In the wake of public panic surrounding a spike in threats of violence and hate speech online, the European Commission has been preparing new recommendations on how member states should address “illegal online content.”

Although they have not been officially submitted, a leaked draft of the recommendations has begun to circulate and is now accessible on the website of European Digital Rights, a coalition group of civil society and human rights groups dedicated to protecting free speech and privacy online. The draft suggests that the Commission will not propose new regulations, but rather envisions private companies like Facebook and Google taking greater responsibility for these issues voluntarily.

In a brief analysis of the recommendations, EDRi’s Joe McNamee writes: “On the basis of no new analyses, no new data and no new pressing issues to be addressed, the leaked draft Recommendation seeks to fully privatize the task of deciding what is acceptable online or not. The only protection for user rights like freedom of expression is an unenforceable hope that certain ‘adequate safeguards’ will be put in place voluntarily by the companies. The draft reminds readers – twice – that the providers have ‘contractual freedom,’ meaning that any such safeguards will be purely optional.”

The only specific types of online content referenced in the draft are “terrorist material” (no definition offered) and content under copyright. McNamee argues that “the repeated references to measures proposed to address copyright and ‘intellectual property rights’ infringements gives an indication of the real driving force behind for such far-reaching measures.”

Bangladesh orders internet shutdown, then backs down

On February 11, the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission ordered internet service providers to shut down the internet over a few set time periods during the month of February that correspond with national university placement exams. The impetus for the temporary shutdowns was to stifle the circulation of leaked answers to the exams. The order was swiftly reversed following broad public criticism.

Part of the public university in Bangladesh, Dhaka (fotofritz16/GettyImages Plus)

Malawi suspends mandatory SIM card registration until further notice

The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority announced in June 2017 that it would become mandatory for mobile phone users to register their SIM cards with network operators, citing registration provisions in the Communications Act of 2016. In late January, authorities doubled down on this promise and set a deadline for SIM registration, threatening that any phone with an unregistered card would have its service shut off on April 1, 2018.

But this week, the measure was suspended, with authorities citing the need for a “civic education” campaign on the matter before resuming registration practices. Azania Post reports that some citizens have shown reluctance to register their SIM cards for fear that the program is “a ploy by government to tap people’s phones.”

Research shows that European telcos behave better at home than in Africa

A new study by the French NGO Internet San Frontieres shows that major European telecommunications providers offering services in Sub-Saharan Africa do not offer the same levels of transparency and consumer protection to African customers as they do to their European markets. The study compares the practices and policies of Orange in Senegal and Safaricom (owned by Vodafone) in Kenya.

Brazil’s largest newspaper ditches Facebook

Folha de Sao Paulo announced that it will no longer post news articles or updates on its Facebook page, which has nearly six million followers. In an editorial-like article, the company said the decision stems primarily from Facebook’s recent decision to reduce the amount of newsfeed content from Facebook pages, instead favoring posts by friends and family. Folha’s executive editor accused Facebook of “…banning professional journalism from its pages in favour of personal content and opening space for ‘fake news’ to proliferate.”

Big advertiser threatens to leave Facebook, calling it a ‘swamp’

The behemoth U.S. company Unilever, which owns major food and toiletry brands including Lipton tea and Dove soap, is threatening to pull its advertising from Facebook. CNN published a pre-released copy of a speech by Unilever marketing executive Keith Weed in which he says that the company “cannot continue to prop up a digital supply chain … which at times is little better than a swamp in terms of its transparency.” CNN says that Weed attributed the move to a “proliferation of objectionable content on social media — and a lack of protections for children — is eroding social trust, harming users and undermining democracies.”

Kenyan soldiers stand guard outside the Kasarani Safaricom Sports Stadium in 2015. (Georgina Goodwin/AFP/Getty Images)

Facebook is violating German consumer laws

A Berlin court ruling (made in January but released to the public in mid-February) found that Facebook’s default settings for privacy and corresponding policies do not meet the basic standards for personal data protection required by German consumer protection laws. The ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed by the federation of German consumer organizations, VZBV. The company has pledged to overhaul its privacy approach in tandem with the release of the EU General Data Protection Regulation.

New Research

• Digital Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: Analyzing the Practices of Orange in Senegal and Safaricom in Kenya – Internet Sans Frontieres (text in French)
• Approaching Access: A look at consumer personal data requests in Canada – Citizen Lab

The Netizen Report is produced by Global Voices Advocacy. Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Rezwan Islam, Karolle Rabarison, Elizabeth Rivera, Taisa Sganzerla, and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

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For my research on data journalism in small newsrooms, I talked to heads of data teams in Germany, Austria and the UK. I found that size is no barrier to innovation. Data journalism is all about team work, and smaller newsrooms can be at an advantage when it comes to integrating data teams. The small, traditional newsroom Berliner Morgenpost had an almost fairytale-like success story with its efforts in incorporating data journalism.

Enthusiasm from the bottom up

Julius Tröger started working for Berliner Morgenpost’s online team in 2010. It’s a small team of just eight reporters, and the entire newsroom of this local newspaper in Berlin comprises less than 100 reporters and editors.

At the same time, Tröger started studying computer science. In 2011, he did his first data journalism story on the parliamentary elections in Berlin. With the help of another journalist, he programmed an interactive map where users could select the results of their own polling station. One year later, Tröger went to the U.S. and interned at The Guardian’s and ProPublica’s data teams.

When he returned to Berliner Morgenpost, his editor-in-chief realized how useful his new skills were and reimbursed Tröger for his travel expenses. He began concentrating solely on data journalism, and said to his editor-in-chief: “I can do a little bit of programming, but I need a programmer.” He got one, and began to create Morgenpost’s data team in earnest.

Recognition from inside and outside

When the small but growing data team won their first journalism awards, including the European Newspaper Award and the Axel Springer Prize, they received a lot of attention from the world at large and from others at the Morgenpost. At first, colleagues with traditional newspaper background were surprised, as Julius Tröger recalls: “They were like ‘Oh, online journalism is more than copy and pasting?’”

Some of the more senior reporters and editors began showing interest in collaborating with the data team, and became co-editors of data-driven stories. “Today, we are totally integrated” into the newsroom, “but during the first couple of years, we were a foreign body,” Tröger says.

Julius Troger of Berliner Morgenpost (Matthias Piket)

In 2014, Medium Magazine awarded Tröger the title “journalist of the year,” and Berliner Morgenpost’s interactive team was featured on the cover with the caption, “Nerds in Newsrooms.”

All of this took place within just a few years. So how did they do it? And do small newsrooms like the Morgenpost have an advantage in creating data journalism teams?

Advantages for small newsrooms

1) Better communication. “The big advantage is that we all sit in one newsroom,” explains Tröger. “In bigger organizations, people are more spread-out…You might have fewer resources and less journalists [in a small newsroom], but in big newsrooms you won’t hear about what others are doing.”

The Guardian’s former editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger points out: “If you have got a leader who is committed to innovation, it should be easier to turn around a small newsroom, because you can have better conversations.”

2) Easier to collaborate and experiment. Small newsrooms are a better playground for experiments: Reporters often need to take initiative and show results before leaders take notice. Julius Tröger left his comfort zone of copy-and-paste online journalism and made an effort to learn more about data. It was only once he started doing his first data stories and won awards that his editorial board got interested.

“We can take time to [experiment] and try things out,” says Tröger. “When big newspapers like Sueddeutsche Zeitung or Spiegel Online don’t have output for a while, or if they fail, there will be a loud outcry. With us, it is the other way around. Nobody knows us, nobody cares – until we do something that stands out.”

Megan Lucero is the head of the UK-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Bureau Local, which was founded last year. The Bureau Local helps local newspapers build expertise in data journalism. “It is much easier for smaller newsrooms to change and introduce new things,” Lucero says. “It is great to be a smaller organization, because you can pair up with academics and researchers.” Lots of communication around work flow and deadlines is the key to success, according Lucero.

Megan Lucero of the The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s
data team (Image courtesy TBIJ)

Even without the support of a network like Bureau Local, the data journalism community is usually very helpful and responsive. Many of my interviewees stated that if they get stuck with a data project, they would seek out and offer help to one another – even beyond company borders. “Coopetition,” collaboration between competitors, is common practice.

3) Change can happen faster. Data start-ups like Bureau Local have another big advantage: They don’t have a “long-grown resistance against data,” as Peter Sim, a data journalist from Austrian investigative non-profit Dossier, told me.

“Small and new newsrooms can focus on establishing a data-supportive culture from the beginning. There are no fights between print and online, they are more flexible in working together and in choosing topics,” Sim points out. “In bigger, well-established newsrooms, there is usually no awareness of data journalism, neither among staff nor the editorial board…Change in bigger newsrooms happens, often, very slowly.”

4) More permeability. Smaller newsrooms often have less rigid divisions between departments. Digital strategist Nic Newman explains: “Previously, small companies couldn’t afford [data teams] and were always two steps behind. But you don’t need big teams anymore, one person with multiple skills can do it alone–it all comes down to the creativity of one or two people.”

Today, Berliner Morgenpost’s interactive team consist of five full-time journalists and two part-time developers.  Other newsrooms send their journalists to intern at the Morgenpost to learn and start their own data units. Since January 2017, the data team has developed data-driven stories for the Funke Gruppe, and their stories have been adapted for local outlets like Hamburger Abendblatt. Berliner Morgenpost’s interactive team has received 50 journalism awards.

Bettina Figl is a reporter for the daily national Wiener Zeitung in Vienna, Austria. She specializes in longform, features and digital journalism while covering stories about education, politics, social issues, and feminism. In fall 2017, Bettina Figl was a journalism fellow at University of Oxford, where she did research on data journalism in small newsrooms at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

The post Why Small Newsrooms Do the Best Data Journalism appeared first on MediaShift.

The specter of “fake news” is still looming large and the power of internet companies to control and capitalize on news distribution seems to grow greater by the day. This has democratic leaders around the world scrambling to rein in free speech laws and to distinguish between the motivations behind online news and information — whether they be political power, money, or the simple free exchange of ideas.

In early December 2017, Brazil’s government established a council to monitor and possibly order the blocking of false news reports on social media ahead of the 2018 presidential elections. The news swiftly raised concerns about censorship among the public.

In its first meeting, the council proposed to create a tool through which users could file reports to the council of news that appeared suspicious.

The council has not explained how this system would interface with social media companies, which are the only entities capable of removing content or accounts propagating “fake news”. Members say they are negotiating support from social media companies, but it remains unclear where this will lead.

Previous attempts at such control have yielded mixed results. When Facebook introduced a “report fake news” feature in December 2016, many users reported fake content as part of an effort to discredit information or ideas with which they disagreed, even when those ideas were based on verified facts.

Across the Atlantic, French President Emmanuel Macron announced new measures targeting “fake news” that will mandate content deletion, censorship of websites that spread false news, and the closure of accounts of infringing users, following judicial orders.

In addition, a new bill before the French Congress that is intended to target sponsored content on social media platforms. If adopted it would require social media platforms to ‘’make public the identity of sponsors and of those who controls them,” and to impose limits on the amount of money paid to sponsor such content.

The law’s purpose is to “protect democratic life,” according to Macron.

In both France and Brazil, it remains unclear precisely how government actors will compel social media companies to identify and/or remove such content at this scale.

Vietnam hires thousands of workers to go after “wrongful views” online

Colonel General Nguyen Trong Nghia, deputy chairman of the General Political Department of the People’s Army of Vietnam, announced at a December 25, 2017 meeting that the military has created a special force tasked with “combating wrongful information and anti-state propaganda.” The special force already has 10,000 workers.

Photo of an internet cafe in China by eviltomthai on Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.

China censored more than 100,000 websites in 2017 for ‘harmful’ content

China’s state-run Xinua news agency reported on January 8 that approximately 128,000 websites were censored in China in 2017 due to “harmful” content, including news from “unauthorized” sources, material said to threaten “social stability”, and pornography. Most recently, Cyberspace Administration officials penalized the popular Toutiao news aggregator app, which they said had illegally distributed news content without having obtained necessary permissions from the authorities.

Chinese courts hear challenges against censorship, surveillance

A Beijing court agreed to hear a case addressing the media regulator’s censorship of LGBTQ content online. In June 2017, the China Netcasting Services Association sparked outrage when it issued new rules banning online content that depicts “abnormal sexual relations or behaviour,” including homosexuality. The lawsuit—filed by 30-year-old Fan Chunlin from Shanghai—challenges the media regulator to provide a legal basis for the description of homosexuality as “abnormal.” The court is expected to deliver a ruling within the next six months.

In Jiangsu province, a court agreed to hear a challenge by a consumer rights group against Baidu, one of China’s largest internet companies. The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee charges that Baidu products, including its mobile app and web browser,are accessing users’ messages, phone calls, contacts and other data without their consent.

Indonesian drone aids censorship instead of surveillance

Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Informatics has deployed a new program that is intended to enhance the process of blocking “negative” content on the internet by using artificial intelligence. Known as “Cyber Drone 9,” the program combines new technical tools (which do not actually include drones) with a team of staff who will monitor “negative” content identified by the software and decide whether it should be censored.

Visiting the US? You might have to hand over your mobile phone.

Photo of Vietnam by guido da rozze on Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.

United States border agents reportedly searched 30,200 devices in 2017 for both inbound and outbound travelers, in comparison to 19,051 in 2016. The U.S. agency of Customs and Border Protection issued new guidelines requiring devices be unlocked on request and authorizing agents to copy and save information that they obtain through travelers’ mobile phones, among other measures.

Internet and mobile phone penetration are rising everywhere — except in Venezuela

The Venezuelan news and commentary site El Estimulo published an in-depth report(in Spanish) on falling rates of internet and mobile phone connectivity in Venezuela. The article highlights International Telecommunication Union statistics showing that mobile phone penetration has dropped from 102% in 2012 (a number reflecting individuals with multiple mobile phones) to 87% in 2016, and also charts damage to subterranean internet infrastructure that the state has failed to repair. The article quotes Global Voices author Marianne Diaz:

The increasing deterioration of infrastructure is neither coincidental nor accidental. It is the result of decisions and policies implemented by power structures. The end result is that it is making citizens suffer the consequences of infrastructural decay and the state is not upholding its obligations to guarantee access to basic services…

Tunisia’s biometric ID bill is dead, for now

The Tunisian government withdrew a proposed law on January 9 that would have imposed a national biometric identification scheme for all Tunisian citizens. The withdrawal was due in part to an influx of requests and amendments proposed by the parliamentary commission of rights and freedoms, many of which were drawn from citizen input.

New Research

• Information Not Found: The “Right to Be Forgotten” as an Emerging Threat to Media Freedom in the Digital Age – Center for International Media Assistance

The Netizen Report is produced by Global Voices Advocacy. Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Marianne Diaz, Oiwan Lam, James Losey, Karolle Rabarison, Elizabeth Rivera, Juke Carolina Rumuat, Nevin Thompson and Sarah Myers Westcontributed to this report.

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Reporting on political polarization around the globe is a challenge for any journalist: by definition, these trends cross borders and encompass more than any one nation’s politics. But a recent experiment in journalistic collaboration connected freelance reporters across Europe to take on that challenge together.

Launched in March of last year, the Agora Project created a temporary digital newsroom comprised of 10 freelance journalists from Portugal to Greece tasked with covering political polarization across Europe. The goal, members said, was cross-border collaboration and leveraging local insights and expertise to craft stories of international significance. The project was created on and hosted by the Germany-based worldwide collaboration service Hostwriter, which helps freelance writers network around the world.

The stories covered a range of important topics sweeping across Europe, including how religion is used to divide people in what used to be Yugoslavia; how populism is changing Portugal; where automation meets the European manual labor workforce; immigration reform in Italy; and how European media combat sensationalism.

Editors who oversaw the collaboration said they learned how important freelance journalists are as the industry continues to try and find footing in the digital age. The project’s competitive — but still collaborative — atmosphere made for dynamic reporting, allowing reporters to tell dense political stories collectively by combining their own unique perspectives.

Reporting across borders

The Agora Project was an experiment in collaboration among individual journalists spanning nine countries: Croatia, Spain, Greece, Germany, Serbia, Italy, Wales, Austria and Portugal. Throughout the process, participants and a three-person editorial team traded ideas, editing, sources and feedback to improve each other’s reporting.

The project was the brainchild of Felix Franz, Abhishek Chauhan and Vanuhi Shushanyan, who pitched the idea during an open call for proposals from Advocate Europe, an annual idea challenge for European initiatives. The challenge was created by MitOst and Liquid Democracy, and funded by Stiftung Mercator to support collaboration across Europe.

Franz, one of the editors-in-chief for the project and a project manager at Hostwriter, said he received roughly 200 story pitches from journalists looking to join the team, which made for a tough selection process. What they looked for in those pitches, Franz said, was the quality of the story pitches, the stories’ collaborative potential and whether or not the pitches followed the thread of polarization across Europe.

“We think that people stopped talking to each other, stopped exchanging ideas, and it’s only about winning and not about communicating with each other,” he said. “We want to get a larger example of how collaborative journalism can be democratized and pluralized and to show people this is what you can do through collaborating.”

The Agora Project team. Top row: Geraldine Cremin, Quentin Lichtblau, Albert Guasch, Andrea Milluzzi, Jelena Prtoric, Vanhui Shushanyan, Stefan Janjic. Middle row: Alun Macer-Wright, Daniela Sala, Felix Franz. Bottom row: Abhishek Chauhan, Sissy Gkounelou (via Skype), Catia Bruno, Tabea Grzeszyk, Nikolai Atefie, Venera Arakelyan (Photo courtesy hostwriter)

Franz worked as the project manager and was based at Hostwriter, a collaborative media network that connects journalists around the world to facilitate collaboration. That might mean sharing information, getting feedback or even finding a couch to sleep on while reporting.

The collaborative dynamic allowed for a more intimate relationship with the subject matter, co-editor-in-chief Geraldine Cremin said.

“The Agora stories are mostly features that speak to the everyday stories of everyday people and show the international relevance of the everyday,” Cremin said. “They’re very different stories to breaking news or political stories that you’d get from major outlets in major cities, [which are] unlikely to have someone on the ground in a regional area for long enough to know the ins and outs of stories that quietly bubble away outside the world capitals.”

How it worked

At the end of March, everyone gathered in Armenia for a kickoff workshop with the goal of building relationships and trust, Franz said. The reporters pitched story ideas to the group and brainstormed, sharing experiences and perspectives from their respective countries.

“On the trust issue, we always tell people make sure that it’s a win-win situation, it’s clear that nobody just gives without getting anything,” Franz said. “Everybody is supposed to become better by the help of the nine other participants plus us three from the organizing team.”

With a July publication deadline, the team returned to their countries to report and met in virtual newsrooms via Slack and Skype. Project leaders in Armenia, Berlin and Sydney were constantly talking to each other and the reporters to keep things moving.

Who made it work

The reporters covered stories across a spectrum of issues including immigration, citizenship, populism, automation and media. In Serbia, Stefan Janjić spoke to young men about the role of religion in an area of recent upheaval. Cȧtia Bruno reported on how working-class communities in Portugal cling to history in the face of increasing populism across Europe. Daniela Sala went to Sweden to speak to asylum seekers stuck in the system with no clear options. And Sissy Gkournelou looked at issues of trust in the media in Greece and Germany.

Bruno said it was the uniqueness of the Agora Project’s setup that allowed her to report more closely on her own country of Portugal. For the project, she explored why Portugal seemed unscathed by the big populist movements that swept other European countries over recent years.

From an Agora Project story: A street in the “new” Aldeia da Luz (Cátia Bruno/The Agora Project)

“Portuguese media are still facing harsh times, partly due to the media crisis and the country’s financial crisis, so it is unlikely they would spend time and money reporting on different parts of the country for a single article,” she said.

Janjić reported on young religious leaders in the countries of former Yugoslavia, where atheism went hand in hand with communism. In his work, he explored what motivated young men from the Balkans to become priests and their visions for the region’s future.

Janjić said it was the collaboration aspect that made his reporting for Agora unique.

“This type of cooperation helped me not only to explore my topic, but also my own possibilities,” he said. “A journalist can always reach for Google, but only cooperation with his colleagues from abroad allows him to fully understand the context of another country, another society.”

Though it wasn’t in the budget, the team eventually wanted to meet up again in person. Through one of the team members, they found a farm in Sweden where they could meet and work together in exchange for manual labor.

When they were done reporting, participants pitched stories to their respective local news outlets, working to place them in their native languages. By the fall of 2017, the project published English versions of the stories on the Agora website along with observations from each participant on how the collaboration worked for them. The journalists also saw their work picked up by major news outlets across Europe, including Süddeutsche Zeitung, Huffington Post Greece, Le Courrier Des Balkans, and Il Dubbio.

Collaboration offers new perspectives

By the project’s end, Franz said it was obvious the work had an impact on the participating journalists.

“The feedback from the participants was just so wonderful and we really had a good community,” Franz said. “Two of the participants told me ‘That was the most important journalistic experience I’ve ever had.’ And then you tear up, and you’re like ‘Okay, this was worth it.’”

Members of the team said the Agora Project shed light on what is working right now in journalism, and according Cremin, freelancing is the way. She said spending time with the project participants reinforced how tenacious freelance reporters could be, and why she thinks freelancing is only going to grow in value for the future of journalism.

“I think relying on freelancers is a good thing provided we survive the transition period,” she said. “We need to support and educate freelancers…if we want a strong media.”

Trust is the key

It is not yet clear whether the Agora Project will have a round two. If it does, Franz said, the goal would be to expand beyond Europe. But the funding requirements for such a project makes it a significant hurdle. For now, the team is taking a breather and focusing on other projects. 

For others interested in attempting a collaborative project, Franz had one piece of advice: Don’t be selfish.

“Don’t be scared of people taking away your ideas,” he said. “If you’re constantly scared somebody will steal your piece of the pie, or get a bigger piece of the pie, then this is not for you. This only became beautiful by people trusting each other and trying to having the best interests [at heart for] all the stories.”

Heather Bryant is a journalist and the founder and director of Project Facet, an open source infrastructure project that supports newsrooms in managing the logistics of creating, editing and distributing content, managing projects and facilitating collaborative relationships. She spent her last year studying collaboration between newsrooms as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford.

Phil Corso is an editor, educator and journalist from Brooklyn, NY. He has worked with outlets including the New York Post, New York Daily News, amNY, Westchester Magazine and more. He’s also worked as a professor of journalism at Queens College and advised journalism students at Purchase College, his alma mater.

“The Collaboration of the Week” is a special series of feature stories and podcast segments at MediaShift highlighting one important media collaboration and explaining how they did it. The series is sponsored by Airtable, the all-in-one collaboration platform for creative teams. Receive $50 in credit by visiting airtable.com/mediashift.

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Amid the powerful wave of public protests that have taken place across Iran over the past week, authorities have taken firm measures to clamp down on communication and information-sharing over platforms like Telegram and Instagram.

On January 2, sources who work at Iran’s internet exchange point told the Center for Human Rights in Iran that the government ordered them to disrupt access to international traffic. This means that international data cannot be accessed at certain periods in Iran.

These and other restrictions have been on the rise since December 28, when protests broke out in the northeastern city of Mashhad over unemployment, rising food prices, and charges of wrongdoing directed at both reformist and conservative government leaders. The demonstrations spread to smaller towns and major cities by December 29.

On December 31, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting service announced that authorities had “temporarily” suspended Telegram and Instagram “to preserve the peace and security of citizens.” This is a serious move in Iran, where other large-scale platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been blocked since the 2009 Green Movement protests.

The blocking of Telegram has had especially severe consequences, as the mobile messaging app has become ubiquitous among the country’s users. Of the 45 million Iranians who are online, 40 million use Telegram for everything from staying in touch with family and friends, to reading and sharing news, to keeping up on public events—including protests. The effects of this type of censorship are far-reaching. As protests have turned violent in some cities—state media have reported that 21 people have been killed in the clashes—open communication channels become increasingly important to maintaining public safety.

Digital censorship circumvention tools have been faltering as well, due to what appear to be restrictions on their websites. Internet infrastructure companies like Digital Ocean, which hosts circumvention tools such as Lantern, have also experienced disruptions.

Despite these restrictions, Iranians are still using the internet to report and document what they’re experiencing. In a video attributed to Bandar Abbas, protesters set fire to a billboard with the image of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamanei. Global Voices author and immigration lawyer Hamid Yazdan Panah described this as “an act of rage and defiance that goes beyond the price of eggs or the desire for political reform.”

DRC sees internet shutdown ahead of protests

On December 30, authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo ordered telecommunications providers to block internet access and SMS messaging ahead of protests that took place in multiple cities on the following day. Demonstrators, many of whom were organized within church groups, are demanding that DRC president Joseph Kabila end his bid to change constitutional term limits on the presidency.

Personal data for sale in India, thanks to Aadhaar

Photo by Ole Holbech on Flickr and used with Creative Commons licence.

In an attempt to investigate the security of personal data stored within Aadhaar, India’s massive national ID system, reporters at the Tribune of India were able to gain “unrestricted access to details for any of the more than 1 billion Aadhaar numbers created in India thus far,” simply by responding to an advertisement circulated via WhatsApp and paying the anonymous poster 500 rupees (about USD $7.90). India’s Unique Identification Authority (UIDAI) says the Tribune “misreported” the story. Read the Tribune’s response here.

Pakistan’s cybercrime law will soon cover blasphemy online

The Federal Cabinet of Pakistan approved an amendment to the country’s 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, extending the law to address expressions of blasphemy and pornography on the internet. These will now be categorized as criminal offenses under the law, and could pave the way for criminal charges against anyone who posts social media content that could be interpreted as blasphemous.

Spying on us? Not so fast, says German court

On December 13, 2017, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, Germany ruled in favor of a complaint filed by Reporters Without Borders against Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, BND. The decision stipulates that the BND may not store metadata, such as phone numbers and the time and date of a call, for international calls, for the purposes of intelligence analysis. This should have a big impact on BND, which, thanks to a series of documents leaked to Zeit Online in 2015, collects an average of 220 billion pieces of metadata each day.

Can 7500 people really manage all the hate speech on Facebook?

The Facebook “thumbs up” or “like” gesture is seen reflected in a pair of sunglasses on November 3, 2017. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

After reviewing 900 crowdsourced examples of hate speech on Facebook, investigative journalism outlet ProPublica found that nearly two dozen hateful posts were not removed by Facebook, despite users’ efforts to report them. ProPublica also reported that Facebook employs roughly 7500 people to review reports of hate speech, for an estimated 2.2 billion active users around the world. The report explained:

In 22 cases, Facebook said its reviewers had made a mistake. In 19, it defended the rulings. In six cases, Facebook said the content did violate its rules but its reviewers had not actually judged it one way or the other because users had not flagged it correctly, or the author had deleted it. In the other two cases, it said it didn’t have enough information to respond.

Germany starts enforcing ‘Netz DG’ hate speech law

The start of 2018 marks the start of full enforcement of Germany’s controversial Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz anti-hate speech law, called the NetzDG for short. Under the law, social media companies must respond to government requests to remove illegal content—including hate speech and so-called “fake news”—within 24 hours of receipt. Companies will have up to seven days to consider the removal of more ambiguous material. Facebook, Twitter and Google/YouTube will be the primary focus for the law’s implementation.

Germany’s criminal code already defines hate speech, so the law does not create new measures or definitions. Instead, it forces companies to police hate speech or face astronomical fines. The law is unprecedented at the global level, and could have game-changing ripple effects worldwide.

New Research

• Occasionally by Decree: Update on the Blocking of Websites in Egypt – Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression in Egypt
• Champing at the Cyberbit: Ethiopian Dissidents Targeted with New Commercial Spyware – Citizen Lab
• New Broadband Pricing Data: What does it cost to purchase 1GB of mobile data? – Alliance for Affordable Internet

The Netizen Report is produced by Global Voices Advocacy.  Mahsa Alimardani, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Nevin Thompson, Mohamed ElGohary, James Losey, Vishal Manve, Georgia Popplewell, Talal Raza, Juke Carolina Rumuat, and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

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On 19 October, Egypt’s highest court of appeal postponed the trial of prominent activist and blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah to 8 November. The 36-year-old father and husband was a leading voice in the 2011 protests that helped to overthrow former president Hosni Mubarak.

Abd El Fattah is currently serving a five-year jail term for violating Egypt’s protest law, which prohibits public demonstrations without prior authorization by police. He has already served 3.5 years of his sentence. In Thursday’s hearing, the judge withdrew from Alaa’s case and referred it to another circuit. As the reason, he cited “embarrassment” without providing any further clarifications.

Abd El Fattah is being prosecuted for taking part in a protest denouncing military trials of civilians in November 2013. Although several people were arrested for participating in the demonstration, all of them — apart from Abd El Fattah — have since been released or pardoned.

In a separate case, Abd El Fattah faces an additional jail term for “insulting” the judiciary over a tweet that criticized Egypt’s justice system for its lack of independence. This charge stems from comments he made during a controversial 2013 trial in which 43 NGO workers were sentenced to prison after they were found guilty of defaming the Egyptian judiciary.

In 2016, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has concluded that Alaa’s detention is “arbitrary” and identified several irregularities in his trial. “Mr. Abd El Fattah has not been guaranteed the international norms of due process and guarantees to a fair trial,” the group said.

Since Egypt’s 2013 military coup which ended the rule of elected president Mohamed Morsi, and brought to power general Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, thousands of activists, journalists and protesters have been imprisoned. Rights groups say 60,000 political prisoners are languishing in jail under Egypt’s flawed justice system. Violations under the system include ill-treatment, arrests without warrants, lengthy pretrial detentions, mass trials, military trials, and a disturbing rise in death sentences.

In another prominent case in Egypt, the trial of photographer  Mahmoud Abu Zeid (known as Shawkan) was once again postponed. Shawkan, who has been in pretrial detention for five years, will appear before court again on 24 October. He was arrested in August 2013, while photographing Egyptian security officers using undue force against protesters who opposed the ousting of Mohamed Morsi.

While the Egyptian government has taken a harsh approach towards public protest, their tactics for monitoring the activities of human rights and democracy activists extend deeply into the digital realm. Since the protests of 2011, there has been significant evidence that Egyptian state actors have used technical surveillance in order to target activists.

The German government reportedly canceled a security training for Egyptian police in monitoring cyber crimes and extremist content. According to Associated Press, the German government decided to cancel the training for fear that the police would use acquired skills to monitor citizens who have no connection to organized crime.

New evidence of web censorship paints a bleak picture in Malaysia, India, Pakistan

According to the New Delhi-based Software Freedom Law Centre, more than 23,000 web URLs are currently censored in India. The independent advocacy and research group obtained this information through a Right to Information request, which was fulfilled by the Cyber Laws and E-Security Group under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Group.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) reported at an open meeting last week that telecommunications operators have blocked 5,044 URLs since 2015, at the Commission’s behest. The majority of those websites, according to the Commission were either pornographic, obscene or “seditious.”

And in Pakistan, a group of independent researchers from Islamabad NGO Bytes for All and the Open Observatory for Network Interference documented more than 200 censored URLs using their own technical testing software. Commenting on the findings, Digital Rights Foundation Executive Director and Global Voices member Nighat Dad said,

The filtration technology has been there for a while in Pakistan and I think back in 2011 or 2012 there was a report on Pakistan’s internet exchange gateway and they learnt about the filtration method and how to block websites — it has always been there. It doesn’t come as a surprise that 210 URLs were blocked….I’m sure if you test all of those available in the country there must be several hundred URLs blocked.

No more Skyping in Qatar

Photo by Omar Chatriwala on Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.

The US-based video and voice calling application Skype confirmed that it is blocked in Qatar. In a statement, the service, which is owned by Microsoft, said there is “very little Skype can do about this situation.” Doha News reported that users in Qatar started reporting issues when trying to use voice-over-IP (VoIP) services including WhatsApp, SKype, Viber and Facetime, back in August. Neither regulators nor the country’s two telecom operators, Ooredoo and Vodafone, explained the reason for the suspension of services.

In other countries, regulators have blocked VoIP services in an effort to force customers to pay long distance call fees to local telecom operators, rather than use services like Skype or WhatsApp, which operate on internet infrastructure and typically come at no additional cost to the customer.

Japan’s ‘election hate speech’ database

A Japanese group known as the Anti-Racism Information Center recently launched a website called the “2017 House of Representatives Election Hate Speech Politicians Database.” The site purports to contain information about dozens of hateful, discriminatory statements made by various active politicians running for re-election.

The importance of being verified

Photo of Iran by David Stanley on Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.

Iranian human rights defenders and journalists have reported challenges getting help from social media companies when they face harassment and hacking on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Obtaining verified status can provide users additional protections against false reporting and politically-driven flagging of content, but Iranian users told Global Voices researcher Simin Kargar that they faced challenges obtaining verified status even after sending the required documentation. Additionally, there is no information available in Farsi on how to obtain verification or to guide users on reporting and documenting harassment on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

New Research

• Internet Censorship in Pakistan – Open Observatory of Network Interference
• Building Trust: Towards a Legal Framework that Protects Personal Data in Lebanon – Social Media Exchange
• Big Data from the South – Datactive

The Netizen Report is produced by Global Voices Advocacy. Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Mong Palatino and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

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As societies across the globe grow increasingly dependent on mobile networks for everything from entertainment to emergency services, a sudden communication blackout — whether accidental or intentional — can swiftly disrupt daily life and leave people cut off from critical services like medical care.

This week, two populations on opposite sides of the globe are facing communication shutdowns amid rapidly worsening humanitarian crises.

More than a week after Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico, bringing the worst storm damage that the Caribbean island has seen in nearly a century, 70% of telecommunications networks are still inoperable and nearly all homes are reportedly still without electricity

Alongside life-threatening shortages of food, water and passable roadways, this has left the majority of Puerto Ricans unable to communicate by phone or mobile networks, or even to charge mobile phones or computers. Along with phone lines and mobile phone towers, a major fiber optic internet cable was so badly damaged from flooding that it shut down altogether.

The cable, which was working at 25 percent of its normal capacity by September 23, provides the underlying digital communication infrastructure for hospitals, police and fire departments and government agencies.

Residents of San Juan are rationing power from generators and other power-generating devices, such as car batteries. As part of relief efforts, telecommunication providers have set up temporary WiFi hotspots in urban areas and sent satellites over the island to facilitate communication. Visit this page to support recovery efforts.

Bangladesh bans SIM card sales to Rohingya refugees

The Rohingya. Photo courtesy United to End Genocide on Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.

Nearly 15,000 kilometers away from San Juan, authorities in Bangladesh this week placed a ban on the sale of mobile phone SIM cards to Rohingya refugees, citing ‘security concerns’. Companies, shops and even individuals who violate the ban have been threatened with fines.

The ban compounds the challenges facing nearly 430,000 refugees who have sought refuge in Bangladesh after fleeing military ‘clearance operations’ that have destroyed more than one hundred Rohingya villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Violence began with clashes between the military and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militant group. Bangladeshi officials explained that their security concerns arose from rumors that there were militants among the hundreds of thousands of refugees (most of whom are children) who have crossed the border in recent weeks.

The country’s telecommunications authority said it will lift the ban once biometric identity cards — which have become a requirement for Bangladeshis seeking SIM cards — are issued to the refugees, but this process could take up to six months.

Tens of thousands of refugees are living without shelter in camps near Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar and are suffering from shortages of food, water, medicine and now, a lack of basic communication tools.

China fines local tech giants for sub-par content management

With the next Communist Party Congress taking place in October, China’s Cyberspace Administration issued major fines to national tech companies Baidu, Tencent and Sina, saying that the companies had failed to adequately control online pornography, images of violence and messages promoting ethnic hatred. Although the companies were reportedly assessed with maximum fines under the law, this might amount just 500,000 yuan (about USD $76,000) — a tiny fraction of their annual revenues, which number in the tens of billions.

Saudi Arabia opens up some messaging services (but not WhatsApp)

Saudi Arabia eased restrictions on the use of VoIP and messaging applications, but maintained its ban on WhatsApp and Viber. The government first began blocking the apps in 2013, and explained the changes follow “modern trends” that “operators in the kingdom should follow.” Saudi users can now make calls using apps including LINE, Snapchat, FaceTime, Skype, Telegram and Tango.

Will Facebook let Russia store user data at home?

Image via Pixabay on Pexels.com and used with Creative Commons license.

Russian news agencies say local authorities will block Facebook next year unless the company begins storing the personal data of Russian citizens on servers in Russia, a move that will make it easier for Russian authorities to obtain citizens’ social media data. Communications regulatory agency Roskomnadzor blocked access to LinkedIn last November following a court ruling that found the company guilty of violating Russian data storage laws. Twitter told Roskomnadzor it aims to localize the personal data of Russian users by the middle of 2018.

Jailed Moroccan journalist begins hunger strike

Moroccan journalist Hamid El Mahdoui began a hunger strike in protest of an unfair trial after a court of appeals increased his prison sentence from three months to one year. Mahdoui was arrested and charged for giving a speech that authorities say incited others to participate in a July protest and break the law, even though the right to protest and assembly is guaranteed under the Moroccan Constitution and the Law on Public Assemblies.

New tool aims to curb online abuse

In mid-September, developers launched a new source tool that aims to curb online abuse in Pakistan. The app, known as Muavin, allows users to create groups of allies on Twitter and Facebook so that they may securely alert each other when they experience harassment.

New Research

• Media Use in the Middle East, 2017 – Northwestern University in Qatar
• We Cannot Be What We Cannot See – GenderIT.org

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A new German law set to take effect in October will impose fines on social networks if they fail to remove “manifestly unlawful” hate speech within 24 hours of being posted.

Under the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, called the NetzDG for short, companies have up to seven days to consider the removal of more ambiguous material.

Germany’s criminal code already defines hate speech, so the law does not create new measures or definitions. Instead, it forces companies to police hate speech or face astronomical fines. The law is unprecedented at the global level, and could have game-changing ripple effects worldwide.

The final draft of the law sets clear punishments for companies that fail to comply and places the burden of determining what messages, images or videos count as hate speech on companies themselves. It also compels companies to create stronger mechanisms for transparency around their processes for taking down content. But it does not prescribe a legal mechanism to appeal the removal of material.

There is consensus among the law’s critics that it will result in overcompliance — and thus, increased censorship — by companies eager to avoid fines.

In an interview with BBC, an unnamed Facebook spokesperson said that the law “would have the effect of transferring responsibility for complex legal decisions from public authorities to private companies.”

Even without the law in place, this responsibility already exists in many dimensions. Companies typically have full authority over users’ accounts and postings — when a user’s account is suspended or content is taken down, that person is often unable to access information about how the decision was made, or have direct contact with an actual company employee who can help to resolve disputes. The same is true for users who report abusive content or messages and receive no remedy.

On top of these concerns, there is consensus among the law’s critics that it will result in overcompliance — and thus, increased censorship — by companies eager to avoid fines.

UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression David Kaye said of the law:

“With these 24 hour and seven day deadlines – if you are a company you are going to want avoid fines and bad public branding of your platform….If there is a complaint about a post you are just going to take it down. What is in it for you to leave it up? I think the result is likely to be greater censorship.”

Rohingyas are being driven out of Myanmar — and off of Facebook

Image via Pixabay on Pexels.com and used with Creative Commons license.

Rohingya activists say that their Facebook posts documenting what the UN now says is the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya people in Myanmar are routinely being removed or their accounts suspended. This is particularly significant given the proliferation of anti-Rohingya propaganda online, and the mounting barriers to accessing accurate information about the conflict. These factors make Facebook and other social media platforms a critical space for spreading information about the conflict.

UAE court rules against Indian Facebook user who ‘insulted’ the Prophet

A UAE court upheld the sentence of an Indian migrant worker who was sentenced to one year in prison for posting comments on Facebook that allegedly “disrespected” and “insulted” the Prophet Mohammed. The man claimed that hackers had posted these messages, but this appeal was rejected.

Iranian developers petition Apple to keep their apps online

Photo by David Stanley on Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.

Iranian app developers are mounting a petition against Apple Inc for blocking their apps from the App Store. In a Change.org petition, a group of developers ask Apple CEO Tim Cook to “stop removing Iranian applications from [the] App Store and lift policies that are limiting our access to the products and services offered via Apple’s platforms.”

Multiple developers have reported that when they submit an app for review, they receive a message indicating that the App store “cannot host, distribute, or do business with apps or developers connected to certain U.S. embargoed countries.”

Apple began shutting down Iranian apps in August, the same month US President Trump signed a new sanctions bill into law, but it remains unclear whether the administration meant to impose new restrictions on technology companies. European companies lifted all sanctions against Iran after the negotiation of the 2016 nuclear agreement.

New Research

• La proteccion de datos personales en bases de datos publicas en Paraguay – Privacy International

The Netizen Report is produced by Global Voices Advocacy. Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Mohamed ElGohary, Pauline Ratze, Elizabeth Rivera and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

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Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang called for tougher controls on the internet, charging that “hostile” entities online had “undermined the prestige of the leaders of the party and the state, [bringing about] a negative impact on cadres, party members and people.”

Quang, who is a former minister of public security, also vowed to increase online surveillance in the name of protecting national security.

His comments come on the heels of a public consultation on Vietnam’s new draft Law on Cybersecurity, which was written by — and gives broad powers to — the Ministry of Public Security. The draft includes special provisions around “illegal cyber information” that “incites any mass gatherings that disturb security and order, and anti-government activities in cyberspace.” The law also sets new standards for “critical systems,” stipulating that operators of such systems must store system data on Vietnamese soil, but it does not offer a clear definition of “critical systems”.

Assuming it goes into effect, the Law on Cybersecurity will increase the government’s ability to control independent voices online, which are already heavily scrutinized and regularly silenced under Vietnam’s Penal Code.

In late July, multiple bloggers and human rights defenders were arrested and charged with “conducting activities aimed at attempting to overthrow the state” under Article 79 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, which carries a minimum sentence of 12 years in prison and a maximum sentence of capital punishment. Among those arrested were the founding members of the Brotherhood for Democracy, a network of activists involved in community building and mobilizing across Vietnam.

Prominent Vietnamese human rights lawyer and blogger Nguyen Van Dai was also charged under Article 79, on top of a previous charge under Penal Code Article 88 for allegedly “conducting propaganda against the state.”

A recipient of Human Rights Watch’s Hellman-Hammett Award in 2007, Dai has been detained for more than 600 days without trial. The new charges will allow police to extend their investigation period for an additional 20 months.

In India, public security threats bring network shutdowns

An internet blackout in the Darjeeling region of West Bengal, India, has been ongoing for two full months, following the deaths of citizens in a violent clash between security forces and separatists calling for an independent Gorkhaland. The situation has severely impacted daily life in the region, as businesses, students, and journalists grapple with the effects of the ban.

Meanwhile, in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, internet and mobile services were shut down for several days surrounding the announcement of the court verdict in a criminal case against Gurmeet Ram Rahim, the controversial leader of the hugely popular Dera Sacha Sauda sect. Ram Rahim was found guilty of rape by a special Criminal Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court, a decision that triggered outrage among his followers, who took to the streets in protests that in some cases led to clashes with police and other citizens. Authorities say that more than 30 people have been killed in the ensuing violence.

Indian Supreme Court says ‘privacy is a fundamental right’

In a historic decision, India’s Supreme Court ruled that the right to privacy is “intrinsic to [the] right to life.” The right to privacy will become part of India’s constitution, after the court considered multiple citizen petitions challenging the legalities of India’s national biometric digital ID system, Aadhaar. The court did not issue a judgment on the constitutionality of Aadhaar, but called on the government to create a robust scheme for data protection.

Mexican journalist assassinated after posting video online

Nine journalists have been killed in Mexico so far this year. Photo by iivangm on Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.

Mexican journalist Candido Rios was murdered on August 22 in a gun attack in Hueyapan de Ocampo, Veracruz, the ninth journalist to be assassinated in the country this year. Rios, known by his colleagues as “Pavuche,” was the founder of the weekly newspaper La Voz de Hueyapan. Shortly before his death, Rios posted a video making strong accusations against political figures of Hueyapan de Ocampo. In the video he said, “We do not use firearms. They kill us knowing that our weapons don’t shoot bullets. Our weapons shoot truth.”

Macedonian man fined 400 euros for insulting Erdogan

A Macedonian court applied the lese-majeste portion of its criminal code for the first time since its independence in 1992, punishing an anonymous person for insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Facebook. The person will have to pay a fine of 400 euros or serve a prison sentence.

Venezuela’s new assembly goes after hatred online

The newly inaugurated Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly is seeking to regulate the use of social media to combat hate crimes with a new draft law. The text of the law is not available online, but it allegedly punishes “hatred” on social media with prison sentences of up to 25 years.

Venezuela’s vilification of social media is nothing new. In 2010, the government (then led by Hugo Chavez) was already accusing online networks of inciting hatred and violence, and those who use them routinely risked arrest for political speech. In 2014, a draft law proposed by the governing party sought to classify online protest as “cyberterrorism.”

Cambodian tax authorities target non-state media

Cambodian authorities revoked the licenses of multiple outlets, including Moha Nokor FM 93.5, which carries Radio Free Asia and Voices of America, and threatened to close others allegedly due to violations of the country’s tax and licensing laws. The independent political program Voice of Democracy also experienced disruptions after the station was ordered to stop broadcasting. Media groups expressed concern that the closure orders were politically motivated, meant to silence critical voices in the lead-up to the 2018 general elections.

On the Chinese internet, real names will soon be the norm

Photo by Lei Han on Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.

The Cyberspace Administration of China announced a new regulation that requires netizens to register with their real names in order to post comments online, a decision that will significantly reduce space for discussion and place a burden on sites required to implement identity verification systems. The regulations appear to be part of a broader scheme to integrate a social credit system into Chinese internet platforms, which will rank individuals on the basis of their online speech and other factors. Comments deemed harmful or abusive will likely be a key factor in the calculations of the system. The commenting regulation will take effect on October 1.

Denmark approved surveillance tech sales during Arab uprisings

Denmark’s foreign ministry approved the sale of surveillance technology to Saudi Arabia and the UAE despite human rights concerns about how it would be used, according to the Danish foreign minister. Earlier this year, the BBC published an investigation into the Danish subsidiary of UK-based BAE Systems, which was selling surveillance technologies that may have been used to monitor and target individuals involved in the Arab uprisings of 2011-2012. The systems were sold to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Morocco and Algeria, and were used in Tunisia before the fall of Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali. The ministry said human rights considerations were “only one part” of their overall assessment of the business decision.

New Research

• Reckless V: Director of Mexican Anti-Corruption Group Targeted with NSO Group’s Spyware – Citizen Lab
• Have You Experienced Hate Speech on Facebook? We Want to Hear From You – ProPublica research initiative

The Netizen Report is produced by Global Voices Advocacy. Ellery Roberts Biddle, Mohamed ElGohary, Oiwan Lam, Don Le, Weiping Li, Elizabeth Rivera, and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

The post Netizen Report: Vietnam Targets ‘Illegal Cyber Information’ — and Political Speech appeared first on MediaShift.

This week, open technology and knowledge advocates around the world mourned the execution of Bassel Khartabil, an open web advocate and close friend of many in the Global Voices community. Bassel was reportedly sentenced to death in November 2015, at which point his whereabouts and condition became unknown. His wife Noura Ghazi learned this week that he was executed in 2015.

Khartabil spearheaded the open source technology movement in Syria, as an avid contributor to global projects like Creative Commons and Wikipedia, and as co-founder of the country’s first open technology lab in Damascus. To honor his country’s historic past, he worked with technologists and architects to virtually reconstruct the ancient city of Palmyra, in hopes of reviving its historical notoriety.

Like so many other peaceful technology developers and activists in Syria and beyond, Khartabil was accused of “harming state security.”  In a December 2012 military field court proceeding, he was interrogated by a judge, but to his family’s knowledge, never received further word on the status of his case.

In The Cost of Freedom: A Collective Inquiry, a book of essays and poems written by artists, thinkers and technologists who knew Bassel, his wife Noura Ghazi reflected on his spirit:

I’ve lived all my life dreaming of Freedom, and Bassel taught me to embrace it…. He has always shared his knowledge with everyone who asked, and has also taught many prisoners to read, write, and speak English. Bassel opened the door to technology for me, he taught me to use both computers and smartphones. He taught me the Internet. He also taught other prisoners to use computers theoretically, without having one in their hands.

Vietnamese blogger sentenced to nine years in prison

Photo of Vietnam by guido da rozze on Flickr and used with Creative Commons license.

In a one-day trial on July 25, the People’s Court in Vietnam’s Hà Nam province sentenced Trần Thị Nga to nine years in prison and five years of house arrest for “conducting propaganda against the State.” The 40-year-old Nga, also known by her pen name Thúy Nga, is a prominent advocate for migrants and land rights. She has also been documenting and campaigning against police brutality on her Facebook page and her YouTube channel. Nga has been frequently intimidated and physically attacked by police for her work.

Facebookers in Kashmir and Brunei pay high prices for ‘anti-national’ speech

A man in Kashmir was detained by police after allegedly writing “anti-national” posts on Facebook. Local residents complained to police about the posts, which appeared after India lost to Pakistan in an international cricket competition. An officer told the Kashmir Observer “We are running a check on whether this person has links with any terror outfit or not. We are also scanning his activities on social networking sites.”

A government employee in Brunei was charged with violating the Sedition Act after he complained on Facebook about new Halal certification regulations released by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Global Voices’ Mong Palatino explained that given Brunei’s stringent media regulations, issues related to civil liberties are not often discussed online. “That’s why the [online] conversation about Shahiran’s case provides a rare glimpse of how some netizens think about the situation in the country today,” he wrote.

Tech companies respond to state concerns over terrorism on social media

In an effort to more closely examine this connection, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism convened this week in San Francisco. Formed by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube, the Forum includes representatives from the tech industry, government, and NGOs to discuss and respond to critiques from the European Commission and other governments that tech companies need to do more to combat terrorism and hate speech on their platforms.

However, activists are criticizing the companies for failing to distinguish between hate speech and genuine criticism. Minority groups in the US report being disproportionately censored when they use social media to call out racism by other users, even when their posts repeat and criticize, word for word, the uncensored hateful posts sent to them by other users. Stacey Patton, a journalism professor at Morgan State University, told the Washington Post:

In the era of mass incarceration, you come into this digital space — this one space that seems safe — and then you get attacked by the trolls and put in Facebook jail. It totally contradicts Mr. Zuckerberg’s mission to create a public square.

Fake news flourishes on Free Basics

Image via Pixabay on Pexels.com and used with Creative Commons license.

New research by Global Voices shows that Free Basics, the “free” mobile version of Facebook, makes it difficult for users to assess the reliability of news articles. The app only allows users to read headlines and the captions of photos, stripping away valuable context that helps users determine the validity of the information in a news report. Given the proliferation of copycat websites spreading fake news, this makes it easier for Free Basics users to spread false information without realizing it.

Forget censorship — Tajikistan will monitor the web instead

Tajikistan’s parliament passed a set of amendments to the country’s criminal law that grant security services the right to monitor and control citizens’ online activities. This includes keeping detailed records of SMS and mobile messages, social media comments, and anyone who visits websites deemed “undesirable”, though it is unclear what sites would qualify. The law also criminalizes making comments that could damage someone’s personal honor or undermine national security, with a minimum punishment of two years in jail. The legislation marks a shift in approach for the Tajik government, away from using censorship to ban controversial websites and services, instead opting to monitor citizens’ activities across the web.

Palestinian Authority rushes through cybercrime bill

On June 24, Palestine passed a new law regulating online transactions, media websites and social networking sites. The law outlines a number of “cybercrimes” that can be punished by up to 15 years in prison or hard labor for life. While it lists a few cybercrimes that should be fought at all costs such as sextortion, fiscal fraud, and identity theft, it also gives the public prosecutor’s office unlimited powers to surveil Palestinian citizens, intercept their online communications, and arrest them for airing their opinions and political views online. The law was approved by President Mahmoud Abbas just two weeks later, with no opportunity for input from civil society.

Apple axes VPNs in China

Apple informed customers it will take down VPN services from its app store in China to bring it into compliance with the government’s crackdown on companies offering VPN services to the general public. However, Chinese users can still download and continue using such apps as ExpressVPN if their Apple accounts are registered in overseas app stores with a billing address outside of China.

New Research

• RECKLESS IV: Lawyers for Murdered Mexican Women’s Families Targeted with NSO Spyware – Citizen Lab

The Netizen Report is produced by Global Voices Advocacy. Ellery Roberts Biddle, Mohamed ElGohary, Leila Nachawati, Inji Pennu and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

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