As global dedication to internet and personal freedom increases, so does the use of social media and communication apps, according to the Freedom House DC report Freedom on the Net 2016. Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Skype, YouTube and other public facing social media platforms have been increasingly used to advance social justice and to expose and protest government actions. Governments of marginally free nations and of authoritarian nations have responded by more severely restricting internet and personal freedom. Internet and personal freedom around the world show a net decline for the sixth consecutive year, with even free nations imposing more restrictions.
Global internet freedom declined for the sixth consecutive year. See the new report: #netfreedom2016 pic.twitter.com/KKhxfiuZlJ
— Freedom House (@FreedomHouseDC) November 22, 2016
Across the globe in 2016, there were 24 governments that restricted access to social media, social apps and general communication tools, an increase from 15 a year earlier. Not only has restriction increased, the categories of what is restricted have increased and the penalties for violating the restrictions have increased. Image sharing platforms, like Instagram, and voice communication platforms, like WhatsApp and Telegram, are newly targeted for restriction. These platforms make it possible to provide visual proof and to quickly spread information about government or other wrongdoing. In addition, platform and app encryption allows for secure dissemination of information, free from government oversight. Penalties for violating government restrictions include freedom-limiting additions to anti-terrorism laws, such as that implemented in Russia, and arrests of social media users. Governments associated with 27 percent of all internet users, located in 38 countries, have arrested people for communication on Facebook.
State authorities more frequently imprison users for their posts and the content of their messages, creating a chilling effect among others who write [on social media] on controversial topics.
In reaction to social media use, some governments have closed all internet access during politically critical times. The damage caused by these shut-downs are described as having “untold social, commercial, and humanitarian consequences.” Unwelcome websites, such as online news outlets, like Digital Journal, are censored, blocked or even taken down more often than was the case previously. Laws are more frequently enacted to “limit privacy” and authorize “broad surveillance.” Debates have been engender as to governmental right to “backdoor access to encrypted communications” and governmental right to prosecution of social media users for writing about “democracy, religion, or human rights.”
Users in some countries were put behind bars for simply “liking” offending material on Facebook, or for not denouncing critical messages sent to them by others [as in Thailand]. … The number of countries where such arrests occur has increased by over 50 percent since 2013.
Examples of these trends away from internet and personal freedom occurred in Cambodia, where the telecommunication industry has fallen under government control and arrests of Facebook users have been made; in China, where dozens of arrests of “digital activists,” who oppose government policies on censorship and surveillance, have resulted in fearful self-censorship by other social media writers; in Russia, where Andrey Bubeyev was imprisoned for two years for sharing with 12 contacts information showing that the Crimean Peninsula is Ukrainian territory; in China, where relatives of three overseas journalists were jailed in reaction against anti-Chinese government statements written online overseas by the journalists.
How did your country rank in the Freedom on the Net 2016 report? #netfreedom2016 pic.twitter.com/sleGtbmckW
— Freedom House (@FreedomHouseDC) November 14, 2016
[“Freedom on the Net is a comprehensive study of internet freedom in 65 countries around the globe, covering 88 percent of the world’s internet users. It tracks improvements and declines in governments’ policies and practices each year, and the countries included in the study are selected to represent diverse geographical regions and types of polity. This report, the seventh in its series, focuses on developments that occurred between June 2015 and May 2016….”]
