This week, government officials in both Pakistan and Senegal shut down public access to the internet in a move clearly intended to suppress political discussion. Pakistan cut ties to limit information in the run-up to a general election of questionable credibility, while Senegal’s move comes after the government postponed a presidential vote until the end of the year. The restrictions come amid global concerns about increased online censorship and surveillance.
rattle A weekly newsletter published by JD Tucille. If you care about government overreach and obvious threats to everyday freedoms, this is for you.
Declining digital freedom
“Global internet freedom has declined for 13 consecutive years,” Freedom House’s Allie Funk, Adrian Shahbaz, and Kian Vesteinsson wrote in a paper last year. Freedom on the Internet 2023 report. “Before and during election periods, many incumbent leaders sought to sway votes in their favor by criminalizing broad categories of speech, cutting off access to independent news sites, and and other regulations,” they added.
Controlling access to information about electoral politics is exactly what happened in both recent cases in countries where authorities have made little progress on democracy.
The BBC’s Yvette Tan, Caroline Davies and Simon Fraser said: ‘As millions of people cast their votes for the new government in a contentious election, authorities cut off mobile phone calls and data. Opinion polls have concluded in Pakistan. They noted that while Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is seeking approval for a second term, the party of his predecessor Imran Khan, who was jailed for corruption last year, has called the internet shutdown a “despicable act.” .
Meanwhile, “Internet services in Senegal were restored on Wednesday, days after the government suspended internet services following the postponement of this month’s presidential election and the ensuing chaos.” Deutsche Welle.
Samira Daoud of Amnesty International said: “The government’s sudden shutdown of mobile data internet access and Wolf TV broadcasts, along with the revocation of its license, constitutes a blatant attack on freedom of expression and the rights of the press.” ” he commented.
It is notable that Senegal is included in the list of places where internet searches for virtual private networks (VPNs), which hide a user’s identity and ensure anonymity, are rapidly increasing.
Measuring oppression and resistance online
“In the Western world, many people use VPNs for recreational purposes, whether it’s to unlock geo-restricted content while traveling (a motivating factor for 26% of users) or to get faster speeds. and reduce the impact of throttling to enjoy faster internet speeds,” says author Rob. Binns. “But in other countries, VPNs are not a matter of fun and entertainment, but a matter of life and death. In these jurisdictions, the internet freedoms that the Western world takes for granted are limited or non-existent. yeah.”
According to Google Trends data, nine out of the 10 places where “VPN” is most searched for have terrible records when it comes to respecting individual rights (the exception being the British territory of St. Helena). The target countries are Turkmenistan, Ethiopia, Iran, Myanmar, China, Syria, Afghanistan, St. Helena, Senegal, and Uganda.
“Senegal experienced the largest increase in VPN demand in 2023, with an astonishing jump of more than 60,000%,” the report states.
Pakistan does not feature in the top 10 in the report. But Techopedia says the country ranks 12th after Cuba. It’s a terrible company. The Freedom House report does not include all of the Tecopedia articles, but China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Myanmar, and Pakistan are all ranked as “not free” (China Uganda ranks last, followed by Myanmar), followed by Uganda. “Partially free” would be better.
According to Techopedia, St. Helena shares the UK’s “free” status while having a single legal monopoly ISP. The report speculates that VPNs may be popular there to maintain anonymity and avoid rumored surveillance by the island’s government while accessing technically illegal competitors such as Starlink. ing.
“What all the countries in the top 10 have in common is that they all encourage their citizens to use VPNs as a critical resource. only – How to get around information restrictions,” concludes Techopedia regarding the interest in privacy protection technologies in many authoritarian countries.
If Techopedia is right that interest in VPNs is evidence of both widespread digital repression and popular efforts to circumvent such control, old-fashioned censorship remains a major concern for internet users. is clear. As Freedom House warned in an earlier report, “55 of 70 countries were targeted, a record high” freedom on the internetPeople face legal repercussions for expressing their opinions online, and in 41 countries people have been physically assaulted or killed for their online comments. ”
This means that traditional threats to freedom of expression and access to information, and the dangers of countering those threats, remain pressing for much of the world’s population living under increasingly repressive authoritarian regimes. It means something. In recent years, multiple measures of human freedom have been found to be regressing when it comes to individual freedom.
“The overall picture is one of stagnation, with the global average score essentially unchanged,” the Economist Intelligence Unit said. Democracy Index 2022 Last year I was grieving. “This is a dire outcome given that in 2022 the world began to emerge from the pandemic-related suppression of personal freedoms that lasted from 2020 to 2021.”
Technological threats and countermeasures
This comes as Freedom House warns that high-tech innovations could ease the work of repressive regimes and allow armies of snoops and trolls to be replaced by artificial intelligence.
“AI has enabled governments to strengthen and refine online censorship.” Freedom on the Internet 2023. “Legal frameworks in at least 21 countries require or encourage digital platforms to deploy machine learning to filter out objectionable political, social, and religious speech.”
Of course, VPNs are a technological innovation created to thwart surveillance and restrictions. AI-powered surveillance and censorship could facilitate the development of new technologies aimed at protecting people’s identities and protecting their personal freedoms.
At the very least, we should hope that tools designed to protect freedom will not succumb to tools of oppression. For those of us who value freedom, this is a technology arms race that we cannot afford to lose.
