarian regimes like today’s Russia, digital sovereignty often serves as <a href="https://restofworld.org/2022/blackouts/">a veil for stymieing domestic dissent</a>. </p>
<h2>Digital sovereignty pioneer</h2>
<p>Russia has advocated upholding <a href="https://doi.org/10.14763/2020.3.1492">state sovereignty over information and telecommunications</a> since the early 1990s. In the aftermath of the Cold War, a weakened Russia could no longer compete with the U.S. economically, technologically or militarily. Instead, Russian leaders sought to curtail the emergent U.S. global dominance and hold on to Russia’s great power status.</p>
<p>They did so by promoting the preeminence of state sovereignty as a foundational principle of international order. In the 2000s, seeking to project its great power resurgence, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1367549417751151">Moscow joined forces with Beijing</a> to spearhead the global movement for internet sovereignty.</p>
<p>Despite its decades-long advocacy of digital sovereignty on the world stage, the Kremlin didn’t begin enforcing state power over its domestic cyberspace until the early 2010s. From late 2011 to mid-2012, Russia saw <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/dissecting-russia-s-winter-of-protest-five-years-on/">the largest series of anti-government rallies in its post-Soviet history</a> to protest Vladimir Putin’s third presidential run and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/04/putin-alleged-voter-fraud-russian-election">fraudulent parliamentary elections</a>. As in the anti-authoritarian uprisings in the Middle East known as the Arab Spring, the internet served as a <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/4883/1791">critical instrument</a> in organizing and coordinating the Russian protests.</p>
<p>Following Putin’s return to the presidency in March 2012, the Kremlin <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2527603">turned its attention to controlling Russian cyberspace</a>. The so-called Blacklist Law established a framework for blocking websites under the guise of fighting child pornography, suicide, extremism and other widely acknowledged societal ills. </p>
<p>However, the law has been <a href="https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Internet-freedom-in-Putins-Russia.pdf?x91208">regularly used to ban sites of opposition activists and media</a>. The law widely known as the Blogger’s Law then subjected all websites and social media accounts with over 3,000 daily users to traditional media regulations by requiring them to register with the state.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470678/original/file-20220623-52373-veejfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An iPhone screen shows a Telegram account in Russian" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470678/original/file-20220623-52373-veejfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470678/original/file-20220623-52373-veejfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470678/original/file-20220623-52373-veejfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470678/original/file-20220623-52373-veejfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470678/original/file-20220623-52373-veejfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470678/original/file-20220623-52373-veejfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470678/original/file-20220623-52373-veejfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">OVD-Info, a Russian organization that tracks political arrests and provides legal aid to detainees, said that government regulators had blocked its website.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaCrackdown/e7325a322105464f96b8cccd3ceff88b/photo">AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The next pivotal moment in Moscow’s embrace of <a href="https://www.cigionline.org/articles/authoritarianism-has-been-reinvented-for-the-digital-age/">authoritarian digital sovereignty</a> came after Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine in the Spring of 2014. Over the following five years, as Russia’s relations with the West worsened, the Russian government undertook a barrage of initiatives meant to tighten its control over the country’s increasingly networked public.</p>
<p>The data localization law, for example, required foreign technology companies to keep Russian citizens’ <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/russia-tightens-internet-controls-makes-it-easier-to-spy-on-citizens-critics-say/a-18690498">data on servers located within the country</a> and thus easily accessible to the authorities. Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, another law required telecom and internet companies to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/12/russia-big-brother-law-harms-security-rights">retain users’ communications for six months</a> and their metadata for three years and hand them over to authorities upon request without a court order. </p>
<p>The Kremlin has used these and other legal innovations to open criminal cases against thousands of internet users and jail hundreds for “liking” and sharing <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2018/10/19/how-social-media-post-russia-can-land-you-jail-1157822.html">social media content critical of the government</a>.</p>
<h2>The Sovereign Internet Law</h2>
<p>In April 2019, Russian authorities took their aspirations for digital sovereignty to another level with the so-called Sovereign Internet Law. The law opened the door for <a href="https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/deciphering-russias-sovereign-internet-law">abuse of individual users and isolation of the internet community</a> as a whole.</p>
<p>The law requires all internet service providers to install state-mandated devices “for counteracting threats to stability, security, and the functional integrity of the internet” within Russian borders. The Russian government has interpreted threats broadly, including social media content. </p>
<p>For example, the authorities have <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-twitter-mobile-slowdown-remain-until-all-banned-content-is-removed-2021-11-29/">repeatedly used this law to throttle the performance of Twitter</a> on mobile devices when Twitter has failed to comply with government requests to remove “illegal” content.</p>
<p>Further, the law establishes protocols for rerouting all internet traffic through Russian territory and for a single command center to manage that traffic. Ironically, the Moscow-based center that now controls traffic and fights foreign circumvention tools, such as the <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/tor-browser-faq-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-protect-your-privacy/">Tor browser</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/21/how-western-tech-companies-are-helping-russia-censor-internet/">requires Chinese and U.S. hardware and software</a> to function in the absence of their Russian equivalents. </p>
<p>Lastly, the law promises to establish a Russian national Domain Name System. DNS is the global internet’s core database that translates between web names such as theconversation.com and their internet addresses, in this case 151.101.2.133. DNS is operated by a California-based nonprofit, the <a href="https://www.icann.org/">Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers</a>. </p>
<p>At the time of the law’s passing, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ym0Xhvb09I">Putin justified the national DNS</a> by arguing that it would allow the Russian internet segment to function even if ICANN disconnected Russia from the global internet in an act of hostility. In practice, when, days into Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian authorities asked ICANN to disconnect Russia from the DNS, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/tech/ukraine-russia-internet-icann/index.html">ICANN declined the request</a>. ICANN officials said they wanted to avoid setting the precedent of disconnecting entire countries for political reasons.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/APKNrc6XZ6U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ukrainian activists are attempting to pierce the digital Iron Curtain to get news of the war from sources outside of Russia to the Russian people.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Splitting the global internet</h2>
<p>The Russian-Ukrainian war has <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/03/17/1047352/russia-splinternet-risk/">undermined the integrity of the global internet</a>, both by Russia’s actions and the actions of technology companies in the West. In an unprecedented move, social media platforms have <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/facebook-youtube-to-restrict-some-russian-state-controlled-media-across-europe/">blocked access to Russian state media</a>.</p>
<p>The internet is a global network of networks. Interoperability among these networks is the internet’s foundational principle. The ideal of a single internet, of course, has always run up against the reality of the world’s cultural and linguistic diversity: Unsurprisingly, most users don’t clamor for content from faraway lands in unintelligible languages. Yet, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/03/17/1047352/russia-splinternet-risk/">politically motivated restrictions threaten to fragment the internet</a> into increasingly disjointed networks.</p>
<p>Though it may not be fought over on the battlefield, global interconnectivity has become one of the values at stake in the Russian-Ukrainian war. And as Russia has solidified its control over sections of eastern Ukraine, it has <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-russia-internet-takeover/">moved the digital Iron Curtain to those frontiers</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stanislav Budnitsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For more than a decade, the Russian government has been putting teeth into its doctrine of ‘digital sovereignty’ by steadily increasing censorship of content and control over internet access.Stanislav Budnitsky, Postdoctoral Fellow in Global and International Studies, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1662532021-09-28T11:57:01Z2021-09-28T11:57:01ZSocial media gives support to LGBTQ youth when in-person communities are lacking<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423023/original/file-20210923-21-1fxtf5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C3000%2C2991&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Social media can provide ways for LGBTQ youth to learn more about, and stay connected to, their identities.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/celebrating-pride-on-social-media-royalty-free-illustration/1250449474">miakievy/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Teens today have <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-online-communities-pose-risks-for-young-people-but-they-are-also-important-sources-of-support-158276">grown up on the internet</a>, and social media has served as a space where LGBTQ youth in particular can develop their identities.</p>
<p>Scholarship about the online experiences of LGBTQ youth has traditionally focused on <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs40653-017-0175-7">cyberbullying</a>. But understanding both the risks and the benefits of online support is key to helping LGBTQ youth thrive, both on- and offline.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZuHbDP0AAAAJ&hl=en">senior research scientist</a> studying the benefits and challenges of <a href="https://www.wcwonline.org/Youth-Media-Wellbeing-Research-Lab/youth-media-wellbeing-research-lab">teen social technology and digital media use</a>. My colleagues, <a href="https://wellesley.academia.edu/RachelHodes">Rachel Hodes</a> and <a href="https://www.wcwonline.org/Research-Associates/amanda-richer">Amanda Richer</a>, and I recently <a href="https://doi.org/10.2196/26207">conducted a study</a> on the social media experiences of LGBTQ youth, and we found that online networks can provide critical resources for them to explore their identities and engage with others in the community.</p>
<h2>Beyond cyberbullying</h2>
<p>The increased risk of cyberbullying that LGBTQ youth face is well-documented. LGBTQ youth are <a href="https://www.glsen.org/news/out-online-experiences-lgbt-youth-internet">almost three times more likely</a> to be <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.chiabu.2014.08.006">harassed online</a> than their straight, cisgender peers. This can result in increased rates of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2011.649616">depression and feelings of suicide</a>: 56% of sexual minorities experience depression, and 35% experience suicidal thoughts as a direct result of cyberbullying.</p>
<p>However, the digital landscape may be shifting.</p>
<p>Our 2019 survey of 1,033 children ages 10 to 16 found <a href="https://doi.org/10.2196/26207">no difference</a> between the amount of cyberbullying reported by straight versus sexual minority youth residing in a <a href="https://transgenderlawcenter.org/equalitymap">relatively progressive part of the U.S.</a> known for legalizing gay marriage. Some social media platforms like <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-something-queer-about-tumblr-73520">Tumblr</a> are considered a safer haven for sexual minorities than others, especially during the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-young-lgbtqia-people-used-social-media-to-thrive-during-covid-lockdowns-156130">COVID-19 lockdown</a>. This is despite past <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/twitter-blocked-searches-lgbt-terms-bisexual-and-called-it-error-703550">censorship of LGBTQ content</a> on certain platforms due to biases in the algorithm.</p>
<p>LGBTQ youth tend to have <a href="https://doi.org/10.2196/26207">smaller online social networks</a> than their straight peers. We found that LGBTQ youth were significantly less likely than their straight peers to engage with their online friends. Conversely, LGBTQ youth are more likely to have friends they know only online, and to perceive these online friends as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.08.006">significantly more socially supportive</a> than their in-person friends. </p>
<p>The LGBTQ youth we surveyed in our study were more likely to join an online group in order to <a href="https://doi.org/10.2196/26207">reduce social isolation or feelings of loneliness</a>, suggesting that they were able to reach out to and engage with social media networks outside of their in-person peer circles in supportive and fortifying ways.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423024/original/file-20210923-17-8xjgek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Person lying down with rainbow sock-clad legs resting on the back of a sofa." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423024/original/file-20210923-17-8xjgek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423024/original/file-20210923-17-8xjgek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423024/original/file-20210923-17-8xjgek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423024/original/file-20210923-17-8xjgek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423024/original/file-20210923-17-8xjgek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423024/original/file-20210923-17-8xjgek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423024/original/file-20210923-17-8xjgek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">LGBTQ youth are less likely to be friends with family members online and more likely to join social media sites their parents would disapprove of.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenager-lyiing-down-with-her-legs-resting-on-the-royalty-free-image/1324272422">Vladimir Vladimirov/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite living in an area with higher levels of acceptance toward sexual minorities, our study participants felt a need to keep parts of their identities separate and hidden online. They were less likely than non-LGBTQ kids to be friends with family members online and more likely to join social media sites their parents would disapprove of. And about 39% said they had no one to talk to about their sexual orientation at all.</p>
<h2>Not just surviving, but thriving online</h2>
<p>Despite the risk of online harassment and isolation, social media can give LGBTQ youth space to explore their sexual identities and promote <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.07.051">mental well-being</a>.</p>
<p>In 2007, Australian researchers conducted one of the earliest studies on how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1363460707072956">internet communities serve as safe spaces for LGBTQ youth</a> who face hostile environments at home. Their surveys of 958 youth ages 14 to 21 found that the anonymity and lack of geographic boundaries in digital spaces provide an ideal practice ground for coming out, engaging with a communal gay culture, experimenting with nonheterosexual intimacy and socializing with other LGBTQ youth.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423031/original/file-20210923-23-ggu04o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Illustration phone with rainbow heart on the screen, surrounded by positive reaction symbols." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423031/original/file-20210923-23-ggu04o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423031/original/file-20210923-23-ggu04o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423031/original/file-20210923-23-ggu04o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423031/original/file-20210923-23-ggu04o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423031/original/file-20210923-23-ggu04o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423031/original/file-20210923-23-ggu04o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423031/original/file-20210923-23-ggu04o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some LGBTQ youth use social media to engage with and support social causes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/diversity-on-social-media-royalty-free-illustration/1325416830">gobyg/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The internet also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1363460707072956">provides critical resources</a> about LGBTQ topics. LGBTQ youth may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.06.009">use online resources</a> to educate themselves about sexual orientation and gender identity terminology, learn about gender transition and find LGBTQ spaces in their local community. The internet can also be a useful tool to identify LGBTQ-friendly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69638-6_4">physicians, therapists and other care providers</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, online platforms can serve as springboards for LGBTQ activism. A <a href="https://www.glsen.org/news/out-online-experiences-lgbt-youth-internet">2013 report by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network</a> surveying 1,960 LGBTQ youth ages 13 to 18 found that 77% had taken part in an online community supporting a social cause. While 68% of LGBTQ youth also volunteered in-person, 22% said they only felt comfortable getting involved online or via text. This signals that online spaces may be critical resources to foster civic engagement.</p>
<p>While social media is not without its dangers, it can often serve as a tool for LGBTQ youth to build stronger connections to both their local and virtual communities, and communicate about social issues important to them. </p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Charmaraman receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>While online communities may not fully address the isolation LGBTQ youth face in-person, they can serve as an important source of social support and a springboard for civic engagement.Linda Charmaraman, Director of Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab, Wellesley CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1610942021-05-24T21:15:25Z2021-05-24T21:15:25ZSocial media platforms are complicit in censoring Palestinian voices<p>As the Israel-Palestine ceasefire agreement <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/23/israel-gaza-ceasefire-holds-as-un-launches-appeal-for-aid">holds</a>, social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), continue to come under fire over the censorship of pro-Palestinian content.</p>
<p>In times of conflict, any kind of censorship by major platforms can erase evidence of state-sanctioned violence, human rights abuses and potential <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">war crimes</a> against innocent civilians.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401881/original/file-20210520-23-1c0xoie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401881/original/file-20210520-23-1c0xoie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401881/original/file-20210520-23-1c0xoie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401881/original/file-20210520-23-1c0xoie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401881/original/file-20210520-23-1c0xoie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401881/original/file-20210520-23-1c0xoie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401881/original/file-20210520-23-1c0xoie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) highlights a post by @A7madAbuznaid on the extent of Instagram’s censorship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">@theimeu/Instagram/Screenshot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is particularly concerning as evidence of brutality and violence on social media can often be the only form of testimony that holds false narratives and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">mass denial of human rights abuses</a> to account.</p>
<h2>Holding platforms to account</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/22/gaza-attacks-fear-finality-and-farewells-as-bombs-rained-down">Al Jazeera</a>, the Palestinian death toll in the recent conflict with Israel stands at 248, including 66 children. At least 12 people have died in Israel, including two children.</p>
<p>On social media, Palestinians and supporters have documented violence through images and videos, with hashtags in both English and Arabic. But activists, digital rights defenders and users have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2021/5/15/are-social-platforms-deliberately-silencing-palestinians">called out</a> the platforms over mounting evidence of the unjustified removal of pro-Palestinian content. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401880/original/file-20210520-21-1t49m6l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401880/original/file-20210520-21-1t49m6l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1247&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401880/original/file-20210520-21-1t49m6l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401880/original/file-20210520-21-1t49m6l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1247&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401880/original/file-20210520-21-1t49m6l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401880/original/file-20210520-21-1t49m6l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401880/original/file-20210520-21-1t49m6l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Political cartoonist Khalid Albaih highlights Instagram’s censoring of critical creative voices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">@khalidalbaih/Instagram</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Facebook last week acknowledged it had <a href="https://time.com/6050350/palestinian-content-facebook/">inaccurately labelled</a> certain words commonly used by Palestinians online (including “martyr” and “resistance”) as incitement to violence. </p>
<p>Senior Facebook executives apologised to Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh in a virtual meeting on May 20, after which a Facebook spokesperson told TIME Facebook was “actively working to respond to concerns about our content enforcement.”</p>
<p>Earlier this month, Instagram and Facebook <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/instagram-facebook-censored-al-aqsa-mosque">labelled Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque</a> as being associated with “violence or a terrorist organisation”, according to a BuzzFeed report. This resulted in Instagram removing and blocking posts tagged with #AlAqsa or its Arabic counterparts #الاقصى or #الأقصى. A Facebook spokesperson <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/sheikh-jarrah-content-takedowns-reveal-pattern-of-online-restrictions-in-palestine-1.1220037">claimed</a> the posts “were restricted in error”. </p>
<p>In a letter to the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom, Facebook said it would <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210518-facebook-apologises-to-pa-after-restricting-palestinian-content/">work to resolve</a> content moderation issues and investigate alleged campaigns on the platform to incite violence against Palestinians in Israel. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-media-reporting-on-israel-palestine-there-is-nowhere-to-hide-160992">When it comes to media reporting on Israel-Palestine, there is nowhere to hide</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Meanwhile, The Intercept, a US news outlet, claimed on May 15 it had obtained <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/05/14/facebook-israel-zionist-moderation/">internal Facebook policies</a> which showed the company’s moderating of the term “zionist” enabled it to suppress criticism against the Israeli state on both Facebook and Instagram.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401883/original/file-20210520-17-111pd4r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401883/original/file-20210520-17-111pd4r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401883/original/file-20210520-17-111pd4r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401883/original/file-20210520-17-111pd4r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401883/original/file-20210520-17-111pd4r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1102&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401883/original/file-20210520-17-111pd4r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1102&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401883/original/file-20210520-17-111pd4r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1102&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Executive director of @theslowfactory Céline Semaan reports on Instagram’s restrictions to her account.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">@celinecelines/Instagram</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Incomplete records</h2>
<p>Due to a lack of transparency surrounding content moderation practices, it’s not clear how much platform censorship has occurred in the current conflict. What little independent insight we have mostly comes from a handful of digital rights organisations. </p>
<p>The global digital rights organisation Access Now <a href="https://twitter.com/accessnow/status/1394373884170887175">has reported</a> receiving hundreds of accounts of platforms suppressing pro-Palestinian content across Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1390784715230220289"}"></div></p>
<p>And the Palestinian digital rights group <a href="http://sada.social/%d8%a5%d8%b3%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%a6%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%aa%d9%81%d8%b1%d8%b6-%d9%87%d9%8a%d9%85%d9%86%d8%aa%d9%87%d8%a7-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%89-%d9%85%d9%86%d8%b5%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%b5/">Sada Social</a> recorded more than 200 violations of Palestinian social media content related to the Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations in occupied East Jerusalem. It described “violations” as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] arbitrary measures against Palestinian content, especially with the tendency to stigmatise criticism of Zionism with anti-Semitism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similarly, the Palestinian and Arab digital rights organisation, 7amleh — The Arab Center for the Development of Social Media, <a href="https://7amleh.org/2021/05/21/7amleh-issues-report-documenting-the-attacks-on-palestinian-digital-rights">documented</a> some 500 cases of Palestinian digital rights violations between May 6-19, along with platforms’ responses. The violations came from Instagram (50%), Facebook (35%), Twitter (11%) and TikTok (1%). </p>
<p>7amleh alleged that in most cases, users were not given an explanation for content deletion or account suspension.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1394785519695974401"}"></div></p>
<h2>Meetings with Facebook executives</h2>
<p>Sada Social released a statement last week accusing Israel of trying to “<a href="http://sada.social/%d8%a5%d8%b3%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%a6%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%aa%d9%81%d8%b1%d8%b6-%d9%87%d9%8a%d9%85%d9%86%d8%aa%d9%87%d8%a7-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%89-%d9%85%d9%86%d8%b5%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%b5/">impose its hegemony on social media platforms</a>”. </p>
<p>The statement came in response to a meeting between Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz and executives from Facebook and TikTok. In it, Gantz requested the corporations remove Palestinian content Israel believed would incite violence or spread <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestine-israel-facebook-censorship-data-algorithms">misinformation</a>.</p>
<p>Soon after, former Facebook executive Ashraf Zeitoon <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/180604827184597/">spoke</a> to Al Jazeera Plus about historic and ongoing pressure by the Israeli government to censor Palestinian content. He said Facebook consistently complied with pro-Israeli allegations by systematically silencing Palestinian voices. </p>
<p>A Facebook spokesperson <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/180604827184597">told</a> Al Jazeera Plus: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This person hasn’t worked at Facebook in more than four years and has no direct knowledge of our decision-making processes during these horrible global events nor the authority to speak about our policies or how we enforce them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Due to a lack of transparency surrounding content moderation, we don’t know the extent to which platform censorship is done in direct response to user complaints, requests from foreign governments or as a result of algorithmic decisions.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401879/original/file-20210520-21-14fqn8u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401879/original/file-20210520-21-14fqn8u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401879/original/file-20210520-21-14fqn8u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401879/original/file-20210520-21-14fqn8u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401879/original/file-20210520-21-14fqn8u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401879/original/file-20210520-21-14fqn8u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401879/original/file-20210520-21-14fqn8u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muslim.co reports on users’ experiences of censorship on Instagram regarding Palestine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">@muslim/Instagram</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Political pressure</h2>
<p>In response to growing criticism, Facebook last week established a “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-running-special-center-respond-content-israeli-gaza-conflict-2021-05-19/">special operations centre</a>” staffed by experts including native Arabic and Hebrew speakers.</p>
<p>The company, which has offices in Israel, has faced growing criticism by digital rights defenders and activists over its business interests, platform policies and content moderation process.</p>
<p>Facebook has a public policy director for Israel and the Jewish diaspora, Jordana Cutler, a former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. </p>
<p>It does not have a dedicated public policy director for Palestinians. Palestinian matters fall under the remit of its Middle East and North Africa policy chief.</p>
<p>Last year, Facebook established an independent oversight board to address growing criticisms about its role in suppressing online speech. But the legitimacy of the board was <a href="https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/fb-stop-censoring-palestine/">questioned</a> after the <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2021/03/emi-palmor-facebook-oversight/">controversial appointment</a> of Emi Palmor, a former general director of the Israeli Ministry of Justice’s Cyber Unit. </p>
<h2>The enactment of social and political power</h2>
<p>Social media platforms can effectively dictate what is permitted in online discourse, using moderation processes that are <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/facebook-moderators-are-set-up-to-fail">opaque and fraught</a> with inconsistencies.</p>
<p>In the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the removal of content deemed “offensive”, “graphic” or “inciteful” by private corporations and oppressive political actors essentially controls how we understand it.</p>
<p>This, in turn, can influence the protection of rights and potential to prosecute human rights abuses. This is a form of oppression I refer to as “platform necropolitics”. </p>
<p>It provides a prism through which to understand how corporate and political actors are increasingly working together to control which voices and what content are (or aren’t) given space online. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1394542446961381378"}"></div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelly Lewis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If Palestinians’ freedom of expression is taken away online, this risks further obscuring their ongoing struggle.Kelly Lewis, Research Associate at the Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1489242020-11-09T14:52:41Z2020-11-09T14:52:41ZHow memes in the DRC allow people to laugh at those in power – and themselves<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367996/original/file-20201106-13-bfl1f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Those dressing in designer labels can be the subject of memes in the DRC.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Per-Anders Pettersson/Corbis News via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Memes have become expressions of contemporary culture worldwide, as people document their daily lives through images. The world of <a href="https://twitter.com/africamemes?lang=en">memes</a> – the humorous images paired with text that mutate and spread rapidly, depending on how funny they are – remind us that humour is also contagious. </p>
<p><a href="https://africacartoons.com/cartoonists/map/drc/">Cartoonists</a> in Africa have also historically engaged their readers through the use of humour. Their expressions become fodder for conversations in public spaces like crowded buses and bars. In the colonial era, cartoons and <a href="https://wallach.columbia.edu/exhibitions/congo-chronicle-patrice-lumumba-urban-art">popular paintings</a> were <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=DDtcPGvlRlIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">instrumental</a> in the <a href="https://www.si.edu/object/siris_sil_1091429">struggle</a> for independence in many African countries. </p>
<p>In postcolonial settings they <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/international/2018/12/28/drcs-best-known-political-cartoonist-making-light-of-grim-realities-shares-his-election-hopes/">continue</a> to be mediums that covertly – and sometimes explicitly – mock and challenge abuses of power. </p>
<p>There’s some continuity when comparing memes to cartoons. But the anonymity offered by the virtual quality of meme circulation allows for a different kind of participation. </p>
<p>Photoshopped images of politicians in compromising situations – being caught with their pants down – offer a carnivalesque commentary on the arbitrariness of power. These images galvanise people to laugh at those in power, but also those who are subjected to it.</p>
<p>There are an estimated <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/wearesocial/digital-in-2018-in-middle-africa-86865634?qid=8111df47-9748-4099-9ea7-6b54cbe07aba&v=&b=&from_search=1">5.3 million</a> active internet users in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But access to technology is limited to people with the financial means. Because censorship in the country is <a href="https://www.indexoncensorship.org/tag/democratic-republic-of-congo/">rife</a>, the online sphere, with its anonymity, provides a platform through which power can be critiqued. The economy of circulating images represents a threat to a government that often shuts off the internet during electoral periods.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367952/original/file-20201106-21-5wpu7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man sits at a desk that's covered in hand drawn cartoons, touching one up on a computer screen in front of him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367952/original/file-20201106-21-5wpu7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367952/original/file-20201106-21-5wpu7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367952/original/file-20201106-21-5wpu7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367952/original/file-20201106-21-5wpu7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367952/original/file-20201106-21-5wpu7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367952/original/file-20201106-21-5wpu7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367952/original/file-20201106-21-5wpu7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cartoons paved the way for memes - like those of Congolese cartoonist Kash, seen here in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">JUNIOR D.KANNAH/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There has been an increase in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/action/doSearch?AllField=memes">academic interest</a> about circulating digital content. But there’s been virtually no research exploring memes and other viral media in Africa. Beginning in 2017, we began <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02560046.2020.1753089">researching</a> memes and their circulation in the DRC’s capital city, Kinshasa. </p>
<p>This research has provided some insights into the cultural characteristics of digital images in the DRC. And also how they relate to larger anxieties about social change and foreign interventions and new forms of <a href="https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-democratic-republic-of-the-congo">online connection</a>. </p>
<h2>Pondu, Versace and the Chinese</h2>
<p>In many of the memes we collected there was a sense of self-reflexive laughter, an ironic self-mockery, that characterised the images. For example, one meme presents an image of Victor Hugo, a 19th century French author, superimposed on an image of a plate of <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/africa/congo/articles/a-brief-history-of-pondu-the-republic-of-congos-favourite-delicacy/">pondu</a>, a Congolese national dish, with a quote supposedly from Hugo himself: “A real woman knows how to cook Pondu.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ08NRdAIsm","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Another meme depicts a man in head to toe Versace print and a trolley stacked with luggage emblazoned with the luxury fashion brand logo. The caption: “When your Congolese uncle comes to visit for a week.” These images appeal to people living at home and abroad as they express cultural affinities through images (one might say caricatures) of Congolese culture. This one holds up the stereotype of Congolese people as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54323473">obsessed with fashion</a>.</p>
<p>There is a profusion of images depicting Chinese people. These range from light-hearted provocations about cultural stereotypes to some that carry more serious allegations of <a href="https://www.gbreports.com/article/the-chinese-power-grab-in-the-drc">abuse of power</a>. One meme we collected presents a Chinese-owned shop in the DRC featuring a mannequin mimicking a stereotypical Congolese silhouette. Others are suggestive of more serious racial stereotypes. For instance, a Chinese street-food vendor selling grilled rats is ridiculed in one meme. It bears the inscription, “Have you eaten yet?” </p>
<p>Digital content and other oral channels like rumours can become intertwined, and feed one another, which presents a potential danger. For instance, the image of a Chinese woman selling grilled rats might be read as legitimate news rather than a playful jab. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"818493873517428737"}"></div></p>
<p>Images might be used to manipulate people’s attitudes, especially if people are not aware of the complexities of internet content production. This points to the importance of the promotion of internet literacy in the country. </p>
<h2>Technological anxieties</h2>
<p>There are growing assumptions that memes and viral content can alter opinions in a manner that many characterise as manipulation. New psychology <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429492303">studies</a> have raised questions about the agency of the memetic receiver. They suggest that exposure to conspiracy theories is sometimes enough to significantly influence one’s belief. Take the proliferation of memes circulating across Africa about Chinese people. Many are intended to be comical, but others become vehicles of false information that can affect people’s perceptions. </p>
<p>Biological viruses can contaminate, but technology also becomes a means through which contamination can occur. Local belief systems of virality can converge with the notion that images themselves can be potentially virulent, infecting people’s minds on a literal level. For instance, it is not uncommon for a Congolese person to say, “Do not infect my phone with that video of yours. I do not want to be contaminated by those images.” </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-new-media-platforms-have-become-powerful-across-africa-107294">How new media platforms have become powerful across Africa</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<p>This particular statement speaks not as much to a digital virus as to beliefs about the power of images themselves. Given the threat of Ebola outbreaks, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, language relating to contamination is particularly salient. </p>
<p>As more people, technology and ideas continue to circulate, anxieties about the proximity of others will continue to make themselves visible through the multiplication of narratives. These narratives now also appear in the memes that people make, circulate and laugh at. </p>
<p>It’s undeniable that the ambiguity of digital technology contributes to our relationships with others. Concerns over contamination, whether cultural or biological, will continue to breed and be fed by the digital domain, contributing to ambivalence towards structural forces circulating in the world. </p>
<p>As the technology used to access and create internet content becomes increasingly available to Congolese people, locally produced content will inevitably continue to multiply and interact with global trends as well as to critique the wider political sphere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lesley Nicole Braun receives funding from the Swiss National Foundation (SNF).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ribio Nzeza Bunketi Buse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Humour is a way for Congolese internet users to prod at cultural traits and political developments – despite censorship being rife.Lesley Nicole Braun, Senior lecturer, University of BaselRibio Nzeza Bunketi Buse, Associate Professor, University of Kinshasa Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1315492020-03-02T12:21:22Z2020-03-02T12:21:22ZCoronavirus unites a divided China in fear, grief and anger at government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317424/original/file-20200226-24694-y7p6w4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=221%2C215%2C3772%2C2443&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A train attendant in Nanchang, China, gestures in solidarity with medical staff departing for the city of Wuhan, Feb. 13, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photo-taken-on-february-13-2020-shows-a-train-news-photo/1200641673?adppopup=true">STR/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The coronavirus known as COVID-19 has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/world/asia/coronavirus-news.html">killed more than 3,000 people</a> and spread into Europe and Latin America, raising fears of a global pandemic. </p>
<p>But in China, where the outbreak began, it took just one death to unleash the grief and fury of a nation. On Feb. 7, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/chinese-doctor-sounded-alarm-wuhan-coronavirus-dies-200207004935274.html">34-year-old Dr. Li Wenliang</a> – one of eight whistle-blowers who first sounded alarms about the new coronavirus in Hubei Province back in December – died from coronavirus. </p>
<p>Public vigils were held across the country. Chinese people angry over the government’s handling of the public health emergency also went online en masse and placed blame for Li’s death squarely at the government’s feet. </p>
<p>Using text, songs, pictures and symbolic imagery to evade censors, they asserted that the Chinese government had both covered up the coronavirus outbreak and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-coronavirus-has-tested-chinas-system-of-information-control">downplayed the seriousness of the disease</a>, causing avoidable deaths. </p>
<p>A song from the musical “Les Misérables,” <a href="https://qz.com/1798862/in-china-using-les-miserables-and-chernobyl-to-mourn-li-wenliang/">“Do you hear the people sing?,”</a> made the rounds on social media. One lyric celebrates “the music of the people/Who will not be slaves again!” – a refrain of resistance that recalls the Chinese national anthem, “Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!” </p>
<p>One civil rights activist even published an <a href="https://cmcn.org/archives/46079">open letter</a> asking President Xi Jinping to resign. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-chinas-health-crisis-a-fleeting-flicker-of-free-speech/2020/02/06/21e16f8a-4888-11ea-8a1f-de1597be6cbc_story.html">brief blossoming of free speech</a> ended quickly. Within several days of Li’s death, the hashtag #IWantFreedomOfSpeech – which had gone viral on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter – was deleted. Zhiyong Xu, the activist who demanded Xi’s resignation, was arrested. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317426/original/file-20200226-24659-18fzgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317426/original/file-20200226-24659-18fzgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317426/original/file-20200226-24659-18fzgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317426/original/file-20200226-24659-18fzgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317426/original/file-20200226-24659-18fzgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317426/original/file-20200226-24659-18fzgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317426/original/file-20200226-24659-18fzgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317426/original/file-20200226-24659-18fzgc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A memorial to the late Dr. Li Wenliang at Li’s hospital in Wuhan, China, Feb. 7, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-dr-li-wenliang-is-left-at-lis-hospital-in-wuhan-news-photo/1199162702?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>State control versus popular anger</h2>
<p>While short-lived, the popular anger over coronavirus was a significant development in China. Such open dissent would have been unimaginable just a few months ago. </p>
<p>Chinese <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297285781_Understanding_China's_media_system_in_a_world_historical_context">media</a> and the internet have developed along two separate but ultimately repressive paths, my doctoral research on the political economy of the Chinese internet shows. But the government normally maintains strong authority over both. </p>
<p>Online news media, which emerged in the 1990s in China, was immediately integrated into the <a href="https://www.cecc.gov/resources/legal-provisions/provisions-on-the-administration-of-internet-news-information-services">traditional state media system</a> and strictly controlled. According to Reporters Without Borders, <a href="https://rsf.org/en/china">China ranks 177 out of 180 countries in press freedom</a>. </p>
<p>For-profit businesses have more freedom to operate on the internet as a means to boost China’s economy – as long as their business operations don’t challenge authority. As a result, Chinese social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo are vibrant and well used, but they are dominated by <a href="https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/f7114033900a8f7ef5afd2c80234d3b388292e468b4c93c35e1fd743ae4fded5/8450511/Fuchs_AsianJnlComm_2015.pdf">entertainment, gossip and other sensational content</a> – not political speech. </p>
<p>During the height of coronavirus fury, the government lost control of both realms of the Chinese internet. On social media, celebrity gossip gave way to discussions of public affairs, social issues and politics. Comments critical of the government, normally deleted quickly, were widely circulated.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/opinion/coronavirus-china-news-journalism.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage">China’s most daring investigative journalists</a> joined the fray. </p>
<p>The day after Dr. Li’s death, on Feb. 8, Yicai Magazine published a timeline showing the spread of the coronavirus in an article titled, “<a href="https://www.yicai.com/news/100495596.html">If there was a possibility to sound the alarm on Wuhan, which day would it be?”</a> Other <a href="https://theinitium.com/article/20200203-opinion-journalism-china-media-politics/">outlets</a> published investigative stories about government disinformation, corruption within aid groups and the scarcity of medical supplies.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317431/original/file-20200226-24694-1tlmozx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317431/original/file-20200226-24694-1tlmozx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317431/original/file-20200226-24694-1tlmozx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317431/original/file-20200226-24694-1tlmozx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317431/original/file-20200226-24694-1tlmozx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317431/original/file-20200226-24694-1tlmozx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317431/original/file-20200226-24694-1tlmozx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317431/original/file-20200226-24694-1tlmozx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Journalists at the first regular in-person press briefing by the Chinese Foreign Ministry since briefings had gone online during the coronavirus outbreak, Feb. 24, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/journalists-in-face-masks-seen-ahead-of-the-first-regular-news-photo/1202945758?adppopup=true">Roman Balandin\TASS via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A gaping class divide</h2>
<p>The public outcry over coronavirus was also unprecedented because in a society that has long been deeply divided, it united Chinese across classes and geography.</p>
<p>Ever since China “opened up” its socialist economy in 1978, partially liberalizing <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-brief-history-of-neoliberalism-9780199283279?cc=gb&lang=en&">markets and reducing the state’s oversight over all economic activity</a>, gross domestic product <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/overview#1">has grown by around 10% annually</a>. More than 850 million Chinese people were lifted out of poverty.</p>
<p>But surging growth has brought <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/111/19/6928">roaring income inequality</a> – among the world’s worst. Chinese society is hugely divided between <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674036321">rural and urban areas</a>, with urban households earning on average more than three times as much as rural households, <a href="http://oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/5669/China_92s_urban-rural_divide.html">according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development</a>. </p>
<p>China’s inequality is geographic, too. While privileged elite and middle classes in coastal cities have access to top-notch education systems, health care and infrastructure, inland residents frequently lack access to these services. Rural unemployment <a href="https://www.nber.org/digest/oct15/w21460.html">is high</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317430/original/file-20200226-24655-1myp00b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317430/original/file-20200226-24655-1myp00b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317430/original/file-20200226-24655-1myp00b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317430/original/file-20200226-24655-1myp00b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317430/original/file-20200226-24655-1myp00b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317430/original/file-20200226-24655-1myp00b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317430/original/file-20200226-24655-1myp00b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317430/original/file-20200226-24655-1myp00b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents do their washing in Guizhou Province, China, Feb. 20, 2014. While China’s cities explode, rural poverty remains entrenched.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photo-taken-on-on-february-20-2014-shows-rural-news-photo/476571003?adppopup=true">MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Internet access is among China’s unevenly distributed services. According to the <a href="https://cnnic.com.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201911/P020191112539794960687.pdf">2019 report</a> from the China Internet Network Information Center, 61% of Chinese people can get online at home or on a mobile device, whereas <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/269329/penetration-rate-of-the-internet-by-region/">Northern Europe has the highest online penetration rate of 95% and Western Europe 92%</a>. </p>
<p>The internet has proven to be a <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/working-class-network-society">powerful tool for China’s “have-less” and “have-nots”</a> to connect with each other and with job opportunities. </p>
<p>Unlike in <a href="https://theconversation.com/going-viral-what-social-media-activists-need-to-know-96043">other countries</a> where online activism has triggered mass protests, the internet has not historically enabled Chinese people to come together across economic and social divides to protest their government. </p>
<p>Most social movements in China – both online and offline – gain traction only within similar groups whose interests are clearly aligned. Environmental protests against the construction of chemical plants in the cities of <a href="https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/1626-Xiamen-PX-a-turning-point">Xiamen</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/14/china-protest-against-px-chemical-plant">Dalian</a> in 2007 and 2011, for example, drew students and urbanites. Labor protests for better pay, working conditions and the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/making-of-a-new-working-class-a-study-of-collective-actions-of-migrant-workers-in-south-china/0ACCD9E2633CD0281AD6F0AF78EBFCDD">right to unionize in 2018</a> were confined to China’s working classes. </p>
<h2>Class solidarity</h2>
<p>Coronavirus is different: The threat is universal.</p>
<p>The outbreak affects Chinese across classes and threatens different interest groups within classes. Quarantines of entire villages and communities, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA9G1VCnOFY">sealed off</a> as the government tries to control the outbreak of the virus, impact the lives of every single resident. </p>
<p>Nor are rural areas exempt from coronavirus. The Chinese migrant workers who live in the outskirts of cities were headed back to their rural hometowns en masse when the virus hit during the Chinese New Year – the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7813267.stm">largest annual human migration in the world</a>, called “Chunyun.” Some of them brought coronavirus with them to places where the <a href="https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_5735718">lack of medical resources</a> is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/world/asia/27china-coronavirus-health.html">severe</a>. </p>
<p>Economically, coronavirus hurts a wide swath of Chinese society, too. <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/news/32022/toyota-tesla-other-automakers-shut-down-factories-over-coronavirus">With factories and offices shuttered</a>, both white-collar and blue-collar workers are facing <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/coronavirus-china-firms-cut-staff-as-xi-vows-no-large-scale-layoffs">potential layoffs</a> or delayed return to work, depriving them of income. Street vendors, shops and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51386575">service industries</a> are all hit hard. </p>
<p>Between the seriousness of the virus and the mass pause of all Chinese society, everyone seems to be questioning systemic problems long disguised or ignored in the Communist Party’s discourse of stability, <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-transformation-of-chinese-socialism">nationalism and economic development</a>. </p>
<p>The lack of government transparency, a censored press, inequality and the shortage of medical resources are longstanding problems in China. Coronavirus brought them to the fore, and, if only for a brief moment, the Chinese people demanded better. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131549/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yuqi Na does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Public criticism of the Chinese government’s handling of coronavirus shows that the Chinese people can overcome both strict censorship and a gaping class divide when they get angry enough.Yuqi Na, Course Instructor , Fordham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1067392018-12-06T11:43:35Z2018-12-06T11:43:35ZThe web really isn’t worldwide – every country has different access<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248538/original/file-20181203-194950-9jqd60.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1000%2C577&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When a website blocks access, it sometimes delivers a notice saying so.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot from airbnb.com</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What the internet looks like to users in the U.S. can be quite different from the online experience of people in other countries. Some of those variations are due to government censorship of online services, which is a <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2018">significant threat</a> to internet freedom worldwide. But private companies – many based in the U.S. – are also building obstacles to users from around the world who want to freely explore the internet.</p>
<p>Website operators and internet traffic managers often choose to deny access to users based on their location. Users from certain countries can’t visit certain websites – not because their governments say so, or because their employers want them to focus on work, but because a corporation halfway around the world has made a decision to deny them access. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://censoredplanet.org/projects/geoblocking">geoblocking</a>, as it’s called, is not always nefarious. U.S. companies may block traffic from certain countries to comply with <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Pages/Programs.aspx">federal economic sanctions</a>. Shopping websites might choose not to have visitors from countries they don’t ship goods to. Media sites might not be able to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/25/gdpr-us-based-news-websites-eu-internet-users-la-times">comply with other nations’ privacy laws</a>. But other times it’s out of convenience, or laziness: It may be easier to stop hacking attempts from a country by blocking every user from that country, rather than increasing security of vulnerable systems.</p>
<p>Whatever its justifications, this blocking is increasing on all kinds of websites and is affecting users from almost every country in the world. Geoblocking cuts people off from global markets and international communications just as effectively as government censorship. And it creates a more splintered internet, where each country has its own bubble of content and services, rather than sharing a global commons of information and interconnection.</p>
<h2>Measuring geoblocking globally</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247660/original/file-20181128-32226-1sx3009.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247660/original/file-20181128-32226-1sx3009.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247660/original/file-20181128-32226-1sx3009.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=173&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247660/original/file-20181128-32226-1sx3009.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=173&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247660/original/file-20181128-32226-1sx3009.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=173&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247660/original/file-20181128-32226-1sx3009.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247660/original/file-20181128-32226-1sx3009.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247660/original/file-20181128-32226-1sx3009.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The notice users receive when Amazon Cloudfront is configured to block access from their country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a <a href="https://censoredplanet.org/">team of internet freedom researchers</a>, my colleagues <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YHAxUZQAAAAJ&hl=en">and I</a> investigated the <a href="https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3278552">mechanics of geoblocking</a>, including where geoblocking is happening, what content was being blocked and how websites were practicing geoblocking. </p>
<p>We used a service called <a href="https://luminati.io/">Luminati</a>, which provides researchers remote, automated access to residential internet connections around the world. Our automated system used those connections to see what more than 14,000 sites look like from 177 countries, and compared the results in each country.</p>
<p>Websites that didn’t block traffic typically served us a large file providing rich internet content, including text, images and video. Websites that were blocked usually delivered just a short notice saying that access was denied because of the visitor’s location. When the same website delivered a large file to an address in one country and a very short one to another, we knew we had a good chance of finding that the site was conducted geoblocking.</p>
<p>We found that the internet does indeed look very different depending on where you’re connecting from. Users in countries under U.S. sanctions – Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba – had access to significantly fewer websites than in other countries. People in China and Russia faced similar restrictions, though not as many. Some countries are less affected, but of the 177 countries we studied, every one – except the Seychelles – was subjected to at least some geoblocking, including the U.S.</p>
<p><iframe id="wYLSh" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/wYLSh/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Shopping websites were the most likely to geoblock, perhaps because of economic sanctions or more straightforward business reasons. But some websites hosting news and educational resources chose to block users from specific countries, limiting those people’s access to outside information and perspectives.</p>
<h2>The role of internet middlemen</h2>
<p>We also found that many websites are taking advantage of geoblocking services provided by their hosting companies and online middleman firms called <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/what-is-a-cdn/">content delivery networks</a>. These companies operate systems that preload web content at key locations around the world to speed service to nearby internet users, so an Australian looking for an article in the Washington Post doesn’t have to wait for the request to travel halfway around the world and back. With a content delivery network, there’s already an up-to-date electronic copy of the Washington Post stored in, say, Sydney.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247658/original/file-20181128-32185-1btty3g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247658/original/file-20181128-32185-1btty3g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247658/original/file-20181128-32185-1btty3g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=243&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247658/original/file-20181128-32185-1btty3g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=243&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247658/original/file-20181128-32185-1btty3g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=243&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247658/original/file-20181128-32185-1btty3g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247658/original/file-20181128-32185-1btty3g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247658/original/file-20181128-32185-1btty3g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cloudflare’s notification that the owner of a website has banned the country or region a user’s IP address is in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many content delivery network services include a dashboard where a site administrator can easily select which countries to deliver the website’s information to – and which ones to block. Content delivery networks in general are <a href="https://cloud.google.com/free/">a</a> <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/">lot</a> <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2014/05/08/aws-free-usage-tier-now-includes-amazon-cloudfront/">cheaper</a> than they used to be, which means more and more website operators are getting their hands on simple geoblocking tools. </p>
<p>In fact, based on data that were provided to us by <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/">Cloudflare</a>, one of the world’s largest content delivery networks, this trend is only increasing. As of August 2018, more than 37 percent of Cloudflare’s large-business customers block their website in at least one country.</p>
<p>Sometimes an unavailable website is merely an inconvenience – I can’t order my <a href="https://www.dominos.ie/">Irish friends a pizza from the U.S.</a>, for example. Other times geoblocking can really cause problems. We encountered an Iranian student who couldn’t apply to graduate school abroad because the admissions website wouldn’t accept payment of the application fee from Iran. Another person may be unable to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/25/gdpr-us-based-news-websites-eu-internet-users-la-times">read the news</a> from a major international city, or <a href="https://www.airbnb.com/region_unavailable/">plan a trip abroad</a> because travel websites are all unavailable from their home.</p>
<h2>Geoblocking is ineffective</h2>
<p>Restricting access based on geography is unlikely to affect all internet users equally. As when evading censorship, getting around a geoblock isn’t necessarily difficult. But it might be expensive, expose users to <a href="https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3278570">additional tracking of their online activity</a>, or require a level of <a href="https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2016/EECS-2016-58.pdf">technical</a> <a href="https://petsymposium.org/2012/papers/hotpets12-1-usability.pdf">literacy</a> that not everyone has. Even if a user can ultimately access the content they were originally denied, they may bear a significant burden to gain access to the wider internet.</p>
<p>It’s also not easy – or necessarily accurate – to identify an internet user’s physical location. Using a computer’s numeric IP address to estimate where in the world it’s being used is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3131365.3131380">notoriously</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/1971162.1971171">unreliable</a>. At least some users are likely being unfairly denied access to online services because their network address is determined to be somewhere they are not. However, rather than expanding the accessibility and accuracy of geoblocking, our group is <a href="https://censoredplanet.org/projects/geoblocking">encouraging researchers</a> to address the needs of websites while maintaining as open an access policy as possible.</p>
<p>The internet has indelibly changed the world and the way people connect and do business. Researchers are working hard to keep this valuable resource available to everyone. Companies shouldn’t thwart those efforts by discriminating against users only because of where they are when they connect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allison McDonald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Private companies – many based in the US – are blocking access to their websites from particular countries around the world. It’s contributing to a splintering of the global internet.Allison McDonald, Ph.D. Student in Computer Science, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1037972018-10-03T08:58:05Z2018-10-03T08:58:05ZRegulate social media? It’s a bit more complicated than that<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238930/original/file-20181002-85614-1p04eni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C323%2C4000%2C2335&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/censorship-freedom-speech-traffic-sign-two-445529134?src=0PMkzDJpWDOHdm_0E4QmGw-1-10">M-SUR/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Free speech is a key aspect of the internet, but it has become increasingly obvious that many online will push that freedom to extremes, leaving website comment sections, Twitter feeds and Facebook groups awash with racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise unpalatable opinions and vitriolic views, and obscene or shocking images or videos. </p>
<p>The borderless nature of the internet, where a website may be hosted in one country, operated by staff in another, with comments left by readers in a third, poses a thorny problem for website operators and government agencies seeking to tackle the issue. </p>
<p>In Britain, the telecommunications regulator Ofcom recently issued a <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/information-for-industry/internet-policy/addressing-harmful-online-content">report</a> discussing the issues around online harm and potential ways forward. A UK government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-make-social-media-safer">white paper</a> on the subject is also expected this autumn, and health secretary Matt Hancock announced at the Conservative Party conference that he would direct the UK’s chief medical officer to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/29/health-chief-set-social-media-time-limits-young-people">draw up guidelines</a> about social media use among children and teenagers amid growing concerns over potential harm.</p>
<p>Most forms of online content are not subject to the <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/100103/broadcast-code-april-2017.pdf">Ofcom Broadcasting Code</a> with which radio and television services based in the UK must comply. In fact, Ofcom highlights that a wide range of popular online content – including videos uploaded to YouTube, or content posted on social media, sent through messaging services, or which appears on many online news sites, and also political advertising – is subject to little or no specific UK regulation. These different platforms are subject to different rules, which means the same content shared on each would be treated differently depending on how it was accessed. </p>
<p>Ofcom sees this “different screen, different rules” approach as arbitrary and problematic, providing no clear level of protection for viewers. While addressing this disparity is a legitimate aim, is it even possible to subject all content accessible by UK audiences via the internet or online services to UK law, regardless of where in the world it originates? </p>
<h2>Rule of territory vs access</h2>
<p>Under international law, one of the primary means for states to exercise their jurisdiction is the <a href="https://unijuris.sites.uu.nl/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2014/12/The-Concept-of-Jurisdiction-in-International-Law.pdf">territorial principle</a>, the right to regulate acts that occur within their territory. UK law would apply to online content hosted on servers located in the UK, for example, or to an internet user uploading content online from the UK.</p>
<p>But of course internet users can access content created and hosted from all over the world, and it is not always possible to tell where it has come from or where it is hosted. This limits the territorial principle, and makes establishing the existence of a territorial connection with <a href="https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-un-territoriality-of-data">“un-territorial data”</a> a key requirement. Unfortunately, there is no international agreement on how to do so.</p>
<p>Instead, states have interpreted the principle quite broadly to argue that the <a href="https://labs.ripe.net/Members/sara_solmone/establishing-jurisdiction-online">mere accessibility</a> of online content from within their territory is deemed sufficient. For example, in court cases against <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/obscene-publications">Perrin</a> and <a href="https://www.unodc.org/cld/case-law-doc/cybercrimecrimetype/fra/2000/uejf_and_licra_v_yahoo_inc_and_yahoo_france.html">Yahoo</a>, UK and French courts respectively applied their national laws to online content accessible in their countries, even though it had been uploaded from and was hosted in the US. The act of publishing content online, the courts argued, is equal to physically acting or producing adverse effects within their territory irrespective of its origin.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238935/original/file-20181002-85632-ed01fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238935/original/file-20181002-85632-ed01fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238935/original/file-20181002-85632-ed01fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238935/original/file-20181002-85632-ed01fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238935/original/file-20181002-85632-ed01fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238935/original/file-20181002-85632-ed01fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238935/original/file-20181002-85632-ed01fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who decides what people can and cannot say online? Many accept there should be limits. Few agree on details.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/censored-dialog-bubble-text-metaphor-meaning-498512638">M-SUR/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The too-long arm of the law?</h2>
<p>So we increasingly see states tending to impose measures that go well beyond their borders. For example, in a case regarding “the right to be forgotten”, the <a href="https://www.cnil.fr/fr/node/15790">French Data Protection Authority</a> ordered Google to remove search results not just from its European versions, but from all its geographical extensions in order to make the search results inaccessible worldwide. This case shows a national court using the fact that the US-based company Google conducts business in France to impose the global application of its domestic laws.</p>
<p>This is problematic because it inevitably runs into the rights and freedoms of foreign citizens abroad, who should in theory only need to comply with the local laws in their country. Currently, the French case is <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=195494&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=38822">pending</a> before the European Court of Justice. The “right to be forgotten” which is certainly protected by EU law, does not have universal application, therefore while internet users in the EU might have a right to have some personal information removed, internet users in foreign countries where that information is legal have a right to access it.</p>
<p>But if the global delisting order was enforced, internet users in those other countries would see their freedom to access information violated due to a decision of a foreign authority in a foreign jurisdiction based on foreign law. If all states adopted this approach, it would only be a matter of time before internet users in Britain found their right to freedom of information was on the line.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238931/original/file-20181002-85602-qwga6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238931/original/file-20181002-85602-qwga6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238931/original/file-20181002-85602-qwga6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238931/original/file-20181002-85602-qwga6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238931/original/file-20181002-85602-qwga6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238931/original/file-20181002-85602-qwga6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238931/original/file-20181002-85602-qwga6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238931/original/file-20181002-85602-qwga6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Error 451, indicating online content that has been removed for legal reasons, is named after Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/http-error-451-unavailable-legal-reasons-431331046">M-SUR/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Defining and regulating ‘harm’</h2>
<p>On the other hand, states have a right to regulate to protect citizens from harm. Indeed, the actions of foreign-based corporations and the way in which they manage online content can negatively affect internet users’ rights worldwide. As <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3096330">has been pointed out</a>, multinational companies’ choices of where to host their data, the country in which they are based, and consequently the laws with which they have to comply, and what they include and exclude from their terms of service all significantly affect the rights to privacy and freedom of expression of internet users worldwide. </p>
<p>Some companies <a href="https://www.internetjurisdiction.net/uploads/pdfs/Papers/Content-Jurisdiction-Policy-Options-Document.pdf">voluntarily perform global takedowns</a> of content at the request of governments or users based on their own terms of service. But international cooperation is needed, and is preferable to unilateral actions by courts that have very broad extraterritorial effects. There are a number of international multistakeholder groups working on internet governance which are exploring possible solutions, such as the <a href="https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/index.html">World Summit on Information Society</a>, the <a href="https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/">Internet Governance Forum</a>, meetings organised by <a href="https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/welcome-2012-02-25-en">ICANN</a>, and <a href="https://www.nro.net/about-the-nro/regional-internet-registries/">Regional Internet Registries</a> and international conferences organised by the <a href="https://www.internetjurisdiction.net/event/3rd-global-conference-of-the-internet-jurisdiction-policy-network-june-3-5-2019">Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network</a>. </p>
<p>But there are many missing elements that make progress difficult. When it comes to <a href="https://www.internetjurisdiction.net/uploads/pdfs/Papers/Content-Jurisdiction-Policy-Options-Document.pdf">regulating online content</a> there is no international agreement on how states should exercise their jurisdiction, or on what kind of content should be considered abusive, when or whether internet companies should be responsible for their users’ content at all, how or if they should remove content considered harmful or abusive, and whether such removals are global or limited in scope.</p>
<p>These problems are so intertwined with the sovereignty of each state that an international agreement that manages all the issues but is acceptable to all is unrealistic. But agreed common international guidelines on how to address these issues is needed, and will require input from nation states, internet companies, the internet technical community, and voices representing users’ rights and civil society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103797/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Solmone is a member of the UK England Chapter of the Internet Society and an observer and part of the Membership Committee at GigaNet.
Sara was also a RIPE Academic Cooperation Initiative (RACI) fellow at Reseaux IP Europeens 75 (RIPE).</span></em></p>The borderless nature of the internet makes it hard to pull the plug on social media talk that crosses the line.Sara Solmone, Postgraduate Teaching Assistant, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1012922018-08-10T10:41:35Z2018-08-10T10:41:35ZProfit, not free speech, governs media companies’ decisions on controversy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231184/original/file-20180808-191013-13uar8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What causes a media business to bar the door?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/blocked-door-abandoned-house-background-597346598">yanin kongurai/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, U.S. media companies have limited the content they’ve offered based on what’s good for business. The decisions by <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/6/17655516/infowars-ban-apple-youtube-facebook-spotify">Apple, Spotify, Facebook and YouTube</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/audiences-love-the-anger-alex-jones-or-someone-like-him-will-be-back-101168">remove content from commentator Alex Jones and his InfoWars platform</a> follow this same pattern.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/understanding-media-industries-9780190215323?cc=us&lang=en&">research on media industries</a> makes clear that government rules and regulations do little to limit what television shows, films, music albums, video games and social media content are available to the public. Business concerns about profitability are much stronger restrictions. Movies are given ratings based on their content not by government officials but by the <a href="https://www.mpaa.org/film-ratings/">Motion Picture Association of America</a>, an industry group. Television companies, for their part, often have departments handling what are called “<a href="http://www.museum.tv/eotv/standardsand.htm">standards and practices</a>” – reviewing content and suggesting or demanding changes to avoid offending audiences or advertisers.</p>
<p>The self-policing by movie studios and TV networks is very similar to YouTube’s and Facebook’s actions: Distributing extremely controversial content is bad for business. Offended viewers will turn away from the program and may choose to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/target-prime-time-9780195063202?cc=us&lang=en&">boycott the network or service</a> – reducing the size of audiences that can be sold to advertisers. Some alarmed viewers may even urge boycotts of the advertisers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/business/media/sexual-harassment-bill-oreilly-fox.html">whose messages air during controversial programming</a>. </p>
<p>Over the decades, television networks have internalized feedback from advertisers and unintended controversies to try to steer clear of negative attention. <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/facebook-and-apple-moved-the-goal-posts-to-ban-alex-jones-thats-encouraging.html">Social media companies</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/youtube-bans-alex-jones-following-facebook-and-apples-lead/">are just beginning</a> to understand <a href="https://apnews.com/6d0a9467a997409cafd70a86d01e7093">these forces are at work</a> in their own industries as well. </p>
<h2>Self-regulation to avoid government intrusion</h2>
<p>The practices of media industries to police themselves arose over many years, as companies tried to appease public concern without triggering formal government supervision. This pleased all sides: Elected and appointed officials avoided having to do much of anything that might look like squashing free speech, companies avoided formal restrictions that might be quite severe, and concerned citizens had their objections heard and acted upon.</p>
<p>When concerns about the amount of sex and violence on broadcast television developed in the 1970s, the networks agreed – with strong encouragement from the federal government – to establish a “<a href="http://www.museum.tv/eotv/familyviewin.htm">Family Hour</a>” during the first hour of prime-time programming that was monitored by the National Association of Broadcasters. Music labels agreed to place “Parental Advisory” labels on <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2010/10/29/130905176/you-ask-we-answer-parental-advisory---why-when-how">albums with explicit lyrics</a>. Inspired by moviemakers, video game developers adopted ratings based on evaluations by an industry group, the <a href="https://www.esrb.org/about/">Entertainment Software Ratings Board</a>.</p>
<p>There is, though, a key difference between those industries and the situation of YouTube and Facebook. Movie studios, record labels and TV companies are responsible for making their content as well as distributing it – and are legally liable for any problems that might arise. </p>
<p>Online media companies, though, typically don’t create most of what appears on their platforms, and are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-law-that-made-facebook-what-it-is-today-93931">expressly protected from legal responsibility</a> for the content of the messages others post. But hosting information publicly viewed as hateful can damage a business, even if it doesn’t run afoul of government rules.</p>
<h2>Challenges of social media content regulation</h2>
<p>Social media companies have achieved their <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/25/facebook-2-5-billion-people/">ubiquity</a> and <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/technology/sun-may-be-setting-on-social-media-stocks-14676996">high profits</a> because they do not have to pay for creating the content that attracts attention to their services. They reap the financial rewards of a technological advantage in which billions of users can create, share and look at different messages and pieces of content every day.</p>
<p>They are just beginning to understand the downside to that technological advantage, which is that the public – even if not the law – considers them at least somewhat responsible for what is said on their sites. And it’s <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/23/facebook-privacy-scandal-has-a-plus-thousands-of-new-jobs-ai-cant-do.html">extremely difficult to sort through</a>, classify and police all those billions of posts – much less to figure out how to <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-facebook-use-ai-to-fight-online-abuse-95203">automate some of those tasks</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231180/original/file-20180808-191025-1ic26j7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231180/original/file-20180808-191025-1ic26j7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231180/original/file-20180808-191025-1ic26j7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231180/original/file-20180808-191025-1ic26j7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231180/original/file-20180808-191025-1ic26j7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231180/original/file-20180808-191025-1ic26j7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231180/original/file-20180808-191025-1ic26j7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231180/original/file-20180808-191025-1ic26j7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alex Jones, banned from many social media platforms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alex_Jones_Portrait.jpg">Michael Zimmermann</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So far, social media sites have avoided limiting content except in the most extreme cases, because it is difficult to draw lines of acceptability that don’t produce more controversy themselves. Their decision likely included weighing the effects of the objections that would erupt if they did ban Jones against what might happen to their brands <a href="https://apnews.com/6d0a9467a997409cafd70a86d01e7093">if they didn’t</a>. </p>
<p>In the past, self-regulation often allowed media companies to evade governmental action. It is unclear whether these latest moves by social media companies are the start of lasting self-regulation or a one-off effort to quell current concern. Either way, their decisions are all about what is good for business. </p>
<p>Their response to outcry may be craven, but it might suggest these companies are recognizing the cultural power of their products. Ultimately, social media companies – like other media companies – are showing that they will respond to pressure from their audiences and the marketplace. In the absence of regulation, consumers will encourage companies to change policies by opting out of social media that enable cesspools of trolling and hate.</p>
<p>Users who want changes made should take note of how audiences have pressured other media industries to make changes in the past. Consumers who want greater privacy controls, environments free of hate speech, and different kinds of algorithms could demand them by leaving flawed services or boycotting the advertisers that support them. As demand for alternatives becomes clearer, services will change or a competitor will arise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101292/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Lotz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While they may talk about ‘free speech,’ businesses make decisions about their content based on a very different set of principles.Amanda Lotz, Fellow, Peabody Media Center; Professor of Media Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1010462018-08-03T16:06:29Z2018-08-03T16:06:29ZGoogle’s censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230621/original/file-20180803-41351-lgqdh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/censorship-on-internet-restricted-limited-searching-730052776?src=a3mTqWZJRjnw0c08bbG1JA-1-99">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Great Firewall of China is the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown">largest-scale internet censorship</a> operation in the world. The Chinese state says the firewall is there to promote societal harmony within an increasing population of billions of people. It considers the internet in China as part of its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-scary-lesson-to-the-world-censoring-the-internet-works/2016/05/23/413afe78-fff3-11e5-8bb1-f124a43f84dc_story.html">sovereign territory</a>. </p>
<p>Eight years ago, Google <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/google-set-to-pull-out-of-china-over-censorship-1925052.html">withdrew from China</a>, pulling its search and other services out because of country’s limits to freedom of speech. But it is now planning to relaunch a heavily censored version of its services in China, according to a whistleblower who spoke to online news website <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/">The Intercept</a>. </p>
<p>This project, named Dragonfly, will encompass a new, heavily censored version of Google’s search services, including mobile apps, that will be run in partnership with a local company in China. <a href="https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/what-does-china-censor-online/">Censorship in China includes</a> returning no results for searches that depict Chinese police or military brutality (such as the Tiananmen Square massacre), pro-democracy sites, sites linked with the Dalai Lama, and anything related to Taiwanese or Tibetan independence.</p>
<p>The whistleblower who spoke to The Intercept <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/">cited ethical concerns</a> over this project – and rightly so. There are several ethical dilemmas with Google’s move back into China. Should large Western companies such as Google give up ethical values to make money in China? Is it okay to design technology to assist the Chinese government in restricting the human rights of their citizens? Where does “respect for Chinese values” turn into “assistance in oppressing Chinese people through censorship”? Is Google being hypocritical by making money on the freedom of information available in most societies but then selling it out when they go into China? </p>
<p>The largest professional organisation for computing, the Association of Computing Machinery, recently updated its <a href="https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics">code of ethics</a>, which includes some specific provisions that we can use to think through these issues. Many Google employees are members of the ACM, meaning they have agreed to abide by this code. Some of these employees may be working on Project Dragonfly, so they will need to evaluate their work in terms of the code. An initial analysis using the code (and this complex case requires more than space allows) offers three insights.</p>
<p>First, the primary goal of technology development should be to benefit the public good, “to contribute to society and to human well-being”, “promoting human rights and protecting each individual’s right to autonomy” (principle 1.1). Taking part in censorship at the Chinese state’s behest and censoring the topics mentioned above would appear to be inconsistent with this principle.</p>
<p>Individual freedom is heavily curtailed in China, and this is reflected in the censorship of the internet there. But, despite what the Chinese government argues, promoting social harmony doesn’t require the restriction of freedom or violation of human rights.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230582/original/file-20180803-41369-1cdqpnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230582/original/file-20180803-41369-1cdqpnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230582/original/file-20180803-41369-1cdqpnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230582/original/file-20180803-41369-1cdqpnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230582/original/file-20180803-41369-1cdqpnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230582/original/file-20180803-41369-1cdqpnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230582/original/file-20180803-41369-1cdqpnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Digital oppression.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-work-night-203069269?src=YdoY9eubkiHEsSFLvNJp2g-1-3">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, there are specific provisions within the code against assisting in the oppression of a population within the code. “Computing professionals should take action to avoid creating systems or technologies that disenfranchise or oppress people” (principle 1.4). In developing technology to censor sites related to democracy and Chinese-committed atrocities, Google employees would arguably be violating this as well.</p>
<p>But surely this is a case for respecting “local, regional, national, and international laws and regulations” (principle 2.3)? The code of ethics expects computing professionals to challenge unethical rules – and break them if a rule “has an inadequate moral basis or causes recognisable harm”.</p>
<p>It’s also one thing to respect local customs and laws, and another to actively implement them, as Google will be doing. By collaborating, Google, as a large Western company, stands accused of giving credence to these oppressive laws. providing the Chinese state with political weight and propaganda for their policies.</p>
<h2>Betraying its values?</h2>
<p>It would be highly hypocritical of Google to take advantage of the values that have allowed it to grow to the behemoth it is today in much of the world – democracy, freedom of speech, personal autonomy == and then drop these when moving into the Chinese market. Instead of being a values-driven company, it seems from this move that it is purely profit-driven.</p>
<p>So what should Google do? One way of responsibly dealing with this would be to open up project Dragonfly to input from the rest of the company, not just the hundred or so working directly on it. Let the Google employee base and other non-shareholder stakeholders decide where the red lines for Google’s values should be.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2340943615000791">Research has indicated</a> that ethical companies are more profitable, <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/1679578/what-do%20es-it-take-to-be-one-of-the-worlds-most-ethical-companies">retaining employees</a> who are proud to work for the company, and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1023238525433">earning respect</a> and loyalty from the public. Standing up and showing China the value of democratic participation in company value identification will likely earn Google more respect both home and abroad.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Flick receives funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under grant agreements 710543 and 787991. She is affiliated with the Association of Computing Machinery as a member of its Committee on Professional Ethics and a member of the steering committee of the Code of Ethics update taskforce. </span></em></p>Google’s secret plan to comply with Chinese censorship laws betrays the values that helped create the tech giant.Catherine Flick, Reader in Computing & Social Responsibility, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/971592018-05-24T15:42:07Z2018-05-24T15:42:07ZAppeals court rules against Trump blocking critics on Twitter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220302/original/file-20180524-51135-12psfdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1661%2C0%2C4329%2C3314&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The president uses his Twitter feed to make official announcements.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Tapes/5fc411a2244247fe8c316566d50d1fa6/203/0">AP Photo/J. David Ake</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A federal appeals court in New York has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/09/politics/twitter-trump-appeals-court/index.html">upheld a lower court’s ruling</a> that <a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/sites/default/files/content/Cases/Wikimedia/2018.05.23%20Order%20on%20motions%20for%20summary%20judgment.pdf">President Donald Trump cannot block people</a> from following or viewing his <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">@realDonaldTrump</a> Twitter account. While the case could be appealed further to the U.S. Supreme Court, the upheld decision is a resounding victory for the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment</a> right of citizens to speak to and disagree with government officials in the social media era.</p>
<p>The appeals court’s ruling is not a surprise to me, as director of the <a href="http://firstamendment.jou.ufl.edu">Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project</a> at the <a href="http://www.ufl.edu">University of Florida</a>. That’s because it, like the lower court decision it upholds, is grounded in the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/491/397">well-established principles</a> of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf">protecting political speech</a> and <a href="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/supreme-court-review/2017/9/2017-supreme-court-review-1.pdf">barring government discrimination</a> against <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-amendment-lawsuit-says-president-trump-cant-block-twitter-followers-he-doesnt-like-79074">people engaged in public discourse</a> <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1293_1o13.pdf">based on their viewpoints</a>. </p>
<p>The district court judge found that Trump blocked Twitter followers from his account “<a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/sites/default/files/content/Cases/Twitter/2018.05.23%20Order%20on%20motions%20for%20summary%20judgment.pdf">indisputably … [as] a result of viewpoint discrimination</a>.” The appeals court agreed, finding that Trump “<a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/sites/default/files/content/Cases/Twitter/2019.07.09_Opinion.pdf">engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination</a> by utilizing Twitter’s ‘blocking’ function.” In other words, Trump cannot block people simply because they criticize him or his policies.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"874599756143755264"}"></div></p>
<p>That issue was never really in question in this case, though. The main debate was whether the president’s personal Twitter account was a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/forums">public forum</a> governed by the First Amendment. More traditional public forums are physical places owned by the government, such as sidewalks, parks and auditoriums. Peaceful public speech and demonstrations in those venues cannot be stopped based on what is being said without a <a href="http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/faq.aspx?id=13012">compelling government interest</a>. Twitter, however, is not a real-world space. And it’s run by a private company.</p>
<p>The district court’s ruling found, however, that the company has less control over the @realDonaldTrump account than Trump himself and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/magazine/dan-scavino-the-secretary-of-offense.html">White House social media director Dan Scavino</a> – also a public official. Their power includes the ability to block people from seeing the account’s tweets, and “<a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/sites/default/files/content/Cases/Twitter/2018.05.23%20Order%20on%20motions%20for%20summary%20judgment.pdf">from participating in the interactive space associated with the tweets</a>,” in the form of replies and comments on Twitter’s platform.</p>
<p>Also key was the fact that the @realDonaldTrump account is used for governmental purposes. Specifically, the district court judge found that “<a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/sites/default/files/content/Cases/Twitter/2018.05.23%20Order%20on%20motions%20for%20summary%20judgment.pdf">the President presents the @realDonaldTrump account as being a presidential account</a> as opposed to a personal account and, more importantly, uses the account to take actions that can be taken only by the President as President” – such as announcing the appointments and terminations of government officials.</p>
<p>The appeals court agreed on both points, saying, “<a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/sites/default/files/content/Cases/Twitter/2019.07.09_Opinion.pdf">the First Amendment does not permit a public official</a> who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise-open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees.”</p>
<p>This decision brings the Supreme Court’s longstanding free speech doctrine into the social media era.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article originally published May 24, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97159/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clay Calvert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Twitter account used for official purposes is a public forum protected by the First Amendment, a federal appeals court has ruled.Clay Calvert, Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/822222017-08-22T14:18:34Z2017-08-22T14:18:34ZWhy you should care about China’s VPN crackdown<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181558/original/file-20170809-16146-cpaslp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Internet censors have a new target. The Chinese and Russian governments recently announced plans to block the use of “virtual private networks” (VPNs), which are a key tool for people trying to avoid internet restrictions and surveillance.</p>
<p>This crackdown isn’t surprising, given the two countries’ histories of monitoring their citizens and blocking certain websites and online services. But it raises the question of whether other governments will follow this lead and introduce their own VPN bans, especially given how VPNs currently allow citizens to avoid the extensive internet surveillance that Western governments practice.</p>
<p>China and other countries block many websites they don’t want their citizens to access, including sites such as Twitter and YouTube that allow users to freely post almost anything they like. But Chinese internet users wishing to evade these restrictions can currently use VPNs to visit these sites, because they provide access via a separate encrypted server that can’t be monitored by the government.</p>
<p>Since Chinese internet service providers only filter out connections to the likes of Twitter and YouTube, users can still connect to sites which offer VPN services. VPN acts like a proxy, accessing the banned sites on the users’ behalf and allowing them to effectively bypass the restrictions, as well as avoiding government snooping. But now the Chinese government has ordered national telecommunications firms to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/11/china-moves-to-block-internet-vpns-from-2018">block VPNs</a> as well from February 2018.</p>
<p>Russia doesn’t block access to as many sites as China. It allows access to Facebook and Twitter, for example. But it still practices <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/04/russia_is_trying_to_copy_china_s_internet_censorship.html">significant internet censorship</a>. And now it has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/31/russia-follows-china-in-vpn-clampdown-raising-censorship-concerns.html">followed China’s lead</a> by also restricting VPN services, stating the measure is intended to clamp down on anonymous access to unlawful content.</p>
<p>These events come as little surprise given China and Russia’s track records. China, in particular, has introduced a number of similar restrictions on VPNs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/13/china-cracks-down-on-vpn-use">in the past</a>. These clampdowns were vigorously enforced for a period of time and then relaxed.</p>
<p>Although the new restrictions seem to be more comprehensive, it’s worth noting that they may also be temporary, with the official statement indicating that the measures would run until March 31, 2018. This may have something to do with the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China being held in Beijing <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-10/27/c_135785420.htm">in the autumn of 2017</a>. </p>
<p>It’s also worth pointing out that both China and Russia are heavily invested in developing their industries and economies and keenly aware that this cannot occur without businesses and researchers being able to access internet resources. Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, stated at the Davos economic summit in January 2017 that <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/full-text-of-xi-jinping-keynote-at-the-world-economic-forum">he wanted to</a> “redouble efforts to develop global connectivity”. This must include access to the internet. </p>
<p>However, there is <a href="https://trends.ifla.org/literature-review/increased-censorship-and-surveillance">significant concern</a> from internet anti-censorship organisations that these kinds of events indicate a growing global trend. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/government-censorship-21st-century-internet/385528/">Governments are increasingly</a> monitoring, restricting or censoring the internet activities of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhWJTWUvc7E">their own and other nations’ citizens</a>.</p>
<p>This trend includes most major Western governments. For example, the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), have been the subject of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/20/nsa-gchq-snoopping-because-we-can">considerable debate</a> for their practices of internet snooping and the mass collection of citizens’ data. </p>
<h2>Western laws are vulnerable to VPNs</h2>
<p>If the recent laws in China and Russia are alarming, so too are those such as the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html">US Executive Order 12333</a>, authorising the collection of data inside and outside US borders for “national security purposes”. This order permits the collection and storage of communication metadata and content without a warrant, court approval or reporting to Congress.</p>
<p>The UK’s <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/25/contents/enacted">Investigatory Powers Act 2016</a> isn’t far behind, requiring internet service providers to keep a full list of users’ connection records, including a list of every website that people have visited, for a year. The UK government has also announced plans to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-government-wants-to-control-porn-viewing-habits-69374">restrict access to pornography</a> to over-18s and ban material it deems harmful altogether, something China <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-and-china-not-such-strange-bedfellows-in-war-on-porn-16553">has done for years</a>. A major flaw in all these plans is that the surveillance and restrictions can be bypassed using a VPN.</p>
<p>While the restrictions on VPN services in China and Russia may be temporary in nature, they do form part of the increasing appetite of governments the world over to monitor and limit the activities of internet users. If Western governments begin to see VPNs as a threat to their own internet regulation, there’s a real chance they could follow the lead of China and Russia and introduce their own bans. Online privacy could be a concept heading for extinction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82222/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omair Uthmani has received seed funding from Scottish Enterprise for a spinout company.</span></em></p>Virtual private networks help citizens around the world evade state surveillance – how long until more governments take action?Omair Uthmani, Lecturer in Networking and Security, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/793232017-06-15T10:52:38Z2017-06-15T10:52:38ZThe UK’s plan to deny terrorists ‘safe spaces’ online would make us all less safe in the long run<p>In the wake of the recent attacks in Manchester and London, British Prime Minister Theresa May has called on social media companies to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheresaMayOfficial/posts/1757704577579641">eliminate “safe spaces” online</a> for extremist ideology. Despite losing the majority in the recent election, she is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/theresa-may-election-latest-internet-regulation-downing-street-speech-manifesto-a7783186.html">moving forward with plans</a> to <a href="https://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2017/06/tech-giants-fines-uk-france-extremism/">regulate online communications</a>, including in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/12/may-macron-online-terror-radicalisation">cooperation with</a> newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron.</p>
<p>May’s statement is just one of several initiatives aimed at “cleaning up” the internet. Others include Germany’s proposal to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/technology/germany-hate-speech-facebook-tech.html?_r=0">fine social media companies</a> that fail to remove illegal content and the Australian attorney general’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/12/george-brandiss-salvo-in-cryptowars-could-blow-a-hole-in-architecture-of-the-internet">call for laws requiring internet companies to decrypt communications</a> upon request.</p>
<p>It is understandable to want to do something – anything – to help restore a lost sense of security. But as a human rights lawyer who has studied the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=858831">intersection of human rights and technology</a> for the last 10 years, I think May’s proposal and others like it are extremely concerning. They wrongly assume that eliminating online hate and extremism would reduce real-world violence. At the same time, these efforts would endanger rather than protect the public by curtailing civil liberties online for everyone. What’s more, they could involve handing key government functions over to private companies. </p>
<h2>Weakening security for all</h2>
<p>Some politicians have suggested <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security-rudd-tech-idUSKBN1711W2">tech companies should build “back doors” into encrypted communications</a>, to allow police access. But determined attackers will simply turn to <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/11/encryption_backdoors_won_t_make_us_safer_from_terrorism_john_brennan_john.html">apps without back doors</a>. </p>
<p>And back doors would inevitably reduce <a href="https://theconversation.com/bypassing-encryption-lawful-hacking-is-the-next-frontier-of-law-enforcement-technology-74122">everyone’s online safety</a>. Undermining encryption would leave us all more vulnerable to <a href="http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/03/5-reasons-why-the-home-secretarys-proposed-encryption-ban-is-aggressively-stupid/">hacking, identity theft and fraud</a>. As technology activist <a href="http://boingboing.net/2017/06/04/theresa-may-king-canute.html">Cory Doctorow</a> has explained: “There’s no back door that only lets good guys go through it.” </p>
<h2>The harms of speech?</h2>
<p>May’s statement also reflects a broader desire to prevent so-called “<a href="http://www.start.umd.edu/publication/options-and-strategies-countering-online-radicalization-united-states">online radicalization</a>,” in which individuals are believed to connect online with ideas that cause them to develop extreme views and then, ultimately, take action.</p>
<p>The concept is misleading. We are only beginning to understand more about the conditions under which <a href="https://dangerousspeech.org/the-ghost-of-causation-in-international-speech-crime-cases/">speech in general</a>, and particularly <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/isis-internet-radicalization/419148/">online speech</a>, can incite violence. But the evidence we have indicates that online speech plays a limited role. People are radicalized through <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/06/theresa-may-internet-terrorism/">face-to-face encounters and relationships</a>. Social media might be used to <a href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR453/RAND_RR453.pdf">identify individuals open to persuasion, or to reinforce people’s preexisting beliefs</a>. But viewing propaganda does not <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/isis-internet-radicalization/419148/">turn us into terrorists</a>.</p>
<p>If it isn’t clear that removing extreme or hateful speech from the internet will help combat offline violence, why are so many governments around the world <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/01/social-media-firms-should-be-fined-for-extremist-content-say-mps-google-youtube-facebook">pushing for it</a>? In large part, it is because we are more aware of this content than ever before. It’s on the same platforms that we use to exchange pictures of our children and our cats, which puts pressure on politicians and policy makers to look like they are “doing something” against terrorism.</p>
<h2>Overbroad censorship</h2>
<p>Even if online propaganda plays only a minimal role in inciting violence, there is an argument that governments should <a href="http://www.governing.com/columns/potomac-chronicle/gov-insurer-of-last-resort.html">take every measure possible</a> to keep us safe. Here again, it is important to consider the costs. Any effort to remove only “extremist” content is destined to affect a lot of protected speech as well. This is in part because <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/23/britain-extremism-global-effects">what some view as extremism</a> could be viewed by others as legitimate political dissent.</p>
<p>Further, the exact same material might <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/opinion/making-google-the-censor.html?_r=1">mean different things in different contexts</a> – footage used to provoke hate could also be used to discuss the effects of those hateful messages. This is also why we are not likely to have a technological solution to this problem any time soon. Although work is underway to try to develop algorithms that will help social media companies identify <a href="https://dangerousspeech.org/">dangerous speech</a>, these efforts are in early stages, and it is not clear that a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/opinion/making-google-the-censor.html?_r=1">filter could make these distinctions</a>.</p>
<h2>The risks of private censorship</h2>
<p>Trying to eliminate extremist content online may also involve broad delegation of public authority to private companies. If companies face legal consequences for failing to remove offending content, they’re likely to <a href="http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5886&context=fss_papers">err on the side of censorship</a>. That’s counter to the public interest of limited censorship of free speech.</p>
<p>Further, giving private companies the power to regulate public discourse reduces our ability to hold censors accountable for their decisions – or even to know that these choices are being made and why. Protecting national security is a state responsibility – not a task for private companies. </p>
<p>If governments want to order companies to take down content, that’s a public policy decision. But May’s idea of delegating this work to Facebook or Google means shifting responsibility for the regulation of speech to entities that are not accountable to the people they are attempting to protect. This is a risk to the <a href="https://www.manilaprinciples.org/">rule of law</a> that should worry us all.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>There is, of course, online material that causes real-world problems. Workers tasked with reviewing flagged content <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/who-watches-out-for-the-watchers">risk harm to their mental health</a> from viewing violent, obscene and otherwise disturbing content every day. And <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674368293">hate crimes online</a> can have extraordinary impacts on people’s real-world lives. We need to develop better responses to these threats, but we must do so thoughtfully and carefully, to preserve freedom of expression and other human rights.</p>
<p>One thing is certain – a new international treaty is not the answer. In her June 4 statement, May also called on countries to create a new treaty on countering the spread of extremism online. That is simply an invitation to <a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/pubrelease/internet-control/">censor online speech</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/04/chinese-official-slams-internet-censorship">even more</a> than <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/11/facebook-censorship-thailand/">some nations</a> <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-blocks-wikipedia-internet-erdogan-online-wiki-is-it-down-a7708941.html">already do</a>. Nations need no additional incentives, nor international support, for cracking down on dissidents.</p>
<p>Human rights treaties – such as the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CCPR.aspx">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a> – already provide a strong foundation for balancing freedom of expression, privacy and the regulation of harmful content online. These treaties acknowledge legitimate state interests in protecting individuals from harmful speech, as long as those efforts are lawful and proportional. </p>
<p>Rather than focusing on the straw man of “online radicalization,” we need an honest discussion about the harms of online speech, the limits of state censorship and the role of private companies. Simply shifting the responsibility to internet companies to figure this out would be the worst of all possible worlds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Molly Land is an alternate on the board of directors of the Global Network Initiative, of which the University of Connecticut is a member.</span></em></p>Cracking down on extremism online won’t solve the problem of extremist violence, will inevitably censor speech that’s important to protect and risks harming political dissidents and democracy itself.Molly Land, Professor of Law, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/790742017-06-09T03:55:42Z2017-06-09T03:55:42ZFirst Amendment lawsuit says President Trump can’t block Twitter followers he doesn’t like<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172968/original/file-20170608-32339-144pe3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can the president block people from seeing his tweets?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Twitter/fc0fabbe10ca48768f6b963c4d735003/52/0">AP Photo/J. David Ake</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A lawsuit filed July 11 seeks to <a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/news/critics-blocked-presidents-twitter-account-file-suit">force President Donald Trump to unblock Twitter users</a> from following his <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">@realDonaldTrump</a> account. Filed in federal court in New York City, the suit argues that his Twitter posts and people’s responses to them <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3892179/2017-07-11-Knight-Institute-Trump-Twitter.pdf">constitute a public forum</a> that government officials – Trump and key staffers – can’t legally ban people from.</p>
<p>The president’s fondness for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/us/politics/trump-defends-twitter-use-as-aides-urge-him-to-cut-back.html">criticizing news organizations</a>, “<a href="https://www.cjr.org/analysis/trump_twitter_media_journalism.php">heckling journalists</a>” and spouting <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-updates-everything-president-trump-has-tweeted-and-what-it-was-about-2017-htmlstory.html">points of public policy</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">his Twitter account</a> is clear. </p>
<p>News of his <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/872419018799550464">nomination of Christopher Wray</a> to be the next FBI director, for example, <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336717-trump-fbi-twitter-announcement-raises-eyebrows">came by tweet</a>. His tweets carry the stamp of government authority: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/06/sean-spicer-just-settled-it-we-should-all-pay-attention-to-trumps-tweets">White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer recently declared</a> “the president is the president of the United States, so they are considered official statements by the president of the United States.”</p>
<p>But just as seemingly everything Trump does and says sparks controversy, so too is the president’s “<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/25/the-risky-business-of-trump-the-twittering-president/">prolific and unpredictable use of Twitter</a>,” as one reporter called it, raising a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/us/politics/trump-twitter-first-amendment.html">novel question</a> of constitutional law: Is there a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment">First Amendment</a> right to access Trump’s Twitter account?</p>
<h2>Enter the First Amendment</h2>
<p>The issue arises because when Trump objects to what people say about him on Twitter, he sometimes blocks their access to his account. What is blocking? <a href="https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170134">As Twitter describes it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When you block an account on Twitter, you restrict that account’s ability to interact with your account. It can be an effective way to handle unwanted interactions from accounts you do not want to engage with. Accounts you have blocked will not be able to view your Tweets, following or followers lists, likes, or lists when logged in on Twitter, and you will not receive notifications of mentions directly from those accounts. You’ll also stop seeing their Tweets in your timeline.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now Columbia University’s <a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/content/about-knight-institute">Knight First Amendment Institute</a>, which is dedicated to protecting free speech and free press, <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3892179/2017-07-11-Knight-Institute-Trump-Twitter.pdf">has sued Trump</a> to force him to unblock “<a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/news/knight-institute-demands-president-unblock-critics-twitter">the Twitter accounts of individuals denied access to his account</a> after they criticized or disagreed with him.” </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3859469-White-House-Twitter-Letter-FINAL.html">a letter</a> to Trump dated June 6 threatening to sue, officials from Knight argued that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Blocking users from your Twitter account violates the First Amendment. When the government makes a space available to the public at large for the purpose of expressive activity, it creates a public forum from which it may not constitutionally exclude individuals on the basis of viewpoint.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3892179/2017-07-11-Knight-Institute-Trump-Twitter.pdf">lawsuit itself goes farther</a>, specifying that the public forum is created by Trump’s own choices about how he uses Twitter: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The @realDonaldTrump account is a kind of digital town hall in which the President and his aides use the tweet function to communicate news and information to the public, and members of the public use the reply function to respond to the President and his aides and exchange views with one another.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Unpacking the argument</h2>
<p>Does this argument hold water? As director of the <a href="http://firstamendment.jou.ufl.edu">Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project</a> at the <a href="http://www.ufl.edu">University of Florida</a>, I study just this kind of question. Here’s how the case against Trump’s blocking unfolds.</p>
<p>Initially, the First Amendment protects free speech and the press from government censorship, as well as the right of citizens to petition the government for a redress of grievances. When people complain to Trump on his Twitter account about his policies, they not only are engaging in free speech, but also are petitioning the government.</p>
<p>The First Amendment, however, doesn’t address or prevent censorship imposed by private individuals and private businesses. Twitter is a private entity, but because Trump is a government official, the First Amendment applies. In essence, according to this argument, when Trump blocks people from interacting with him on Twitter, he plays the role of <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1312053">government censor preventing people</a> from speaking and petitioning the government.</p>
<p>In addition, the First Amendment prohibits <a href="http://uscivilliberties.org/themes/4667-viewpoint-discrimination-in-free-speech-cases.html">viewpoint-based censorship</a> of speech. This means that the government cannot favor or suppress sides on any given issue or topic. It cannot allow one viewpoint to be expressed but not another. For example, a law permitting only pro-life speech on the topic of abortion and banning pro-choice expression is viewpoint-based and thus unconstitutional.</p>
<p>When Trump blocks access to his Twitter account for those who disagree with him but permits access for those who agree with him, he is engaging in viewpoint-based censorship.</p>
<p>Third, the rule against viewpoint-based censorship applies when the government (in this case, Trump) creates what is called a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/forums">public forum</a> for speech. There are two main kinds of public forum. The first – called a traditional public forum – is easy to understand. These venues include physical spaces such as public sidewalks and public parks where speech, such as rallies, protests and concerts, have occurred for many decades. Twitter clearly is not such a traditional public forum.</p>
<p>The Knight Institute, however, <a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/news/knight-institute-demands-president-unblock-critics-twitter">argues in both its June letter to the president</a> <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3892179/2017-07-11-Knight-Institute-Trump-Twitter.pdf">and in its lawsuit</a> that Trump’s Twitter account constitutes a <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/designatedforum.htm">designated public forum</a>, a space created by the government specifically for speech. Imagine, for instance, a bulletin board inside city hall or a courthouse where people can post flyers about upcoming events. Essentially, Trump’s Twitter account is akin to a virtual bulletin board. People who are blocked cannot respond directly to him. They cannot, by analogy, use the bulletin board.</p>
<p>Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Knight First Amendment Institute, <a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/news/knight-institute-demands-president-unblock-critics-twitter">asserts that while the framers of the First Amendment</a> in 1791 </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“surely didn’t contemplate presidential Twitter accounts, they understood that the President must not be allowed to banish views from public discourse simply because he finds them objectionable. Having opened this forum to all comers, the President can’t exclude people from it merely because he dislikes what they’re saying.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Public forums in the modern age</h2>
<p>But is his Twitter account a designated public forum? This is the tricky part of Knight’s case against Trump. Twitter has more than <a href="https://about.twitter.com/company">300 million active users</a> each month. It is a vibrant, virtual space where people – Trump included – engage in often robust discussion about political issues. Trump’s first <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/03/01/trumps-speech-twitter-record/98566772/">address to Congress</a>, for example, spawned more than three million tweets. By these measures, Twitter is a modern-day public forum, yet it’s not run by the government.</p>
<p>Trump’s own account, however, is run by the government – namely, himself. That’s the argument that the designated public forum label applies and, in turn, that Trump’s blockage of users based on their viewpoints is unconstitutional.</p>
<p>Knight <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3892179/2017-07-11-Knight-Institute-Trump-Twitter.pdf">argues in its complaint</a> that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Because of the way the President and his aides use the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account, the account is a public forum under the First Amendment. Defendants have made the account accessible to all, taking advantage of Twitter’s interactive platform to directly engage the President’s 33 million followers … Defendants use the account to make formal announcements, defend the President’s official actions, report on meetings with foreign leaders, and promote the administration’s positions on health care, immigration, foreign affairs, and other matters.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Any claim that <a href="http://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">@realDonaldTrump</a> is his personal account (not his official one, <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS">@POTUS</a>) and does not represent the government has been conceded by the White House already: Remember Spicer’s statement that Trump’s tweets are “official statements by the president of the United States.”</p>
<p>The lawsuit now gives both Knight and Trump the opportunity to break new First Amendment ground on public forums in the digital era. And if Knight prevails and expands free speech rights to clarify that government officials on Twitter can’t block interactions with other users, it would be a most ironic outcome for a president who often <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/donald-trump-first-amendment/index.html">takes aim</a> at the First Amendment.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s Note: This article and its headline were updated on July 12, 2017, to reflect the fact that the Knight First Amendment Institute did, in fact, file suit against President Donald Trump.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79074/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clay Calvert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s a new constitutional question for the internet age: Should the president be allowed to block someone on Twitter?Clay Calvert, Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782002017-05-23T13:53:50Z2017-05-23T13:53:50ZFacebook’s moderation rules prove it’s OK with being a hostile place for women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170565/original/file-20170523-5757-1n44g3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every day, thousands of <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/">social media moderators</a> scroll through feeds of threats, pornography, animal and child cruelty, car crashes and bloody beatings in order to decide what is acceptable and what must be removed. And the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/21/revealed-facebook-internal-rulebook-sex-terrorism-violence">leaking of Facebook’s training manuals</a> means we now know what standard they are working to, allowing content most users would find abhorrent.</p>
<p>But removing as little as possible in order to protect free speech, built into the American DNA of most social media sites, perversely means others are likely to be invisibly silenced. By allowing threatening language aimed disproportionately at women, Facebook is effectively accepting that they may be forced out by hostility.</p>
<p>Moderating huge, fast-moving social media sites is a major headache for their owners. After taking an initial light-touch approach to moderation, these sites are clearly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/22/facebook-get-things-wrong-but-safety-role-seriously">anxious to solve the problem</a> of controversial content. But without their own robust policies, they are at risk of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/22/facebook-get-things-wrong-but-safety-role-seriously">tempting increasingly impatient governments</a> to bring in regulation.</p>
<p>Facebook’s hundred-plus training manuals cover everything from cannibalism to match-fixing and show the company accepts the need for moderation, but its libertarian values mean it will still allow content that no mainstream media outlet would tolerate for a moment.</p>
<p>Facebook classes aspirational threats such as “I hope someone kills you” as acceptable. Under a section on “credible violence”, it also permits conditional threats such as “unless you stop bitching I’ll have to cut your tongue out” or “little girl needs to keep to herself before daddy breaks her face”, to take a couple of examples from its guidelines. It also allows calls for action such as “to snap a bitch’s neck, make sure to apply all your pressure to the middle of her throat”. It even allows direct threats if no specifics such as timings or the target’s whereabouts are included.</p>
<p>These rules are wrapped in caveats and exclusions. For example, celebrities are given more protection, as are vulnerable groups such as the homeless. The sheer volume and complexity of the rule-book means that the moderators themselves are reported to be struggling with the concepts, let alone the massive volume.</p>
<p>But what doesn’t seem to be considered is that allowing such violent language in the name of freedom of speech for some creates a hostile environment for others. This slowly leads to the withdrawal or forced exclusion of the targeted groups, particularly outspoken women and minority groups.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170566/original/file-20170523-5746-1cyyx39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170566/original/file-20170523-5746-1cyyx39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170566/original/file-20170523-5746-1cyyx39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170566/original/file-20170523-5746-1cyyx39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170566/original/file-20170523-5746-1cyyx39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170566/original/file-20170523-5746-1cyyx39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170566/original/file-20170523-5746-1cyyx39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Window on a hostile world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/women-typing-on-the-notebook-6168/">Kaboompics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s <a href="cpsr.org/issues/womenintech/herring/">20 years’ worth of research</a>, going back to the days of <a href="https://www.mail-list.com/what-is-a-listserv/">listserv email mailing lists</a> that shows that <a href="https://introblog123.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/20838764_149_31_21_88_27_08_2014_02_15.pdf">women fall silent</a> when encountering misogynistic abuse online. Of course, this is not limited to the internet. The tedious debate about women speaking in church is still rumbling on, 2,000 years after St Paul <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29513427">set out his views</a> in his New Testament letter to the Corinthians.</p>
<p>But it is particularly important if this hostile environment is allowed to flourish on the social media sites that pride themselves on being the great debating chambers of our age. If women are forced off these platforms, then it has a significant impact on which issues we consider important, and by extension, democracy itself.</p>
<p>The internet also allows types of abuse that we haven’t seen before. Facebook is particularly struggling with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/22/facebook-flooded-with-sextortion-and-revenge-porn-files-reveal">revenge pornography and sextortion</a>, reportedly trying to assess nearly 54,000 potential cases in a single month. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-picture-of-who-is-affected-by-revenge-porn-is-more-complex-than-we-first-thought-77155">Research suggests</a> women are more likely to be made afraid by revenge porn.</p>
<h2>New issues</h2>
<p>But even more frightening issues include <a href="https://theconversation.com/doxxing-swatting-and-the-new-trends-in-online-harassment-40234">“doxxing” and “swatting”</a>, threatening real violence for minor grudges. Doxxing is the simple but widespread practice of publishing personal details about a target such as their home address, bank statements, social security numbers and anything else the uploader can find, with the implicit message, “do with these what you will”.</p>
<p>Swatting is the more disturbing practice of calling the police and claiming there is a gunman holding hostages at the target’s house. This became a prank in the US gaming community, but has also been used <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2015/08/swatting-uk-trolls-newest-intimidation-and-harassment-tool-and-police-need-take-it">against British women</a> such as Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts.</p>
<p>The most depressing part of all this is that the people most likely to be targeted, and so likely to disappear from online communities, are those who are most likely to have something to say which challenges stereotypes. A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments">major Guardian review</a> of comments blocked by moderators on its site found eight of the ten writers most likely to attract abuse were women, four white and four non-white. The other two were black men.</p>
<p>Facebook seems to have decided that freedom of speech means the lightest possible touch of moderation that doesn’t turn off its increasingly mainstream users, or lead to calls for government regulation. But freedom of speech for some comes at the cost of the absence of others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Binns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Comments like ‘little girl needs to keep to herself before daddy breaks her face’ get a free pass in the name of free speech.Amy Binns, Senior lecturer, journalism and digital communication, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/703472017-01-24T03:25:41Z2017-01-24T03:25:41ZBots without borders: how anonymous accounts hijack political debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152805/original/image-20170116-16952-2g3hlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pro-Donald Trump bots worked to sway public opinion in the US election by secretly taking over pro-Hillary Clinton hashtags and spreading fake news stories.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Lucas Jackson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bot">bot</a> (short for robot) performs highly repetitive tasks by automatically gathering or posting information based on a set of algorithms. They can create new content and interact with other users like any human would. But the power is always with the individuals or organisations unleashing the bot.</p>
<p>Politicalbots.org <a href="http://politicalbots.org/?p=797">reported</a> that approximately 19 million bot accounts were tweeting in support of either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the week before the US presidential election. Pro-Trump bots worked to <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602817/how-the-bot-y-politic-influenced-this-election/">sway public opinion</a> by secretly taking over pro-Clinton hashtags like #ImWithHer and spreading fake news stories.</p>
<p>Bots have not just been used in the US; they have also been used in Australia, the UK, Germany, Syria and China. </p>
<p>Whether it is personal attacks meant to cause a chilling effect, spamming attacks on hashtags meant to redirect trending, overinflated follower numbers meant to show political strength, or deliberate social media messaging to perform sweeping surveillance, bots are polluting political discourse on a grand scale.</p>
<h2>Fake followers in Australia</h2>
<p>In 2013, the Liberal Party <a href="http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/fake-twitter-followers-for-tony-abbott-being-investigated-by-liberal-party/news-story/90b331e9e3ca2542ec9cbdf6d994f986">internally investigated</a> an unexpected surge in Twitter followers for the then-opposition leader, Tony Abbott. On August 10, 2013, Abbott’s Twitter following <a href="http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/fake-twitter-followers-for-tony-abbott-being-investigated-by-liberal-party/news-story/90b331e9e3ca2542ec9cbdf6d994f986">soared</a> from 157,000 to 198,000, having grown until then by around 3,000 per day. </p>
<p>A Liberal Party spokesperson <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/archive/federal-election/fake-twitter-followers-for-tony-abbott-being-investigated-by-liberal-party/news-story/90b331e9e3ca2542ec9cbdf6d994f986">revealed</a> that a spambot had most likely caused the sudden increase in followers. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"367965276962181120"}"></div></p>
<p>An April 2013 study <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/the-perils-of-polling-twitter-bots/news-story/97d733c6650991d20a03d25a4229b42e">found</a> 41% of Abbott’s then-most-recent 50,000 Twitter followers were fake. <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/07/08/follower-accession-how-australian-politicians-gained-their-twitter-followers">Most of the Coalition’s supporters</a> do not use social media. </p>
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<h2>Fake trends and robo-journalists in the UK</h2>
<p>As the UK’s June 2016 referendum on European Union membership drew near, researchers discovered automated social media accounts were swaying votes for and against Britain’s exit from the EU.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2798311">recent study found</a> 54% of accounts were pro-Leave, while 20% were pro-Remain. And of the 1.5 million tweets with hashtags related to the referendum between June 5 and June 12, about half a million were generated by 1% of the accounts sampled. </p>
<p>Following the vote, many Remain supporters claimed social media had an undue influence by discouraging “Remain” voters from actually voting. </p>
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<h2>Fake news and echo chambers in Germany</h2>
<p>German Chancellor Angela Merkel has <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/angela-merkel-fears-social-bots-may-manipulate-german-election-20161124-gsx5cu.html">expressed concern</a> over the potential for social bots to influence this year’s German national election. </p>
<p>The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) already has <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/angela-merkel-fears-social-bots-may-manipulate-german-election-20161124-gsx5cu.html">more Facebook likes</a> than Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) combined. Merkel is worried the AfD might use Trump-like strategies on social media channels to sway the vote.</p>
<p>It is not just that the bots are generating the fake news. The algorithms that Facebook deploys as content is shared between user accounts create <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/29/fake-news-echo-chamber-ethics-infosphere-internet-digital">“echo chambers”</a> and outlets for reverberation. </p>
<h2>Spambots and hijacking hashtags in Syria</h2>
<p>During the Arab Spring, online activists were able to provide eyewitness accounts of uprisings in real time. In Syria, protesters <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/21/syria-twitter-spambots-pro-revolution">used the hashtags</a> #Syria, #Daraa and #Mar15 to appeal for support from a global theatre. </p>
<p>It did not take long for government intelligence officers to threaten online protesters with verbal assaults and one-to-one intimidation techniques. Syrian blogger <a href="http://www.anasqtiesh.com">Anas Qtiesh</a> writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These accounts were believed to be manned by Syrian <em>mokhabarat</em> (intelligence) agents with poor command of both written Arabic and English, and an endless arsenal of bite and insults.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But when protesters continued despite the harassment, spambots created by Bahrain company <a href="https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/19/1928607_syria-syria-s-twitter-spambots-.html">EGHNA</a> were co-opted to create pro-regime accounts. They flooded the hashtags with pro-revolution narratives. </p>
<p>This was essentially drowning out the protesters’ voices with irrelevant information – such as photography of Syria. @LovelySyria, @SyriaBeauty and @DNNUpdates <a href="https://advox.globalvoices.org/2011/04/18/spam-bots-flooding-twitter-to-drown-info-about-syria-protests/">dominated</a> #Syria with a flood of predetermined tweets every few minutes from EGHNA’s media server. </p>
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<p>Since 2014, the Islamic State terror group has <a href="http://politicalbots.org/?p=295">“ghost-tweeted”</a> its messages to make it look it has a large, sympathetic following. This is to attract resources, both human and financial. </p>
<p>Tweets have consisted of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/world/middleeast/iraq.html?_r=0">alleged mass killings of Iraqi soldiers</a> and more. This clearly shows how extremists are employing the same social media strategies as governments.</p>
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<h2>Sweeping surveillance in China</h2>
<p>In May 2016, China was exposed for <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-19/china-seen-faking-488-million-internet-posts-to-divert-criticism">purportedly fabricating</a> 488 million social media comments annually in an effort to distract users’ attention from bad news and politically sensitive issues.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf">three-month study</a> found 13% of messages had been deleted on Sina Weibo (Twitter’s equivalent in China) in a bid to crack down on what government officials identified as politically charged messages. </p>
<p>It is likely that bots were used to censor messages containing key terms that matched a list of banned words. Typically, this might include <a href="http://www.globalmediajournal.com/open-access/the-perfect-example-of-political-propaganda-the-chinese-governments-persecution-against-falun-gong.php?aid=35171">words</a> in Mandarin such as “Tibet”, “Falun Gong” and “democracy”. </p>
<h2>What effect is this having?</h2>
<p>The deliberate act of spreading falsehoods by using the internet, and more specifically social media, to make people believe something that is not true is certainly a form of propaganda. While it might create short-term gains in the eyes of political leaders, it inevitably causes significant public distrust in the long term.</p>
<p>In many ways, it is a denial of citizen service that attacks fundamental human rights. It preys on the premise that most citizens in society are like sheep, a game of “follow the leader” ensues, making a mockery of the “right to know”.</p>
<p>We are using faulty data to come to phoney conclusions, to cast our votes and decide our futures. Disinformation on the internet is now rife – and if that has become our primary source of truth, then we might well believe anything.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katina Michael receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC). She is affiliated with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Australian Privacy Foundation (APF).</span></em></p>Bots have not just been used in the US, but also in Australia, the UK, Germany, Syria and China. To what extent – and how – are they affecting political discourse?Katina Michael, Professor, School of Computing and Information Technology, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.