17 Oct 23 | News and features
More than two years ago, as Myanmar’s coup unfolded, open-source content provided unique insight into what was happening in the country and the battlelines that were soon to emerge. Live from a roundabout in the capital of Naypyidaw, exercise instructor Khing Hnin Wai unwittingly captured and disseminated live footage of the coup taking place via Facebook. For a brief period, images of Khing Hnin Wai dancing in front of a military convoy became symbolic of Myanmar’s struggle to maintain democracy.
Here at Myanmar Witness, we use user-generated, openly available content like this to identify, verify and report on events across Myanmar involving abuses of human rights and contraventions of international law. We let the evidence speak for itself when we publish the results of our investigations, collaborate with media and share evidence with justice and accountability mechanisms.
Content we examine is rarely as innocuous as Khing Hnin Wai‘s video. Since our inception as one of the witness projects at the Centre for Information Resilience, we have used imagery from social media, geospatial providers, and other forms of ‘open’ sources to contribute towards accountability for crimes being committed. These include horrific beheadings, the widespread intentional use of fire, the impact of the conflict on sites with special protections, and at a scale and sophistication beyond what we see in our other witness projects — hate speech and doxxing.
Doxxing exposes the private information of individuals, such as addresses, phone numbers and more, without their consent. In Myanmar it is done with the intent to intimidate, spread fear and suppress voices. Doxxing has become the digital manifestation of the real-world violence faced by thousands of people in Myanmar everyday. Our findings have repeatedly shown that in Myanmar, the internet is being used as a weapon – and this is steeped in history. Facebook was widely used as a vehicle for the promotion of hate speech and incitement to violence during the Rohingya crisis, which led to the social media company admitting failings in the way it handled content on its platform.
In January this year, following an investigation into online abuse against Burmese women, we released our Digital Battlegrounds report, which showed how the situation is worsening. Its findings were damning: Facebook and Telegram were hosting politically-motivated abuse targeted at Burmese women. Abuse included real-world threats of violence, gendered hate speech and sexually violent commentary. The source of this content was clear – pro-Myanmar Military accounts and users.
To their credit, and in response to Myanmar Witness and BBC outreach, both Meta and Telegram removed a large amount of content which violated their respective terms of service. However, in the case of Telegram, soon after some accounts were removed or suspended, new ones emerged to take their place. Identifying online abusers and their violent content continues to be painstaking and tedious work.
The online information environment in Myanmar has been, and continues to be, part of the conflict. In the wake of an airstrike by the Myanmar Air Force against Pa Zi Gyi village in April 2023, the darkness of Myanmar’s digital conflict resurfaced. With some media reporting more than 160 dead it was one of the worst airstrikes seen in Myanmar and led to an outpouring of domestic and international sympathy and condemnation.
In Myanmar, a ‘black profile’ campaign emerged online, mourning the victims of the attack. Today’s report by Myanmar Witness investigators shows just how the military regime retaliated with a brutal crackdown — online and offline — against those who dared to show sympathy. For engaging in non-violent online protest, individuals were met with arrests, threats and physical violence. Both their digital and real-world voices were silenced.
Pro-junta groups doxxed those who protested digitally as online sympathy grew in the wake of the airstrike. We found a link: at least 11 of the 20 individuals who were doxxed were then arrested for their activities on Facebook within days of being exposed by pro-junta Telegram channels. They were among a total of 69 people who were arrested within three weeks of the airstrike. In the vast majority of cases, social media activity was the stated reason for their arrest by the authorities.
Some months following their arrest, five individuals who were influential and well-known — a former journalist and several celebrities — were released. Multiple pro-junta Telegram channels hinted at their release before it occurred, indicating information sharing, if not coordination, between these channels and the military authorities. The fate of the more than 60 others detained in the same period remains unclear. Our research only scratches the surface of the vicious digital and physical conflict in Myanmar, and there are no signs of it abating.
While those who incite and intimidate online are ultimately responsible, inadequate moderation of content by social media platforms is part of the problem, as is the protracted war in Myanmar which recycles and reinforces the online violence. While others go online to perpetuate conflict, we at Myanmar Witness will continue to use digital content to identify, verify and report on the conflict, and to ensure that those at risk of being silenced have their voices heard.
15 Oct 22 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom
Rt. Hon. James Cleverly MP
Foreign Secretary
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
King Charles Street
London
SW1A 2AH
United Kingdom
15 October 2022
Dear Foreign Secretary,
On behalf of the below signed organisations, we would like to congratulate your appointment as Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. At a time of significant global uncertainty and unrest, the UK can and must play a leading role in promoting human rights globally. While we appreciate the wide and diverse range of issues facing you and your department, we are contacting you today to draw your attention to the treatment of political prisoners in Saudi Arabia who have been imprisoned for expressing themselves.
The Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), established in 2008 to try those suspected of acts of terrorism, has instead administered disproportionate sentences, including the death sentence, to people solely for expressing themselves online. Cloaked in the language of cybercrime, this has effectively criminalised free expression and has also been brought to bear against individuals outside of Saudi Arabia.
You will have heard about the shameful case of Saudi national Salma al-Shehab, who was a student at the University of Leeds at the time of her alleged ‘crimes’ – sharing content in support of prisoners of conscience and women human right defenders, such as Loujain Alhathloul. For this, upon Salma al-Shehab’s return to Saudi Arabia, she was arrested and held arbitrarily for nearly a year, before being sentenced to 34 years in prison with a subsequent 34-year travel ban. The fact that the sentence is four years longer than the maximum sentence suggested by the country’s anti-terror laws for activities such as supplying explosives or hijacking an aircraft demonstrates the egregious and dangerous standard established both by the SCC and the Saudi regime to restrict free expression. It also further illustrates the Saudi government’s abusive system of surveillance and infiltration of social media platforms to silence public dissent.
But the actions aimed at Salma al-Shehab did not happen in isolation. In fact, her sentencing is the latest in a longstanding trend that has seen the Saudi judiciary and the state at-large being co-opted to target civil society and fundamental human rights. The same day that al-Shehab was sentenced, the SCC sentenced another woman, Nourah bint Saeed Al-Qahtani, to 45 years in prison after using social media to peacefully express her views. Ten Egyptian Nubians were sentenced to up to 18 years in prison after they were arrested and detained – for two months they were held incommunicado and without access to their lawyers or family – after organising a symposium commemorating the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Dr Lina al-Sharif was arbitrarily detained for over a year following her social media activism after a group of agents of the Presidency of State Security raided her family home and arrested her without a warrant. A worrying dimension is the use of violence and torture to coerce confessions, as well as ongoing persecution or surveillance following a prisoner’s release, further eroding the legitimacy of the SCC and its verdicts.
The UK’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia should not bind your hands to upholding human rights commitments and calling out violations when they are brought to your attention, particularly, in the case of al-Shehab, where they relate to the application of Saudi legislation for actions that took place within the territory of the United Kingdom. In fact, this relationship places you in a strong position to call for the release of all prisoners unlawfully held in Saudi Arabia without delay.
Acting definitively so early in your tenure would be a powerful symbol both to our allies and others that the UK can be a trusted protector of human rights and the rule of law.
We await your action on this important issue and further support the calls to action outlined by over 400 academics, staff and research students from UK universities and colleges in a letter authored to you and the Prime Minister.
If you require any more information we would be happy to organise a briefing at a time that works best for you.
Kind regards,
Index on Censorship
ALQST For Human Rights
SANAD Organisation for Human Rights
CIVICUS
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
SMEX
Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State
Access Now
Human Rights Watch
PEN International
English PEN
Front Line Defenders
IFEX
27 Apr 22 | News and features, United States
On 25 April, Twitter announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk in a transaction valued at approximately US$44 billion. He had previously announced that he had amassed a 9% stake in the social media platform.
Ooh, that’s a lot of money.
Elon Musk is not short of a few dollars. He made $175 million from selling his stake in PayPal when it was sold to eBay. He was an early investor in electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, of which he is now CEO, and he founded rocket company SpaceX. His net worth is estimated at US$264.4 billion, making him the richest person in the world.
Why has he bought Twitter?
Musk is one of Twitter’s biggest users, with 86.2 million followers. He has hinted that he might want to buy it for several years. That said, he has had a love-hate relationship with the platform. In 2018, he suggested on Twitter that he had enough funding to take Tesla private but was subsequently fined $20 million as it had affected the market in Tesla shares, something frowned upon by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Why is everyone talking about free speech?
Elon Musk clearly wants Twitter to reconsider its approach to free speech. In the press release on the acquisition, Musk’s only statement was: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”
What does Elon Musk think free speech is?
Elon Musk describes himself as a “free speech absolutist”, posting that he would not remove access to Russian news sources through his satellite internet company Starlink “except at gunpoint”.
Clarifying his position on Tuesday evening, Musk tweeted, “By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”
What about the freedom to criticise him and his companies?
He clearly does not want everyone to have free speech, most notably disgruntled Tesla employees and whistleblowers.
Isn’t Twitter quite hot on free expression anyway?
Twitter says in its policy on freedom of expression that “defending and respecting the user’s voice is one of our core values” and that this commitment is based on the the United States Bill of Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as being informed by a number of additional sources including the members of its Trust and Safety Council, relationships with advocates and activists around the globe, and by works such as United Nations Principles on Business and Human Rights.
In its policy on hateful conduct, Twitter says, “Free expression is a human right – we believe that everyone has a voice, and the right to use it. Our role is to serve the public conversation, which requires representation of a diverse range of perspectives.
We recognize that if people experience abuse on Twitter, it can jeopardize their ability to express themselves… For this reason, we prohibit behavior that targets individuals or groups with abuse based on their perceived membership in a protected category.”
What’s this he’s saying about authenticating humans? Sounds a bit weird.
It seems clear that while Musk is keen to allow “lawful” free speech, he is less keen on the ability for people to remain anonymous on the platform.
In its transparency report, Twitter says that “anonymous and pseudonymous speech is important to Twitter”.
Anonymity is particularly valuable for dissidents and for others who fear attack if they reveal their true identity.
Some of the world’s most authoritarian regimes want social media users to have to identify themselves. That should raise a red flag.
Will Musk’s acquisition see Twitter veer to the right?
Musk has been hard to pin down on his political views, with most seeing him as a social libertarian.
One of the criticisms often aimed at Twitter is that it and its staff are too woke.
However, Twitter’s own research shows that mainstream right-wing parties benefit at least as much, and often substantially more, from algorithmic personalisation as their left-wing counterparts.
It also found that content from US media outlets with a strong right-leaning bias are amplified marginally more than content from left-leaning sources.
The million-dollar question: Will Musk ask Twitter to reinstate Donald Trump’s Twitter account?
On 8 January 2021, Twitter announced that it would permanently ban former President Donald Trump from Twitter “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” following the storming of the US Capitol by his supporters.
Musk might try as part of his commitment to free speech to allow Trump back on but Trump himself says he won’t rejoin even though his own Truth Social platform appears to be struggling to make an impact.
And finally, will Musk’s acquisition give China greater influence over Twitter?
Musk’s fellow rocket-loving gazillionaire Jeff Bezos jumped on Twitter to ask whether Musk’s acquisition of Twitter would give the Chinese government “a bit of leverage over the town square?”.
The Amazon founder asked the question in response to another tweet by New York Times reporter Mike Forysthe that pointed out that China was Tesla’s second biggest market after the USA in 2021 and that Chinese battery makers are major suppliers for Tesla’s electric vehicles.
Bezos answered his own question, saying “probably not” and that a “more likely outcome…is complexity in China for Tesla, rather than censorship at Twitter”.
Thousands of Twitter users helpfully pointed out to Bezos that people could ask the same question of him following his acquisition of the Washington Post in 2013. User Sankrant Sanu wrote: “How much leverage does China have over Washington Post given the percentage of goods sold on Amazon that are dependent on that country for supply?
10 Feb 22 | Opinion, Ruth's blog
Last weekend I made an error. I posted a photo on my personal social media account of some political campaigning I’d done. As a former MP, it would have surprised no one. It was the very essence of unremarkable. Yet the response this picture of six smiling friends generated was extraordinary, both in its ferocity and deeply hateful nature.
I’m not going to use the privilege that my role gives me to list the attacks in any detail. Index is not my personal hobby horse; we aren’t party political, and work with stakeholders across the world who share our commitment to the liberal value of free expression, regardless of their personal politics. This of course means that people have the absolute right to express themselves as they see fit – including their views about me.
But here’s the rub. Because just as someone has the right to say something, or more often than not type something, doesn’t mean that the target of their comments is obliged to hear it – or read it. People have the right to speak; what they do not have is the right to be heard by the target of their ire.So when people exercise their right to criticise those in the public eye, it’s important for all those involved in the conversation to understand that when a line is crossed and abuse becomes threats, laws are being broken. And this has consequences.
The furore my innocuous tweet generated was a timely reminder of quite how horrible online discourse can become, and quite how quickly. A pile-on sees “banter” morph seamlessly into abuse, from which seep the inevitable threats. It is a pattern as old as social media itself, and is all the more common for women in the public eye, especially those who come from a minority community.
Rarely a week goes by when I am not tempted to shut all my accounts down, turn off my access and with it, mute the hate. But I am then reminded of the good that can come from social media – knowing that your friends and family are safe in the midst of a crisis, being able to reach out to former friends and colleagues, and of course being able to seek help when you need it. For Index, it is also an invaluable tool in not only shining a light on the actions of repressive regimes, but of amplifying the stories of dissidents with stories that demand to be heard. it is also a literal lifeline when communicating with correspondents and sources when no other platform is available.
All of which makes moves by governments in the UK and further afield to regulate our online space a minefield unlike any other. The British government is currently legislating to make our online world “safer”. The Canadians and Australians are doing the same, as is the European Union.
My overriding concern is that we are witnessing governments trying to legislate for cultural change. And this is a recipe for failure before any law makes it onto the statute books.
Trying to limit debate and sanitise our online lives through regulation simply masks the tensions, divisions and prejudices that exist in our societies rather than tackling the underlying causes. This is not a counsel of despair, nor a position that says regulation shouldn’t exist. Of course more can be done to make us all safer online, but we need to find the right balance in order to protect ourselves and those that we care about. We need to learn how to use the platforms properly, harnessing the indisputable good of social media while limiting our exposure to the bad. We also need to decide as citizens how we want to manage this space and – perhaps most crucially of all – who should do it. If we decide collectively that our online conversation needs more regulation than a visit to the pub (hint– it shouldn’t), then I for one would like our democratically elected politicians to determine where those lines are drawn, not an algorithm written by a Tech giant or an anonymous regulator.
Which brings me back to the weekend. My mistake wasn’t campaigning, or even tweeting about it, but rather not using the tools available to me to manage my social media and how I wanted to use it. I failed to protect myself. In an ideal world I shouldn’t have to – but my reality online is far from ideal, so going forward I will be limiting how I use social media (again) and how I engage with people. The reality is this doesn’t limit anyone else’s free expression, only my own. Which is my choice.
I run one of the oldest free expression organisations in the UK. We are 50 years old next month. I spend my professional life campaigning to make sure that the persecuted are heard – that people are not silenced for expressing themselves, protecting people’s right to have an opinion regardless of whether it is popular or not. I won’t spend my time defending the indefensible – the bullies, the racists, the misogynists, and the trolls. They have a right to speak but I have the right to ignore them, which is what they deserve.
