"Journalists and independent press are tried and prosecuted with harsh charges that reach up to 20 years of imprisonment under the Penal Code, rather than the Press Code of 2016, which abolished imprisonment for criticising the monarch. The government closely monitors and controls media content thro
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ugh subsidies (fisking), advertising allocation, and rigorous regulation and licensing procedures. Opposition journalists have been jailed on dubious allegations, and been subjected to systematic slander and smear campaigns on social media platforms by pro-monarch media outlets that are largely dominated by the regime or echo the Moroccan authorities’ official line. These campaigns have largely centred on tarnishing the reputation and image of activists, reducing solidarity with their cause, and undermining their credibility in Moroccan society, resulting in self-censorship. In this stifling and threatening atmosphere, several journalists have opted for self-exile. Authorities regularly promise new reforms and democratic developments, yet they respond to protests with crackdowns, including by restricting access to information and critical tools, imposing internet shutdowns and throttling bandwidth during popular demonstrations which was the case for Hirak Al Rif movement." (Executive summary)
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"According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), half of the media in the country is owned by the government or affiliated with the intelligence services. The rest are owned by pro-government businessmen. The few independent press websites that are still open have been blocked. Their owners and editor
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s were arrested and then released shortly after, as happened to Mada Masr and Al-Manassa. More than 500 websites have been blocked in Egypt, and more than 100 journalists have been arrested since 2014. The adoption of new regulations like the anti-terrorism law and cyber crime law and the creation of the Supreme Council for Media Regulation suppressed the freedom of expression and shut down the way to a free press. These new laws and regulations have affected the work of journalists who are at risk of charges such as belonging to a terrorist group or spreading false news. To the international community, Egypt denies imprisoning journalists for their work, which is true to some extent because Egyptian security is trying and imprisoning journalists on charges such as belonging to terrorist groups, without directly linking it to their journalistic work. The Airtable analysis undertaken in this project attempts to reflect the situation around monitoring technology through online content over the past few years. We can see a repeated goal of restricting the freedom of online spaces and banning any narrative parallel to the official one. This can be seen in the Attorney General's orders to establish a unit to monitor and monitor social media platforms and activities, contrary to constitutional articles that protect people's privacy and their right to freedom of expression." (https://advox.globalvoices.org)
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"Tanzania has exercised authority on digital avenues in three main vital ways:
• Surveillance: Data governance in Tanzania has been one area that has had fewer restrictions as there are still laws that adequately speak to things such as data protection and privacy. However, laws such as the Cyberc
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rime Act provide government agencies with leeway to access certain things when it suits them.
• Internet censorship: Tanzania’s first internet shutdown happened in 2020 and did not come as a surprise, as the country had already shown red flags in terms of internet censorship. The control and regulation of who and what content is allowed online have prompted many to believe that Tanzania is on the verge of building a replica of China’s Great Firewall that will keep the space regulated and stirred by the government’s agenda.
• Legislating restrictions: This is used to constrain freedom of expression and curb speech. Press freedom has been stifled through laws, citizen journalism has been taxed, and free speech has been tagged as sedition or misinformation. It is clearing the path for the government to have the upper hand in controlling narratives and polarising opinions." (Executive summary)
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"Nowhere is the effort to control the flow of digital information more extensive and sustained than it is in China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses a wide range of tools and strategies to achieve two related, but distinct, goals of digital information control: to shape public knowledge and to
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“guide” the public in the aftermath of sudden, unexpected events. Controlling social media is especially relevant to the second goal, and the CCP uses strategies of content removal (censorship) and content generation (propaganda) to pursue this aim. Recent studies of the Chinese internet and social media show that the CCP has adapted quickly to new digital communication technologies, though it is in sometimes unexpected ways, and CCP control of Chinese social media is integral to its efforts to shape public beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors." (Abstract)
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"This paper examines the practices, performance, and perceptions of the messaging platform Telegram as an actor in the 2020 Belarus protests, using publicly available data from Telegram’s public statements, protest-related Telegram groups, and media coverage. Developing a novel conceptualization o
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f platform actorness, we critically assess Telegram’s role in the protests and examine whether Telegram is seen as playing an active role in Belarusian contentious politics. We find that Telegram’s performance and practices drive citizens to form affective connections to the platform and to perceive Telegram as an ally in their struggle against repressions and digital censorship. Meanwhile, the Belarusian state uses Telegram’s aversion to censorship and content moderation to intervene in contentious politics by co-opting grassroots approaches and mimicking manipulative efforts of other authoritarian regimes. Our conceptual framework is applicable to post-Soviet authoritarian contexts, but can also serve as a useful heuristic for analyzing platform actorness in other regime types." (Abstract)
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"Pour faciliter le travail des journalistes, il importe de s’assurer que leur droit de rechercher, d’accéder à l’information, de produire et de publier du contenu d’intérêt public n’est pas restreint. Pour l’avenir de la démocratie et de la presse qui lui est congénitale, il est im
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portant de procéder à une analyse sur les potentiels conflits juridiques qui peuvent découler de l’application de ces nouvelles lois, une fois qu’elles sont confrontées aux législations existantes ou aux normes et bonnes pratiques internationales en la matière. C’est pour procéder à un tel exercice qu’International Media Support (IMS), partenaire de l’étude, dans le cadre de son Programme Sahel (avec le soutien de Danida/la coopération danoise), a confié à l’École Supérieure de Journalisme, des Métiers de l’Internet et de la Communication (E-jicom) la mission de procéder à cette analyse." (Introducion, page 7)
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"This update to the RSF report “Taking Control? Internet Censorship and Surveillance in Russia” (published in November 2019) focuses on the period between the 2019 elections and the parliamentary elections in September 2021. It describes how the Kremlin has severely restricted press freedom and
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freedom of expression over the last 18 months, the pressures independent journalists in Russia now face, and how these conditions are nurturing self-censorship. Under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian parliament rushed through a slew of new laws in 2020 and 2021. Under the new provisions, almost any news website or individual can be declared a “foreign agent” – a designation that massively obstructs or even completely prevents their work. People can be charged with defamation simply for making a general statement such as “the police are corrupt”, and in the worst case face multi-year prison sentences. The authorities can use the “fake news” label to block information that contradicts the official version of events – including reports on conditions in hospitals or on the demonstrations in support of opposition politician Alexei Navalny." (Overview, page 5)
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"1. Global internet freedom declined for the 11th consecutive year. The greatest deteriorations were documented in Myanmar, Belarus, and Uganda, where state forces cracked down amid electoral and constitutional crises. Myanmar’s 14-point score decline is the largest registered since the Freedom on
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the Net project began. 2. Governments clashed with technology companies on users’ rights. Authorities in at least 48 countries pursued new rules for tech companies on content, data, or competition over the past year. With a few positive exceptions, the push to regulate the tech industry, which stems in some cases from genuine problems like online harassment and manipulative market practices, is being exploited to subdue free expression and gain greater access to private data. 3. Free expression online is under unprecedented strain. More governments arrested users for nonviolent political, social, or religious speech than ever before. Officials suspended internet access in at least 20 countries, and 21 states blocked access to social media platforms. Authorities in at least 45 countries are suspected of obtaining sophisticated spyware or data-extraction technology from private vendors. 4. China ranks as the worst environment for internet freedom for the seventh year in a row. Chinese authorities imposed draconian prison terms for online dissent, independent reporting, and mundane daily communications. The COVID-19 pandemic remains one of the most heavily censored topics. Officials also cracked down on the country’s tech giants, citing their abuses related to competition and data protection, though the campaign further concentrated power in the hands of the authoritarian state." (Key findings)
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"China’s sophisticated filtering system, known as the Great Firewall (GFW), is the region’s biggest impediment to thefreedom of information. The GFW is built by the Chinese government and is continuously developed to serve theirpolitical interests. In this report, we introduce the design of GFWa
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tch, a large-scale longitudinal measurement plat-form that informs the public about how GFW censorship changes over time and its negative impact on the free flowof information." (Introduction)
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"This report examines how use of newer and emergent technologies affects nonviolent action campaigns. It identifies two significant related challenges and presents evidence of these dynamics at work in two digital autocracies, China and Russia." (About the report)
"China's 'Great Firewall' has evolved into the most sophisticated system of online censorship in the world. As the Chinese internet grows and online businesses thrive, speech is controlled, dissent quashed, and attempts to organise outside the official Communist Party are quickly stamped out. Update
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d throughout and available in paperback for the first time, The Great Firewall of China draws on James Griffiths' unprecedented access to the Great Firewall and the politicians, tech leaders, dissidents and hackers whose lives revolve around it. New chapters cover the suppression of information about the first outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, disinformation campaigns in response to the exposure of the persecution of Uyghur communities in Xinjiang and the crackdown against the Umbrella movement in Hong Kong." (Publisher description)
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"From August 2020 until August this summer, we recorded almost 800 cases of digital rights violations in eight countries of south-eastern Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. Violations took place not just on TikTok, but also on F
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acebook, Twitter and Instagram and were also spread via Viber and WhatsApp. Our report shows that vulnerable groups, including women, minority groups, LGBT +, Roma and Jewish communities, minors and migrants, are particularly exposed to online attacks. Similarly, political and religious tensions, which still continue to mark the cultural and political life of our societies, also surged, further polarising society. All of this suggests that what happens in the virtual space is not much different from the “physical world”. Ongoing tensions and cultural controversies are simply migrating from one place to another and prevention or protection mechanisms are far from successful. It comes as no surprise that the two most common violations this year were “pressure because of expression and activities on the internet” and “manipulation and propaganda in the digital environment”. Journalists were most frequently the target of online threats in two countries – Serbia and Hungary. In both countries, pro-government social media accounts were involved in smear campaigns against independent journalists." (Foreword, page 4)
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"China is wiring the world, and, in doing so, rewriting the global order. As things stand, the rest of the world still has a choice. But the battle for tomorrow will require America and its allies to take daring risks in uncertain political terrain. Unchecked, China will reshape global flows of data
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to reflect its own interests - and the lives of countless individuals enmeshed in its systems. Taking readers on a global tour of these emerging battlefields, Jonathan E. Hillman reveals what China's digital footprint looks like on the ground, and explores the dangers of a world in which all routers lead to Beijing." (Publisher description)
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"Over the past two weeks, 7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media has worked to document and respond to the digital rights violations occurring during the 2021 Israeli attacks on Gaza, Palestinians in mixed cities in Israel and forcible displacement of Palestinians in East Jerus
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alem as a part of ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. There has been a dramatic increase of censorship of Palestinian political speech online, coupled with increasing examples of hate speech and incitement against Palestinians including organizing of violent Israeli lynch mobs online. This pattern of censoring Palestinian and Arabic political speech, while allowing hate speech directed towards Palestinians and Arabs to remain online, is exasterbating the human rights violations already occuring on the ground and is preventing people from exercising their fundamental rights and documenting violations." (Page 2)
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"We structured the report by beginning with an overview of the digital environment in the Philippines in 2020 before delving into the impact of technology on human rights: the key events, challenges and accomplishments, then a forecast of 2021 and 2022. These are divided into the following key thema
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tic areas: Internet Access; Gender and Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs); Privacy and Data Protection; Freedom of Expression. This report is based on the Foundation for Media Alternatives’ (FMA) monitoring of situations where technology impacted human rights in the country. It covers the months of January to December 2020, and the analysis and scoping is conducted using secondary resources such as news articles, press releases and reports." (About this report, page 2)
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"The internet brought new opportunities for Pakistan to develop into a progressive society and a more democratic country, and it opened doors for more forms of criminal activity (like fraud, child pornography, etc.), more intimidation and the spreading extremism, and more information gathering on ci
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tizens by business and state agents. It will be highly important to Pakistan to more actively and more successfully develop the positive sides of IT technology, internet services, and the social media, while at the same time check its excesses, problems and abuses. FES Pakistan is delighted to present the report “Internet Landscape 2020” It is providing an excellent overview of internet usage, and on its dangers and opportunities. We hope, the report will facilitate a broad discussion about the use and further development of the internet in Pakistan, to fully tun it into another means for Pakistan to utilize its full potential and develop into a more progressive, citizen-oriented country." (Preface, page 4)
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"Since the 1 February coup d’état in Myanmar, the online space has become a parallel battlefield on which the country’s military and its opponents try to rally supporters, share information and control the narrative around events unfolding in the country. This virtual struggle has been vitally
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important to both sides. The scale of popular anger at the military, the regime’s lack of technological capacity and the policies of social media companies have made it difficult for the military, known as the Tatmadaw, to gain the upper hand. At first, the junta resorted to temporary internet cuts and filtering websites, but when these had little impact, it moved to broader shutdowns, leaving the vast majority of people in Myanmar disconnected. It appears to have no viable long-term strategy for controlling online space, and prolonged internet outages are likely while it struggles to consolidate power. Foreign governments and technology companies should endeavour to keep what is left of Myanmar’s internet as open and its users as safe as possible, while restricting sales of equipment and software that the military could use to oppress opponents." (Executive summary)
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