Contents – Truth, trust & tricksters: Free expression in the age of AI

22 Oct 2025 | Azerbaijan, Balochistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Europe and Central Asia, Georgia, Georgia, Germany, India, Israel, Kazakhstan, Magazine Contents, Myanmar, North Korea, Palestine, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Volume 54.03 Autumn 2025, Yemen

Contents

It is difficult to spend a day without using artificial intelligence.

Whether we look up a fact on Google or use our car’s navigation system, AI is helping to guide us. AI is not human, but is increasingly taking on human characteristics. Want to write a five-year strategy for work? AI can give you the structure. A text to the lover you’re breaking up with, ChatGPT is on hand with the perfect choice of words. Even as I compose this editor’s letter in a Word document, the sinisterly named Copilot – Microsoft’s AI assistant – is hovering in the margin with the tantalising offer that it could do a better job.

So what does it all mean for free expression? We asked a range of writers to explore themes around censorship and AI for this latest issue, and the result is fascinating. Kate Devlin delves into griefbots which are essentially deepfakes of dead people – often with all their unpleasant characteristics removed.

Innocent enough but in the wrong hands they are pernicious. A country’s political hero can be resurrected to encourage causes they would have disavowed were they alive. Ruth Green looks at whether AI has free speech.

In a recent US lawsuit, the owner of a chatbot which had been talking to a teenager, in a sexualised way, before he killed himself, argued that the bot’s communications were covered by the First Amendment. Luckily the judge threw the case out.

Meanwhile Timandra Harkness examines how AI can trawl social media to discover every word you’ve ever written.

Up Front

Truth, trust & tricksters in the age of AI: Sally Gimson
Artificial intelligence is here to stay, but is free expression at risk?

The Index: Mark Stimpson
The latest in the world of free expression, including travel bans for artists and the ongoing trial of Jimmy Lai

Features

Strength in numbers: Antonia Langford
Burmese artist Sai thought he was safe in Thailand, until the censors came knocking

Jailed for criticising the royal family: Tyrell Haberkorn Sophon “Get” Suratitthamrong
A Thai student protester sends letters from prison

Midnight trek to Georgia: Will Neal
A journalist tries to return to Georgia, after being smeared by its government

The trauma of being Lukashenka’s prisoner: Jana Paliashchuk
A sit-down with released Belarusian political prisoners, including Siarhei Tsikhanouski

Caught in the middle: Akbar Notezai
The murder of a journalist has further restricted the media in Balochistan

Reports of Urdu’s death are greatly exaggerated: Nilosree Biswas
Urdu is thriving among young people

The Squid Game effect: Katie Dancey-Downs
K-drama might be the greatest weapon against the North Korean regime

We’re blaming everybody: Laura Silvia Battaglia
Yemeni women take over a poignant location, and refuse to be silenced

A journalist’s life in Yemen: Khalid Mohamed
The reporters holding the line while under fire

Without more women in power, the regime can force its patriarchal agenda: Emily Couch
A picture of feminism in Kazakhstan

Erasing secularism: Rishabh Jain
Bangladesh is at a crossroads, and religious freedom is under threat

Special Report: Truth, trust & tricksters: Free expression in the age of AI

Is AI friend or foe?: Kenneth Cukier
The future of free thought is in the hands of big tech

The ghost in the machine: Kate Devlin
Awakening the dead might have implications for free speech

I, robot?: Ruth Green
Should AI bots enjoy free speech protections?

The dark side of AI adoption in Turkey: Kaya Genç
Dissidents could be at increased risk, if President Erdoğan has a hand in shaping technology

Deepfake it to make it: Danson Kahyana
Uganda has a new way to sow seeds of doubt about its critics

History is being written by the AI victors: Salil Tripathi
An age-old problem, with new technological capabilities

Digging in the (social media) dirt: Timandra Harkness
Could your old tweets be your downfall?

A new frontier of American propaganda: Mackenzie Argent
Trump is on a mission to meme America great again

Comment

Blown to pieces: how the UK government’s Muslim policy unravelled: Martin Bright
We need to talk about extremism

Freedom of speech needs freedom of thought: Maria Sorensen
The first defence against dictatorships? Free thinking

What’s the story?: Nadim Sadek, Toby Litt, Anna Ganley
Three writers discuss whether artificial intelligence will help or hinder literature

The rise of the useful idiot: Jemimah Steinfeld
Apologists and the wilfully ignorant. Just how dangerous are they?

The women silenced by the law: Jessica Ní Mhainín
Lawsuits are being wielded by the powerful to keep victims quiet

Culture

Killing the messenger: Peter Laufer, Mackenzie Argent
A new book hands the megaphone to journalists in danger

The Missing Palestinians: Martha Otwinowski
Germany’s painful past is haunting its cultural institutions

The pity of war: Stephen Komarnyckyj
Preserving the memory of Ukraine’s poets, killed in Russia’s war

Cry God for Larry!: Simon Callow, Laurence Olivier
The actor shares his memories of Laurence Olivier

Frozen feud: Baia Pataraia
What it means to pose a threat to the Georgian government

Contents – The long reach: How authoritarian countries are silencing critics abroad

10 May 2024 | Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, Eritrea, Hong Kong, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Magazine Contents, Mexico, North Korea, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Volume 53.01 Spring 2024

Contents

The Spring 2024 issue of Index looks at how authoritarian states are bypassing borders in order to clamp down on dissidents who have fled their home state. In this issue we investigate the forms that transnational repression can take, as well as highlighting examples of those who have been harassed, threatened or silenced by the long arm of the state.

The writers in this issue offer a range of perspectives from countries all over the world, with stories from Turkey to Eritrea to India providing a global view of how states operate when it comes to suppressing dissidents abroad. These experiences serve as a warning that borders no longer come with a guarantee of safety for those targeted by oppressive regimes.

 

Up Front

Border control, by Jemimah Steinfeld: There's no safe place for the world's dissidents. World leaders need to act.

The Index, by Mark Frary: A glimpse at the world of free expression, featuring Indian elections, Predator spyware and a Bahraini hunger strike.

Features

Just passing through, by Eduardo Halfon: A guided tour through Guatemala's crime traps.

Exporting the American playbook, by Amy Fallon: The culture wars are finding new ground in Canada, where the freedom to read is the latest battle.

The couple and the king, by Clemence Manyukwe: Tanele Maseko saw her activist husband killed in front of her eyes, but it has not stopped her fight for democracy.

Obrador's parting gift, by Chris Havler-Barrett: Journalists are free to report in Mexico, as long as it's what the president wants to hear.

Silencing the faithful, by Simone Dias Marques: Brazil's religious minorities are under attack.

The anti-abortion roadshow, by Rebecca L Root: The USA's most controversial new export could be a campaign against reproductive rights.

The woman taking on the trolls, by Daisy Ruddock: Tackling disinformation has left Marianna Spring a victim of trolling, even by Elon Musk.

Broken news, by Mehran Firdous: The founder of The Kashmir Walla reels from his time in prison and the banning of his news outlet.

Who can we trust?, by Kimberley Brown: Organised crime and corruption have turned once peaceful Ecuador into a reporter's nightmare.

The cost of being green, by Thien Viet: Vietnam's environmental activists are mysteriously all being locked up on tax charges.

Who is the real enemy?, by Raphael Rashid: Where North Korea is concerned, poetry can go too far - according to South Korea.

The law, when it suits him, by JP O'Malley: Donald Trump could be making prison cells great again.

Special Report: The long reach - how authoritarian countries are silencing critics abroad

Nowhere is safe, by Alexander Dukalskis: Introducing the new and improved ways that autocracies silence their overseas critics.

Welcome to the dictator's playground, by Kaya Genç: When it comes to safeguarding immigrant dissidents, Turkey has a bad reputation.

The overseas repressors who are evading the spotlight, by Emily Couch: It's not all Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Central Asian governments are reaching across borders too.

Everything everywhere all at once, by Daisy Ruddock: It's both quantity and quality when it comes to how states attack dissent abroad.

A fatal game of international hide and seek, by Danson Kahyana: After leaving Eritrea, one writer lives in constants fear of being kidnapped or killed.

Our principles are not for sale, by Jirapreeya Saeboo: The Thai student publisher who told China to keep their cash bribe.

Refused a passport, by Sally Gimson: A lesson from Belarus in how to obstruct your critics.

Be nice, or you're not coming in, by Salil Tripathi: Is the murder of a Sikh activist in Canada the latest in India's cross-border control.

An agency for those denied agency, by Amy Fallon: The Sikh Press Association's members are no strangers to receiving death threats.

Always looking behind, by Zhou Fengsuo and Nathan Law: If you're a Tiananmen protest leader or the face of Hong Kong's democracy movement, China is always watching.

Putting Interpol on notice, by Tommy Greene: For dissidents who find themselves on Red Notice, it's all about location, location, location

Living in Russia's shadow, by Irina Babloyan, Andrei Soldatov and Kirill Martynov: Three Russian journalists in exile outline why paranoia around their safety is justified.

Comment

Solidarity, Assange-style, by Martin Bright: Our editor-at-large on his own experience working with Assange.

Challenging words, by Emma Briant: An academic on what to do around the weaponisation of words.

Good, bad and everything that's in between, by Ruth Anderson: New threats to free speech call for new approaches.

Culture

Ukraine's disappearing ink, by Victoria Amelina and Stephen Komarnyckyj: One of several Ukrainian writers killed in Russia's war, Amelina's words live on.

One-way ticket to freedom?, by Ghanem Al Masarir and Jemimah Steinfeld: A dissident has the last laugh on Saudi, when we publish his skit.

The show must go on, by Katie Dancey-Downs, Yahya Marei and Bahaa Eldin Ibdah: In the midst of war Palestine's Freedom Theatre still deliver cultural resistance, some of which is published here.

Fight for life - and language, by William Yang: Uyghur linguists are doing everything they can to keep their culture alive.

Freedom is very fragile, by Mark Frary and Oleksandra Matviichuk: The winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize on looking beyond the Nuremberg Trials lens.

The death of North Korea’s propaganda chief marks the end of an era

10 May 2024 | News and features, North Korea, Opinion, Ruth's blog

One of the core roles of Index from its establishment was samizdat, providing access to real news for those people caught behind the Iron Curtain as an alternative to Soviet propaganda. We provided both a platform for dissidents and a news outlet for those subject to totalitarian censorship, an aspiration we continue to hold today.

However when you think about censorship and repressive regimes we only ever refer to the dictator as the main driver for censorship - Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, Lukashenka’s Belarus, but we rarely consider or even know the names of the people who do the dirty deed.

That isn’t the case in one of the most restrictive dictatorships in the world.

In the tightly controlled information environment of North Korea, the recent passing of Kim Ki Nam, a key figure in the regime's propaganda apparatus, marks the end of an era. Kim Ki Nam, who spent decades shaping the narrative of the totalitarian state and building a personality cult around the ruling Kim dynasty, leaves behind a legacy of censorship and manipulation.

Kim Ki Nam's career demonstrated the potent blend of ideology and media manipulation that characterise authoritarian regimes. As deputy director and later leader of Pyongyang's Propaganda and Agitation Department, he played a central role in crafting the regime's messaging, cementing the authority of the ruling dynasty, and stifling dissent.

The propaganda machine overseen by Kim Ki Nam maintained an iron grip on communication within North Korea, tightly controlling information flows and censoring external influences. The banning of South Korean and Western entertainment, including music and movies, illustrates the regime's determination to isolate its citizens from alternative narratives and perspectives, something that perpetuates today. The draconian punishment meted out to individuals caught consuming foreign media, such as the public sentencing of teenagers for watching K-dramas, highlights the regime's extreme measures to enforce ideological conformity.

Moreover, Kim Ki Nam's influence extended beyond North Korea's borders, with his role in shaping the regime's external propaganda efforts and projecting an image of strength and unity to the outside world. Something undertaken at a huge cost to the citizens of North Korea, as they were forced to engage in the charade.

As we reflect on Kim Ki Nam's legacy and the ongoing impact of his work, it is imperative to recognise the profound implications of state-controlled propaganda for freedom of expression and the broader struggle for human rights. The manipulation of information, censorship of dissent, and cult of personality perpetuated by regimes like North Korea not only deprive citizens of their basic rights but also threaten the foundations of democracy and open society.

The death of Kim Ki Nam must remind us of the need to reaffirm our commitment to defending freedom of expression, combating propaganda, and standing in solidarity with those who dare to speak truth to power. Only through vigilance, solidarity, and unwavering dedication to the principles of freedom and democracy can we hope to challenge the tyranny of censorship and authoritarianism wherever it may arise.

Major new global free expression index sees UK ranking stumble across academic, digital and media freedom

25 Jan 2023 | Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Botswana, Burma, China, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Index Index, Ireland, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, News and features, Nicaragua, North Korea, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Switzerland, Syria, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, United States, Yemen

A major new global ranking index tracking the state of free expression published today (Wednesday, 25 January) by Index on Censorship sees the UK ranked as only “partially open” in every key area measured.

In the overall rankings, the UK fell below countries including Australia, Israel, Costa Rica, Chile, Jamaica and Japan. European neighbours such as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Denmark also all rank higher than the UK.

The Index Index, developed by Index on Censorship and experts in machine learning and journalism at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), uses innovative machine learning techniques to map the free expression landscape across the globe, giving a country-by-country view of the state of free expression across academic, digital and media/press freedoms.

Key findings include:

  • The countries with the highest ranking (“open”) on the overall Index are clustered around western Europe and Australasia - Australia, Austria, Belgium, Costa Rica, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland.

  • The UK and USA join countries such as Botswana, Czechia, Greece, Moldova, Panama, Romania, South Africa and Tunisia ranked as “partially open”.

  • The poorest performing countries across all metrics, ranked as “closed”, are Bahrain, Belarus, Burma/Myanmar, China, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

  • Countries such as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates performed poorly in the Index Index but are embedded in key international mechanisms including G20 and the UN Security Council.

Ruth Anderson, Index on Censorship CEO, said:

“The launch of the new Index Index is a landmark moment in how we track freedom of expression in key areas across the world. Index on Censorship and the team at Liverpool John Moores University have developed a rankings system that provides a unique insight into the freedom of expression landscape in every country for which data is available.

“The findings of the pilot project are illuminating, surprising and concerning in equal measure. The United Kingdom ranking may well raise some eyebrows, though is not entirely unexpected. Index on Censorship’s recent work on issues as diverse as Chinese Communist Party influence in the art world through to the chilling effect of the UK Government’s Online Safety Bill all point to backward steps for a country that has long viewed itself as a bastion of freedom of expression.

“On a global scale, the Index Index shines a light once again on those countries such as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates with considerable influence on international bodies and mechanisms - but with barely any protections for freedom of expression across the digital, academic and media spheres.”

Nik Williams, Index on Censorship policy and campaigns officer, said:

“With global threats to free expression growing, developing an accurate country-by-country view of threats to academic, digital and media freedom is the first necessary step towards identifying what needs to change. With gaps in current data sets, it is hoped that future ‘Index Index’ rankings will have further country-level data that can be verified and shared with partners and policy-makers.

“As the ‘Index Index’ grows and develops beyond this pilot year, it will not only map threats to free expression but also where we need to focus our efforts to ensure that academics, artists, writers, journalists, campaigners and civil society do not suffer in silence.”

Steve Harrison, LJMU senior lecturer in journalism, said: 

“Journalists need credible and authoritative sources of information to counter the glut of dis-information and downright untruths which we’re being bombarded with these days. The Index Index is one such source, and LJMU is proud to have played our part in developing it.

“We hope it becomes a useful tool for journalists investigating censorship, as well as a learning resource for students. Journalism has been defined as providing information someone, somewhere wants suppressed – the Index Index goes some way to living up to that definition.”

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