Internet freedom declines globally

Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fifth consecutive year, with more governments censoring information of public interest and placing greater demands on the private sector to take down offending content. This according to a report by Freedom House. The goal of these restrictions is usually to protect powerful figures and the official views on religion or morality that may undergird leaders’ popularity.

State authorities have also jailed more users for their online writings, while criminal and terrorist groups have made public examples of those who dared to expose their activities online. This was especially evident in the Middle East, where the public flogging of liberal bloggers, life sentences for online critics, and beheadings of internet-based journalists provided a powerful deterrent to the sort of digital organizing that contributed to the Arab Spring.

In a new trend, many governments have sought to shift the burden of censorship to private companies and individuals by pressing them to remove content, often resorting to direct blocking only when those measures fail. Local companies are especially vulnerable to the whims of law enforcement agencies and a recent proliferation of repressive laws. But large, international companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have faced similar demands due to their significant popularity and reach.

Surveillance has been on the rise globally, despite the uproar that followed the revelation of mass data collection by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013. Several democratic countries, including France and Australia, passed new measures authorizing sweeping surveillance, prompted in part by domestic terrorism concerns and the expansion of the Islamic State (IS) militant group. Bans on encryption and anonymity tools are becoming more common, with governments seeking access to encryption backdoors that could threaten digital security for everyone. Evidence that governments with poor human rights records are purchasing surveillance and malware technologies from Western companies like Hacking Team has fueled suspicions that these tools are being used to crack down on political dissidents.

Nevertheless, activists, advocacy groups, and journalists have pushed back against deteriorating conditions for global internet freedom. In India, legal petitions against Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act—a restrictive provision that was used to criminalize online speech, particularly on social media—succeeded when the Supreme Court declared the provision unconstitutional in March 2015. In Argentina, the Supreme Court protected intermediaries from pressure to preemptively censor third-party content. And in the United States, the June 2015 passage of the USA Freedom Act marked an incremental step toward surveillance reform after nearly two years of debate over NSA practices.

Tracking the Global Decline

Freedom House conducted a comprehensive study of internet freedom in 65 countries around the world. This report, the fifth in its series, primarily focuses on developments that occurred between June 2014 and May 2015, although some more recent events were included in individual country narratives. Of the 65 countries assessed, 33 have been on a negative trajectory since June 2014.

The most significant declines occurred in Libya, Ukraine, and France.
Libya, torn by internal conflict, experienced a troubling increase in violence against bloggers, new cases of political censorship, and rising prices for internet and mobile phone services. Ukraine, amid its own territorial conflict and propaganda war with Russia, featured more prosecutions for content that was critical of the government’s policies, as well as increased violence from pro-Russian paramilitary groups against users who posted pro-Ukraine content in the eastern regions.

France’s standing declined primarily due to problematic policies adopted in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, such as restrictions on content that could be seen as “apology for terrorism,” prosecutions of users, and significantly increased surveillance.

China was the year’s worst abuser of internet freedom. As President Xi Jinping made “cyber sovereignty” one of the priorities of his tenure as leader of the Chinese Communist Party, internet users endured crackdowns on “rumors,” greater enforcement of rules against anonymity, and disruptions to the circumvention tools that are commonly used to bypass censorship. Though not entirely new, these measures were implemented with unprecedented intensity. Google, whose services were frequently interrupted in the past, was almost completely blocked. Veteran human rights defenders were jailed for online expression, including lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who faces charges of “picking quarrels” in connection with 28 social media posts, and 70-year-old journalist Gao Yu, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for sending “state secrets” to a foreign website. Official censorship directives during the year suppressed online commentary on issues ranging from Hong Kong prodemocracy protests to stock-market volatility.

Syria and Iran were the second- and third-worst performers, respectively. Activists, bloggers, and citizen journalists in Syria continue to risk death at the hands of armed factions from across the political spectrum. In Iran, positive moves by President Hassan Rouhani and the ICT Ministry have led to greater bandwidth and the expansion of 3G services across all major networks. However, despite the president’s reformist rhetoric, major improvements to civil liberties remain blocked by the supreme leader and the country’s conservative establishment. Eight young people were sentenced to a combined 127 years in prison for antigovernment posts on Facebook in July 2014.

By contrast, 15 countries registered overall improvements. The year’s biggest gains occurred in Sri Lanka following the January 2015 elections. The new government unblocked previously inaccessible websites and ceased harassing and prosecuting internet users. Cuba also registered an improvement after the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the United States, marking a potential opening for the ICT sector. The cost of public internet access, though still out of reach for most Cubans, was cut in half; the first public Wi-Fi connections were established; and online media began to adopt a more critical tone toward the authorities. And Zambia enjoyed a reduction in major restrictions on online content compared with the previous year—a trend that continued under the new government elected in January 2015.

Frequently censored topics

Criticism of Authorities: A remarkable 47 of the 65 countries assessed censored criticism of the authorities, the military, or the ruling family. In Thailand—where expression of antiroyal sentiment is severely restricted—authorities blocked thousands of sites featuring poetry, plays, and online radio services. In Morocco, police detained 17-year old rapper Othman Atiq for three months after he criticized them in online videos. All countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and nearly all countries in sub-Saharan Africa, censored such criticism.

Corruption: Authorities in 28 countries sought to cover up accusations of corruption or misuse of public funds. In Sudan, a journalist was arrested after implicating high-level officials in a real estate scam. In July 2015, the Malaysian government blocked access to the UK-based whistle-blower site Sarawak Report over its coverage of bribery allegations linking the prime minister and a Sarawak state investment fund.

Political Opposition: Twenty-three countries censored the political opposition, including Ethiopia, which obstructed hundreds of social media pages, blogs, and diaspora-based opposition websites that were created to report on the May 2015 general elections. Such censorship is often very effective in ensuring that opposing views are rarely heard and helping the incumbent government to stay in power.

Satire: Authorities in 23 of the 65 countries assessed went to great lengths to muzzle ridicule and ironic commentary about public officials. A court in Bangladesh, for example, sentenced a 25-year-old to seven years in prison—the minimum under the amended ICT Act—for sharing a satirical song via his mobile phone. And an Iranian cartoonist was sentenced to 12 years of prison for posting an image in which she depicted members of parliament as animals.

Social Commentary: Discussion on social issues—including economic conditions and cultural questions—was targeted for censorship in 21 of the countries assessed. In Venezuela, the majority of blocking activity pertained to information about the black-market dollar exchange rate; photos of long lines outside supermarkets were also subject to censorship. The Chinese authorities regulated stories about “one-night stands” in 2015. And in Indonesia, a young woman was sentenced to two months in prison after her social media complaint calling the city of Yogyakarta “uncivilized” went viral in March 2015.

Blasphemy: Twenty-one countries censored content that was considered insulting to religion. Blasphemy laws are often enforced selectively or arbitrarily to persecute religious minorities and serve political agendas. In Turkey, authorities censor content that is perceived as insulting to Islam, while offenses to other religions frequently go unchecked. Bahraini authorities are more likely to block alleged blasphemy of religious figures revered by the royal family and other Sunni Muslims than attacks on those sacred to the majority Shia population.

Mobilization for Public Causes: Seventeen of the countries in Freedom on the Net censored digital activism such as calls to protest, online petitions, or campaigns for social or political action. Authorities in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) censored human rights campaigners, while Russia blocked posts that called for protests after the court sentencing of opposition figure Aleksey Navalny. In 2014, the Saudi #Women2Drive campaign encouraged women to share videos and images of themselves behind the wheel to challenge a de facto ban on women drivers, but authorities blocked the campaign website.

LGBTI Issues: Fourteen countries targeted LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex) content for censorship on moral, religious, or other grounds, reflecting the entrenched and often state-endorsed bias against the LGBTI community in some parts of the world. Lebanon blocked a lesbian forum used throughout the Arab region, and a transgender woman in Egypt was sentenced to six years in prison over YouTube videos that showed her dancing.

Ethnic and Religious Minorities: Thirteen countries censored information by or about a minority community, reinforcing routine discrimination against marginalized groups and obstructing efforts to combat it. In Vietnam, content promoting organized Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, and the Cao Dai religious group was blocked, while the UAE blocked an online forum for Arab Christians.

Conflict: News and opinion on conflict, terrorism, or outbreaks of violence were subject to censorship in 29 of the 65 countries reviewed. In Jordan, the owner and the editor in chief of the Saraya News website were held on charges of spreading false news and aiding a terrorist organization for their coverage of the kidnapping of Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh by IS militants in 2014. In China, a 22-year-old Uighur man was detained for “rumor mongering” in online posts about civilian deaths during 2014 clashes in Xinjiang.

States push for content removal

In a new development, more governments are now pressuring companies and individuals to remove content, as opposed to simply blocking or filtering the relevant websites and services. While blocking and filtering are still widespread tactics, the growing use of circumvention tools and encryption has made them less effective, particularly if the goal is to block individual pages and not whole sites or platforms.

By contrast, content removal—including takedowns or deletions of specific webpages, blogs, videos, articles, and social media posts by tech companies, webmasters, and users—ensures that the material is restricted at the source. Even if the content is hosted abroad and the company in question is unwilling to take it down completely, they may decide to withdraw it from view in that country, particularly if the request is rooted in local laws. This remains problematic, however, since laws in many states do not meet international standards of free expression.

The approaches to content removal vary, and can include direct government requests to content hosts, threats and intimidation directed at individual users, or broad laws that compel companies to proactively monitor and delete content. But all of these methods have the effect of shifting the burden of censorship to private companies and citizens.

In total, authorities in 42 out of the 65 countries assessed required companies, site administrators, and users to restrict online content of a political, social, or religious nature, up from 37 the previous year. Governments have also grown more aggressive in presenting companies with ultimatums, threatening to revoke their operating licenses or block entire platforms if the specified content is not removed or hidden from view. This change was driven in part by the recent proliferation of laws that criminalize various types of online speech, adding force to the authorities’ removal requests.

SOURCE: Freedom House (“Freedom on the Net 2015 – Privatizing Censorship, Eroding Privacy”)
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