01 Jul 14 | India, News and features
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A month has passed since Narendra Modi became prime minister of India, and brought the right wing Hindu nationalist BJP (Bharatiya Janta Party) back into power. Much has been written about his government, with observers either hailing him as an economic messiah who will fix India’s dwindling economy or a divisive politician who has built his career on the back of communalism.
Those watching freedoms, especially of free speech and the media, are among the people apprehensive about life under Modi’s government. While the prime minister himself has blogged about the importance of free expression, recent arrests, including of citizens directly critical of him, paint a worrying picture. Additionally, the rise of “communal posts” on social media, real or planed, have lead to violence on the ground, and a debate about how best to police social media and free speech online.
In June, a young Muslim IT graduate lost his life to an angry mob in the city of Pune, Maharashtra, due to violence that erupted after morphed pictures of a historical figure appeared on Facebook and WhatsApp. The pictures were said to be triggers for crowds to damage shops and public transport, ultimately resulting in communal violence and the loss of an innocent life. However, reports from the Anti Terror Squad of the Maharashtra police indicate that the outbreak of violence following the uploaded picture does not seem sporadic or unplanned.
The state government has issued familiar warnings about the misuse of social media by groups that are looking to incite communal tension. Home Minister, R. R. Patil, was quoted as saying that “anti-social elements are posting inflammatory posts to stoke hatred, bitterness and disharmony between sects”, warning that such posts could result in action not just against those who post the photos, but also those who “like” them. Of course, this was the same state which saw two girls were arrested last year for allegedly sparking communal violence — one for writing a Facebook update, and the other girl simply for “liking” it. Therefore, any action by the government needs to be tempered by what the fallout could be for ordinary citizens and their right to free speech.
But authorities are not alone in seeking a solution to the problem of potentially inflammatory social media postings — civil society groups are also trying novel ideas to counter the trend. Ravi Ghate, a social entrepreneur and founder of a community SMS newsletter in Maharashtra, has banded together with like-minded folks to form a group on Facebook called “Social Peace Force”. Amassing over 18,000 members in ten days, the mission of the group is to “stop anti-social messages on Facebook” by reporting them as spam. “It’s the easiest and technological way to fight the culprits who are spreading anti-national messages/images and stopping ourselves from development!” is the logic the group adheres to. Many of the new members have posted comments indicating their genuine desire to help stop the spread of abusive and communal messages. Therefore, once identified, all members of the group will report a message or posting to Facebook thereby pressurising them to remove the post before it can do any more damage. The group has also instituted a panel of experts who are meant to examine any troubling post and give the go-ahead for the group to act.
What has spurred this move? “How many times can you go to court,” Ghate told Index. “It is too expensive. And the problem is that by the time the police takes down the content, the riot has already taken place.” For them, “suppressing content at the source” in a timely manner is key. A technological solution within the boundaries of Facebook’s own rules of engagement seems to some a far more pragmatic solution than going to the courts again and again.
Seen from a broader lens however, the group’s solution seems to be to shift the onus from the courts to decide the parameters of free expression and “objectionable” content, to big, profit-making, multinational corporates. What might seem today a no-brainer because of some obviously mischievous content, could in time, pose an interesting dilemma: Should social media giants control the boundaries of (social media based) speech in countries such as India, based on their own internal policies, and not the laws of the land? And all this, because of a push by the citizens themselves, to bypass courts and go directly to the corporates.
It is ironic that “Big Brother’ – which is what some newspaper headlines called the group – when translated into Hindi could be interpreted as “elder brother”, indicating a protective instinct, which certainly seems to be the case here. The current mandate of the group is only to focus on religious content to keep “social harmony”. That in itself is not a straightforward task; just ask Wendy Doniger, author of ‘The Hindus: An Alternative History’. However, this and the many spinoff groups they will inspire could morph into something they did not intend. Legitimate art, literature, satire and other forms of expression could become victims of the mob. Then there is danger of more organised groups and political parties taking to social media directly to suppress content — especially political critique — on a regular basis. And finally, those who wish to subvert social media platforms to have an excuse to incite violence on the street, will certainly find more creative ways to do so.
There is of course, the other side of the coin. Will Facebook remove content that has been pre-determined to be objectionable when faced with a large number of people reporting it? The simple answer is, we don’t know. Facebook has its own community standards, and these cover a broad range of topics, including the following: “Facebook does not permit hate speech, but distinguishes between serious and humorous speech. While we encourage you to challenge ideas, institutions, events, and practices, we do not permit individuals or groups to attack others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition.”
And a recent experiment by an Indian think-tank revealed that Facebook did not necessarily remove content flagged as objectionable by users, solely on the basis of it being flagged. As Facebook told them: “We reviewed the post you reported for harassment and found it doesn’t violate our Community Standards.” It is quite possible that the newly formed Social Peace Force will feel let down by Facebook as well, if content is not removed immediately. What happens then?
However, this latest development harks back to the problems with India’s current legal mechanisms. India’s IT Act has become infamous for a certain Section 66(A) which can be used to arrest people for information used for the purposes of “annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will”. Public outrage at wrongful arrests led to the courts passing an order that no person would be arrested without “prior approval from an officer not below the rank of inspector general of police”. At the same time, the establishment is not above slapping graver charges (such as inciting communal violence) under other sections of Indian law — including the Indian Penal Code — for fairly innocuous activity. This has lead to some amount of distrust at the government’s own commitment to freedom of expression.
Of course, citizens have a right to appeal to social media platforms if they take offense to any content posted there. The point remains, however, that maintaining communal harmony and law and order is a tricky and layered problem. The role of the state, and the loss of confidence citizens have in it, must be addressed as well. Earlier solutions have included the state governments of Jammu and Kashmir preempting violence by switching off social media and YouTube for a few days, in the wake of burgeoning riots around the world because of the video “The Innocence of Muslims”. At another time, the government of India restricted text messages to five a day to curtail vicious rumours targeting a minority community settled in south India. India’s National Integration Council met in September 2013 after social media posts had been blamed for causing riots in Uttar Pradesh, and many states are setting up social media monitoring departments to raise “red flags”, much like the Social Peace Force itself.
A coherent and honest study of the abuse of social media platforms by fringe groups to incite violence should take place. Given the fast paced nature of the medium, the question for a country as prone to communal riots as India is: how can one control them? Is counter-speech to drown out hate speech a strategy to be employed? Is clamping down on free speech effectively going to reduce religious intolerance? Does bypassing legal routes and going straight to the “source” help? A national dialogue on the matter might be more fruitful in the long run than the flowering of surveillance groups cutting across the board — be they citizen or state-led.
This article was published on June 30, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
10 Jun 14 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
(Image: Essam Sharaf/Wikimedia Commons)
A few months after the adoption of a progressive new constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression and the right to privacy, reported plans by Egyptian authorities for indiscriminate mass surveillance of social media in Egypt have alarmed rights advocates and many within the country’s internet community.
The proposed surveillance plan has also sparked fears that internet activists may be the next targets of the military-backed government’s widening crackdown on dissent.
Defending his ministry’s decision to introduce the new mass monitoring system, Egypt’s Minister of Interior Mohamed Ibrahim was quoted by the semi-official Al Ahram newspaper on Monday as saying that the proposed system was “necessary to combat terrorism and protect national security”. He added it would be “similar to that used in the US or the UK to protect their national security”.
Seeking to allay concerns that the new system would curtail freedom of expression, Ibrahim said: “We do not seek to interfere with citizens’ privacy. The system will merely help us track and identify potential terrorist and criminal threats.”
Ibrahim’s statements came a day after the privately-owned Al Watan newspaper published a leaked call by the ministry of interior for tenders from companies to establish a sophisticated mass surveillance system.
In a statement criticising the proposed mass surveillance plan, Amnesty International said the monitoring of social media “would deal a devastating blow to the rights to privacy and freedom of expression in the country”, adding that “the new surveillance system risks becoming yet another instrument in the Egyptian government’s toolbox of state repression”. Amnesty also urged the Egyptian authorities not to replicate illegal programmes that have been used by other countries to violate the right to privacy. “Any surveillance programmes must comply with the general principles under international law of legality and judicial accountability,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Egyptian rights groups and internet activists have expressed fears the proposed system would “close down the last remaining space for free expression in Egypt”.
Since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi by military-backed protests last summer, the interim authorities have taken measures to tighten the state’s grip on the media. Days after the military takeover of the country, several Islamist-linked media outlets were shut down by the interim government. Security forces ransacked the offices of a Muslim Brotherhood TV channel and the Al Jazeera Mubasher Channel (accused by Egyptians of being pro-Muslim Brotherhood), confiscating their equipment and arresting their journalists.There has since been a marked shift in the tone of both state and state-influenced news media with many journalists now towing the government line either for fear of persecution or of being labelled “unpatriotic.” Several journalists have complained of “harassment” and intimidation” by security agencies. In today’s deeply polarised Egypt, reports of verbal and physical attacks by “patriotic” mobs on journalists trying to cover the conflict, are all too common.
Journalists covering “anti coup” protests have been deliberately targeted by security forces with no fewer than five being shot and killed while covering the unrest. Mayada Ashraf who worked for the privately-owned El Dostour newspaper became the latest journalist-victim of the violence when she was shot in the head in March while covering clashes between security forces and supporters of the ousted Morsi. Meanwhile, 65 journalists have been detained since the military takeover of the country nearly a year ago. There are 17 journalists currently behind bars in Egypt, according to a recent report released by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists. Three Al Jazeera English journalists have been in prison for six months, charged with “aiding a terror group and spreading false news that harms national security.” Despite pleading “not guilty”, their repeated requests to be released on bail have thus far been denied by the prosecutors in the case. A fourth Al Jazeera journalist has been in jail since August 2013 and has to date, not been charged.
Besides detecting any references to terrorism on social media, the controversial new system will also scan social networks for “calls for illegal protests and sit-ins, incitement to violence and defamation of religion,” Abdel Fattah Othman, a spokesman for the ministry of interior said in an interview broadcast Sunday on Al Mehwar Channel. In the absence of a “watch list” determining the topics the ministry intends to censor, many internet users are worried, fearing their electronic communications may be targeted.
Responses by Egyptian internet activists to the ministry’s surveillance plan have teetered between anger and sarcasm. Some Twitter users chose to take the matter lightly, mocking the decision in their tweets. #Wearebeingwatched — created by Twitter activists a week ago in response to the proposed plan — has fast become one of the top trending hashtags in Egypt with more than 50,000 uses within the span of a single week.
“State security agents when are you coming to get me?” Mahmoud El Zanaty a Twitter user jokingly asked, using the hashtag.”You never keep your appointments.”
“I’m free, that is why I’m being watched,” was another sarcastic message posted, by a user going by the twitter handle Doaa. Meanwhile, in a message addressed to the “agent” supposedly watching him, another twitter user wrote: “Farrag, come join me for tea!”
While most rights activists fear the proposed surveillance system may be used as a tool of repression, a few rights advocates have dismissed it as “mere government propaganda”.
“State security agencies have always kept a close watch on social media networks in Egypt,” Rights Lawyer Gamal Eid told Index. He cautioned however, that the ministry’s announcement was meant “to intimidate online activists and silence voices of dissent”.
Over the course of the past three years, several activists have been arrested and prosecuted for the content they have posted on social media networks. Blogger Maikel Nabil was arrested in March, 2011 and later sentenced to 3 years in prison for a Facebook post allegedly insulting the military. He had written: “The army and the people were never one hand.” He spent ten months behind bars before being released. In September 2012, Alber Saber, a Computer Science student and blogger was also arrested on allegations of having shared the YouTube trailer of the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims” on his Facebook page. While police found no evidence that he had uploaded the video deemed insulting to Islam, he was nevertheless sentenced to 3 years in prison for “defaming Islam and Christianity” and allegedly “spreading atheism”. Saber was released for an appeal session a year later and subsequently fled the country. Earlier this year, Amr Hamzawy, a prominent liberal intellectual and political scientist was charged with “insulting the judiciary” for a Twitter post criticising a court ruling against three US pro-democracy civil society organisations .
Ahead of the January 2011 uprising, young pro-democracy activists had used social media networks to mobilise and organise the mass protests that brought down autocratic president Hosni Mubarak. Videos depicting police brutality and others urging Egyptians to rise against the corrupt Mubarak regime posted by the April 6 pro-democracy youth movement and “We Are All Khaled Said” — a Facebook page created by Google Executive Wael Ghoneim to bring attention to the brutal murder of a young Alexandrian (allegedly beaten to death by two police officers) — were the initial spark igniting the 2011 uprising, prompting some analysts to describe the revolt of 3 years ago, as a “Facebook Revolution”. Recognising the role of social media in the mass uprising, Mubarak cut off the internet and mobile phone lines in an attempt to quell the protests, a few days after their eruption. His rash response however, triggered public furore and only served to further strengthen the resolve of the Tahrir protesters.
With internet penetration in Egypt at 43 per cent (at the end of last year) — relatively low compared to other countries where illiteracy rates are lower than in Egypt — the Egyptian government is nevertheless wary of social media, having witnessed first-hand the role of Facebook and Twitter in toppling the authoritarian regimes in the region. Despite provisions in the recently-adopted constitution protecting the right to privacy and guaranteeing the confidentiality of electronic correspondence, telephone calls and other means of communication, the military-backed authorities are taking no chances. Systematic monitoring of Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and possibly mobile phone applications such as WhatsApp, Viber and Instagram would enable the government to identify dissenters and possibly, crackdown even harder on them, critics fear.
In the past year, the interim government has shown little respect for freedoms and rule of law. With military strongman Abdel Fattah El Sisi now sworn in as the country’s new president and in the wake of the proposed mass surveillance plan, skeptics warn that things are likely to get even worse as a counter-revolutionary bid seeking to obliterate all traces of the 2011 Revolution that called for bread, freedom and social justice, gains ground in Egypt.
This article was published on June 10, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
17 Apr 14 | Digital Freedom, News and features, United Kingdom
I was retweeted by Caitlin Moran on Wednesday evening (#humblebrag). It was a curious glimpse into the world of internet fame. Suddenly my replies were full of retweets and favourites – hundreds of them.
The tweet itself was fairly innocuous; in fact, it was a bit of a cheat. I’d copied someone else’s tweet, adding my own disbelief. And that tweet by someone else was a retweet of a three-year old tweet by well-hard actor Danny Dyer, who had been tricked, quite amusingly, by someone asking for a shout out to his grandad who had helped beat the Nazis, accompanied by a picture of a young Stalin. I’d missed it at the time.
Anyway, on it came throughout the evening, retweets, favourites, questions, statements of the obvious, snark…. It was weird, and unexpected, and kind of exciting. It was like I’d done something really good, rather than just stealing someone else’s old joke. And I was able to track exactly how good it was. I had pulled some kind of killer move and was getting my reward. I was winning the game.
In his 2013 documentary on video games that changed the world, Charlie Brooker, who knows so much about these things, caused a small stir when he suggested that Twitter was in essence, an online multiplayer game. Considering how high-mindedly people like me talk about social media as platforms for change, tools of democratisation and so on, it’s a provocative view to take. But Brooker is right. Twitter users are engaged in a massive game, possibly without end. We measure the success of individual moves (tweets) with retweets and favourites: keep pulling off these successful moves, and we can see our scores go up, in terms of followers accumulated. Not counting the uber famous, who will get a million retweets for the most grudgingly given “I HEART MY FANS; here’s the merchandise page” tweet, most of us are in this game to some extent.
But the description of Twitter as a game has one problem: Twitter can have real-life consequences.
Periodically (well, every time Grand Theft Auto comes out), Keith Vaz or Susan Greenfield or someone will get terribly upset about the ruination caused to young minds or young morals by all this mindless violence. This game lets you steal cars! Run down old ladies! All sorts of unspeakable things! But GTA and other games let you do nothing of the sort: at best, they let you pretend you’re doing these things. In fact, it’s not even that: it lets you control a character, whose character is already somewhat predetermined, in doing some of these things. You’re essentially engaged in a technologically advanced form of improv theatre. Except far more entertaining.
And this is where the Twitter-as-game thing falters: if I threaten to blow up a plane while playing a normal video game, nothing will happen to me. If I do it on Twitter, well…
Last Sunday a 14-year-old Dutch girl called Sarah got in trouble for tweeting that she was a member of Al Qaeda and was about to do “something big” to an American Airlines flight.
According to Dutch news agency BNO, the exchange went as follows:
“Hello my name’s Ibrahim and I’m from Afghanistan. I’m part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I’m gonna do something really big bye,” the girl, identifying herself only as Sarah, said in Sunday’s tweet. Soon after, American Airlines responded in their own tweet: “Sarah, we take these threats very seriously. Your IP address and details will be forwarded to security and the FBI.”
“omfg I was kidding. … I’m so sorry I’m scared now … I was joking and it was my friend not me, take her IP address not mine. … I was kidding pls don’t I’m just a girl pls … and I’m not from Afghanistan,” the girl said in subsequent tweets, later adding: “I’m just a fangirl pls I don’t have evil thoughts and plus I’m a white girl.”
It’s a stupid thing to do, obviously. But Sarah was playing by the rules of the game. She was being provocative, and, in her mind at least, funny. These are things that get you RTs and followers.
But sadly for Sarah, and the rest of us, there comes a point where social media stops being a game and starts being serious business.
We’ve seen this in the UK, of course, with Paul Chambers and the infamous Twitter Joke Trial.
That entire case was a travesty, because no one at any point believed Chambers even meant to behave threateningly. It’s unlikely anyone really believes Sarah meant anything by her tweet either, but in the order of things so far established, directing a comment at an account (at-ing someone, for want of a better phrase), as the Dutch girl did, is worse than simply referring to them, as Chambers did in his tweet about blowing Doncaster’s Robin Hood airport “sky high”.
Where is all this going to end up? I really don’t know. But I can only reiterate the point made many times before that, intriguingly, with the increasing ease of free speech, we’re seeing the rise of an increasing urge to censor; not just in authorities, but in everyday people.
It’s an urge we have to resist.
This article was originally published on 17 April 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
16 Apr 14 | Australia, News and features, Politics and Society
Australian prime minister Tony Abbott
In weeks where Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia has publicly praised the importance of freedom of speech in relation to the repeal of a section of the Racial Discrimination Act (18C) it might seem strange that civil servants caught criticising the government, or PM, can be sanctioned for illicit social media use. But to look at the two and suggest it implies gross, implicit hypocrisy, as some have, is not the most nuanced interpretation; however, the new policy code, which actually only applies to one government department bears looking at.
The new guidelines, Social Media Policy of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, outline what can and cannot be done on social media by employees and seem at pains to cover all bases while also being remarkably intrusive compared with other similar government documents.
The guidelines state they are aimed at ensuring the public believes in the impartiality of those in the Department of the PM&C. They govern social media use, including anonymous comments, during office hours and outside of work, on private devices. What has been noted by the media however is that anonymous speech may be sanctioned and employees are requested to “dob” — that is, report — on colleagues if they see them contravening the new policy. Staff can be reported for being “critical or highly critical of the Department, the Minister or the Prime Minister’’ or “so harsh or extreme in their criticism of the government, government policies, a member of parliament from another political party, or their respective policies, that they could raise questions about the employee’s capacity to work professionally, efficiently or impartially”.
Despite the leaked document now available online, the department maintains, according to the Canberra Times, that its policy on public social media use is a strictly internal document and will not comment. The department also states that no person should speak directly with the media but rather refer all queries to the media department, where the scribe can address queries in writing. This bureaucratic attempt at transparency or a “timely response” is neither limited to this department or government. Under the previous Labor government certain departments, such as the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, took much the same stance at times. Of course, now even refugee or boat arrival numbers are kept secret and weekly press conferences have been scrapped.
The policy has been defended by Freedom Commissioner Tim Wilson, who also defends the repeal of 18C in the name of freedom of speech. He told the Canberra Times: “As I read it, the current policy allows public servants to be critical of government policy, but requires that they do so in a way that does not compromise their capacity, or perception, that they will exercise their role as a public servant in an impartial way.” Wilson believes in the civilising power of codes of conduct and that such “voluntary” agreements do not undermine essential freedom of speech.
The document has rather broad-ranging edicts which could be open to interpretation. It is understood people may “participate robustly” in debate, but robustness may not trump impartiality or professionalism. It is useful then that Abbott’s daughter does not now work for the prime minister’s department. After publicly calling him a “lame, gay, churchy loser” in 2009 her impartiality could be questionable.
This article was published on April 16, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
