Michael Edison Hayden was one of the first foreign journalists on the ground after the Nepalese earthquake in 2015. The “ground was still shaking” when he arrived, he said. He’s reported from the disputed territory between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, and gone door-to-door in Phoenix, searching for a mass killer. But, Hayden said, reporting on the far-right white identity movement in the U.S. has been his most traumatic professional experience.

The Newsweek reporter said he has become accustomed to anonymous threats – both veiled and explicit – and has weathered a deluge of menacing messages about his family, including an incident in which his parents’ home address was circulated on far-right chat rooms. Late last year, he saw an anonymous post in an online forum urging someone to throw a molotov cocktail through his parents’ window.

Conversations CPJ had with over a dozen editors, reporters and journalism security experts show that Hayden’s experience is not an outlier. The work takes a concerted emotional toll, and is replete with digital and at times, physical, threats – threats that are especially challenging for freelancers and newsrooms with young or green staff, and without dedicated security and digital experts.

An Expanded Beat

White supremacist movements have always been a force in American political life. But when a number of media-savvy, well-organized leaders of these groups explicitly embraced Donald Trump during the 2016 election, newsrooms began assigning more reporters to the story. The beat took on an added urgency last year, after a man taking part in a protest over the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, drove his car through a crowd of counter protesters, killing a young woman.

“It’s become more necessary to have reporters trained to be able to cover this movement,” Samhita Mukhopadhyay, who has written extensively about online harassment, told CPJ. Mukhopadhyay, the executive editor at Teen Vogue, said she is wary of the impact the beat has on reporters. “I’m always asking, who would be the best person to do something like that with the least amount of hard damage? Who has the experience to do something like that and come out unscathed?” she said. “It’s shocking the rate at which people covering this beat aren’t protecting themselves.”

Mukhopadhyay said she sees parallels between the treatment of reporters covering white nationalism and the broader experience of harassment that female writers face. Covering these activists brings a further risk, since reporters often must make direct contact with members of those movements.

A journalist at a major publication, who requested that their name be withheld, told CPJ that the leader of a white supremacist group they were profiling said he had obtained the address of the journalist’s parents. The journalist told CPJ they believe the leader was suggesting that he could turn “the scrutiny of him into scrutiny of me.” The journalist did not receive any reprisal for the reporting but said the threat remains a source of fear.

Coping with Threats, Fear and Guilt

Hayden had a similar experience when reporting on a prominent neo-Nazi figure, Andrew Auernheimer. After Newsweek published the article, followers of Auernheimer encouraged one another on social media to contact Hayden’s elderly parents, the reporter said. He then began to receive online threats that referred to his parents by name.

The journalist said he reported the threats to law enforcement, which took some measures to protect his family, but the incident affected him. “There’s a tremendous amount of guilt,” Hayden said. “By reporting on this, am I going to get someone in my family killed?”

Many legacy and large digital newsrooms have security staff to help prepare reporters but the pressures of digital journalism – compulsively sharing online and directly engaging with critics and readers – and a proliferation of freelancers can be at odds with what some security experts say are best practices.

Jason Reich

“A lot of young reporters haven’t thought about this until we sat them down,” Jason Reich, the global head of security at BuzzFeed, told CPJ. He said he advises reporters to draw a clear line between their personal and professional online presence. Personal information – Instagram posts from a favorite brunch place, family photos, or pictures of partners – should be kept private.

Amid a deluge of intimidating emails, direct messages and calls, a security team can also help a reporter distinguish between threats that are disturbing but unlikely to cross into physical harm, and those that appear to be more worrying.

Newsrooms should expect to be in touch with law enforcement and prepare accordingly, Reich said, adding, “How many editors know which precinct their offices sit in? I would suggest that newsrooms maintain a relationship with federal and local law enforcement – prepare before your reporters get threatened.”

‘A Unique Kind of Trauma’

A reporter covering the far-right beat can receive dozens – often hundreds – of emails, messages, and at times phone calls after publishing a story that rankles activists online. This can be especially brutal for women and minority writers. Hayden, who is of Arab descent, said he is often called the N-word.

Talia Lavin, who is Jewish, told CPJ that after she wrote a piece for The New Yorker about a neo-Nazi website struggling to find a domain to host it, her address was posted online and she began to receive messages from people fantasizing about hurting her. “They don’t see me as an equal, besides calling me a kike whore, they don’t need to be addressing me as a person,” said Lavin.

Accustomed to such harassment online, Lavin said she didn’t alert her editors, and instead tried to move on. But, she says, newsroom leaders should be aware of what the beat could entail. “They should be sensitive to the psychological impact of these stories,” she told CPJ. “It’s a unique kind of trauma.”

Several of the reporters with whom CPJ spoke said it is difficult to navigate the overlapping digital and physical worlds of these movements and the associated risks. Part of this includes being able to determine when threatening language is deployed with a degree of irony, and when it could be serious.

Some reporters feel as if the threats could leap off the internet at any moment. Jared Holt, a reporter for the progressive website Right Wing Watch, told CPJ that after writing a piece about the how white supremacists, or members of the so-called alt-right, infiltrated YouTube, he got the impression he was being followed outside his workplace. The address was previously circulated among anonymous accounts on Twitter in response to his other articles. But, after his YouTube piece, the online threats ratcheted up. Holt said he started to vary his route home after getting the impression that a man was following him. “Fortunately, these people are a lot nastier on the internet, than they are in real life,” he said.

Inciting Mobs on Twitter and Gab

Part of the problem, reporters told CPJ, is that while many in the far right see the media as a necessary megaphone, a story or reporter’s style can incite a mob on Twitter or the right-wing site Gab, a chat network similar to Twitter. “They are very attuned to how much hurt they can cause,” Jack Smith IV, who primarily covers white nationalism for Mic, told CPJ, adding, “There is nothing like the most sophisticated online hate operation the world has ever seen deciding like you are public enemy number one.”

This was the case with Andy Downing from the Columbus Alive, a local paper with a circulation of 35,000. When he and his colleague Joel Oliphint wrote a profile last year of Andrew Anglin, the owner of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer who grew up in a Columbus suburb, Anglin posted photos of the reporters and their families, including children, on his site, alongside images of their homes and vehicles. The two received more than a hundred emailed threats, in addition to physical mail, Downing said. Downing added that he told the local police, who started to keep a closer eye on the journalists’ homes.

“I didn’t sleep well, every sound you hear at night, you’re up like a shot,” Downing said.

Before publishing, Downing said he took steps to protect his privacy: he added two-step verification to his devices and set his social media to private. But, Downing said, he didn’t think to tell his family to do the same, and images from those accounts were eventually circulated, alongside property records that can be obtained via public records searches or by paying one of the many online data-brokers that sell such information.

Downing said he would still approach the published Anglin piece the same way but added that he’d think twice before writing a follow-up. “It is an effective deterrent,” he told CPJ. Reich, the security expert at BuzzFeed, said such reactions are understandable, adding, “I’ve seen reporters paralyzed with self-censorship.”

The Risk at Rallies

Journalists covering the movement’s rallies, which sometimes lead to clashes between white nationalists and anti-fascist (antifa) activists, face further risks. The Press Freedom Tracker (a project of which CPJ is a partner) has documented an assault by an antifa activist on a reporter attempting to take photos at a rally in Berkeley in August year. And reporters who have covered the rallies say the white nationalists sometimes use threatening or intimidating behavior. Luke O’Brien, who covers white nationalism for HuffPost, told CPJ, “Editors in Washington, D.C. and New York, they struggle I think to apprehend the degree of instability there is in these situations.”

Counterprotest at White Lives Matter march in Tennessee. Photo by Scott Olson / Getty Images

At a “White Lives Matter” event in Tennessee in the fall of 2017, O’Brien says a mostly uneventful rally quickly became dangerous. After he left the protest in a rental car with some antifa activists, a black GMC began following his car aggressively, swerving across double-yellow lines to stay on his tail, O’Brien said. At one point, one of O’Brien’s passengers pulled out a gun. The reporter, who published an account of the incident, said he was eventually able to lose the tail, but the moment helped him clarify the very real risks of his job.

Despite the dangers, editors and reporters told CPJ that there is increased pressure from newsroom leaders to cover white nationalism, in part, because readers find stories about extremists tantalizing, reporting can be done quickly online, and the coverage generates a lot of clicks. But Mukhopadhyay, the editor at Teen Vogue, says that outlets should resist the impulse to view far-right movements as a revenue strategy. “It downplays the importance of this historic moment, to say, that’s a really good click rate for us,” she told CPJ. “And I would like to think most newsrooms feel that way too.”

Avi Asher-Schapiro is CPJ’s U.S. correspondent. Avi is a former staffer at Vice News, International Business Times, and Tribune Media, and an independent investigative reporter who has published in outlets including The Atlantic, The Intercept, and the New York Times.

A version of this post originally appeared on CPJ’s website. The Committee to Protect Journalists is a New York-based, independent, non-profit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. You can learn more at CPJ.org or follow the CPJ on Twitter @pressfreedom or on Facebook here.

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The International Women’s Media Foundation in partnership with TrollBusters and Dr. Michelle Ferrier, and supported by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, is conducting a poll that will measure for the first time the scope and impact of online attacks in the United States on individual journalists and news they produce. The data collected in the study will be used to provide recommendations to both media organizations and journalists working in this environment to mitigate the impact of online harassment.

We are asking journalists for their help by participating in the survey. Only journalists can provide valuable feedback on key issues they face in today’s media landscape, be it on the ground or online. We are aiming for at least 1,000 responses, which will be completely anonymous. The survey takes about ten minutes to complete and will provide data that will inform future organizational policies and programs to support journalists to work more safely online. U.S.-based journalists can complete the survey by clicking here.

Misogyny Can Deter Expression

Recent Gallup Poll findings show a downward trend in Americans’ trust in the media over the past few decades, due mostly because of increasing perceptions of bias in news reporting. This distrust and animosity is playing out in the physical and digital world. There is ample anecdotal evidence suggesting that, like sexual harassment in the workplace, female journalists also bear the brunt of online attacks. The survey is intended to provide the first set of empirical data. In the case of women writers, misogynistic attacks can create a chilling effect that silences their voices online and create a deterrent to freedom of expression that ultimately erodes the freedom of the press. The effect is accentuated for minorities and those from the LGBTQI communities.

In the nearly 30 years of its existence, the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) has repeatedly heard of aggressions perpetrated against remarkably brave journalists in all corners of the world. These are often the first women in their newsrooms, the first to push into the ranks of leadership, and the first to be attacked just because of their gender. In the IWMF’s 2015 report “Violence and Harassment against Women in the News Media: A Global Picture,” two-thirds of those surveyed experienced acts of intimidation, threats and abuse, and one-fifth had experienced digital hacking or electronic monitoring.

We Need More Data

We are now seeing an increased demand for attention to digital security to reduce risks; the IWMF regularly hears anecdotes and testimonials of female journalists experiencing online harassment. However, at this point, there are few tools available to help journalists protect themselves online.

The data collected through this study will enable us to truly understand the size and scope of the problem, which is essential to mounting an effective response and supporting female journalists who live with this threat. The study will update the data on the scale and scope of online abuse against journalists. It will enable deeper insights into how online trolling – which is almost always violent or sexualized in nature when directed at women – is aimed at silencing and censoring female journalists.

While some news organizations have policies on digital security, many organizations do not yet have digital security training or policies in place to support the targets of such attacks. In addition, there is little legislation that adequately address digital harassment; in many cases, law enforcement agencies simply issue a report and take no further action. Digital harassment against women journalists in particular has kept some journalists from pursuing a story.

At the 2017 Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia, Spain, the IWMF, The Committee to Protect Journalists, and TrollBusters facilitated an active discussion on the threats and dangers faced online by women journalists. From this, and as a result of interviews with a range of media professionals around the world, the IWMF developed a list of next steps and guidelines for those interested in the issue of journalist’s online safety. We will be continuing the discussion at the upcoming 2018 Internet Freedom Festival, again next week in Valencia.

The impact of online harassment is the same as the impact of physical harassment, namely intimidation inhibits women journalists from doing their jobs. As one attendee stated at the 2017 conference, ending the impunity for crimes against journalists “should be a top priority of civil society, professional organizations, governments and multilateral institutions worldwide.”

What Needs to Happen

The industry can promote as many good practices and sanctions as possible, but journalist safety will not improve without focused attention on the issue from governments demonstrating a real commitment to journalist safety. Specifically, attendees recommended improving monitoring and tracking mechanisms for states’ reporting on journalist safety; pushing for greater transparency in the treatment of and value of the press; and focusing on diplomatic and political attention to the issue.

We need to create a holistic culture of safety, embedded within all levels of news organizations. As one attendee stated, “It’s not enough that a freelancer is aware, it’s not enough that an editor is aware, they both need to be aware. It’s a culture of safety. Every actor, every stakeholder, needs to be in line in making that a priority.”

For the last five years the IWMF has focused extensively on increased training and access to resources for journalists, including digital security training, mental health and trauma training and access to emergency assistance. We encourage news organizations to subsidize or cover hostile environments and first aid training (HEFAT) for all journalists.

There is a need for increased security protocols for journalists working in hostile environments or covering dangerous topics. Most journalists who are killed or injured while reporting are local journalists and may be covering crime, corruption or business practices; media professionals therefore recommend an increase in both physical and digital security training at the local level.

The IWMF encourages all professionals related to the media industry to be actively working to make journalists safer. For example, media organizations should conduct risk assessments (many of which have no cost) before dispatching journalists, whether staffed, freelancers or local; and should have standard processes, training and toolkits. Journalism schools should include safety training, especially digital safety; educate their students to expect and demand safe environments from their employers; and include courses on international laws and human rights standards, as well as national laws and the cultural, ethnic, religious, historical and political relations of the states or regions in which they may be reporting.

The media industry must take more responsibility for those who are involved but not directly related to them, including fixers and drivers. It is these individuals who are the front line in ensuring journalist safety when operating away from their home countries.

To ensure the best implementation of journalist safety measures, we need to collaborate and share results and best industry practices. Journalists need to participate by providing the data that will be used to support them.

Portions of this story were originally published in “New Challenges to Freedom of Expression: Counting Online Abuse of Female Journalists, OSCE.”

Elisa Lees Munoz is Executive Director of the International Women’s Media Foundation.

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Friday charged 13 Russians with meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Russians’ primary tool for meddling was social media, which they used to promote Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and denigrate Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

The indictment charges that the Russians violated U.S. laws that forbid foreigners from spending money to influence U.S. elections.

The charges, and the confirmation that the Russians had used social media in an attempt to influence the 2016 election, is likely to fuel the call for government regulation of Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets. When tweets and posts can hurt democracy, America should do something, right?

Wrong.

Late last year, Congress grilled Twitter, Facebook and Google about their role in allowing foreign interests to place ads and articles intended to divide the electorate and spread false information during the 2016 election.

People in and out of government are calling for federal regulation of social media.

Lay down some rules, the thinking goes, and we would be able to prevent the infestation – now alleged in Friday’s indictment – of bots and fake news from our news feeds and ads. Democracy would be saved – or, at least, foreign interference in our elections kept in check.

However, as someone who has studied and taught the First Amendment for decades, I would argue that if such regulations were enacted, the main victims would be not the purveyors of fake news, but our freedom of expression. In my view, the result would do far more damage to our democracy than any foreign misinformation campaign ever could.

Free speech being attacked from all sides

The First Amendment is under a lot of duress.

Arguably, it’s been that way since the Supreme Court’s “clear and present danger” decision in 1919, which spelled out when limits on free speech could be lawful. It not only held that the government had an obligation to stop someone from “falsely shouting fire in a theater,” but also opened the gates to all manner of government violations of the First Amendment injunction that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

These range from the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine,” which was upheld by the Supreme Court, that required broadcasters to present controversial issues in a balanced way (in the FCC’s view), to the FCC’s warning to radio broadcasters in 1971 not to play songs that glorified drug use, which actually had the effect of limiting the airplay of songs that critiqued drug culture.

Indeed, with the exception of Supreme Court decisions in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971 and the Communications Decency Act in 1997, the American government has systematically increased its control of media.

The situation has gotten much worse over the past year. President Trump has tweeted about withholding the licenses of NBC affiliates and lashed out at other media not to his liking.

Although Trump’s bluster about limiting and punishing media may be easy enough to deride, the fact that he is in the White House – and has the ability to appoint FCC commissioners – means his threats must be taken seriously.

Meanwhile, a theory of philosopher Karl Popper – the “paradox of tolerance” – is being widely cited as a justification for outlawing hate speech, notwithstanding the First Amendment. From his 1945 book “The Open Society and its Enemies,” it says that tolerance defeats itself when it permits intolerant speech.

I studied Popper extensively while researching my first book, an anthology of essays about Popper’s work. There are many aspects of Popper’s philosophy to admire, but I don’t believe the “paradox of tolerance” is among them.

To ban hate speech could turn our tolerant, democratic society into precisely the kind of state that hate speech is calling for: It could open up an opportunity for all sorts of speech to be dubbed “hate speech.”

A slippery slope

When regulating fake news on social media sites, there’s the danger of the same sort of phenomenon taking place. And it’s exactly why the well-meaning hue-and-cry that the government needs to intervene and forbid social media sites from disseminating fake news or allowing accounts that are actually bots is so dangerous.

Fake news is nothing new. Centuries ago, anti-Semitic publications spread rumors that Jews murdered Christian children and drank their blood on holidays.

Over the past two years, social media have increased the amplitude and reach of fake news. But there’s also been the ascension of a political figure – Trump – who has turned the tables by labeling any unwelcome news as “fake.”

Facebook ads linked to a Russian effort to disrupt the American political process are displayed as representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Nov. 1.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo)

The latter should be more than enough reason to reject calls for government censorship of fake news. After all, who’s to say a government that determines what’s “fake” won’t simply follow Trump’s lead, and suppress critical and truthful content under the guise that it’s fake?

Instead, social media networks could develop and implement algorithms for identifying and removing fake news by marshaling the same engines that spread fake news in the first place. These algorithms would not be administered by the government; rather, Facebook and other social media would be responsible.

Twitter has already made considerable progress flagging and removing accounts that spread Islamic State propaganda. There’s no reason to think that the same process can’t be applied to Russian bots seeking to inflame political discord and therein damage America’s political system.

Such self-regulation is in the best interest of these media companies. It would increase the confidence of their users in what they encounter online. It would also have the added benefit of keeping government regulators at bay.

In the end, the ultimate antidote to fake news and bots is the rationality of the human mind.

As John Milton famously urged in his “Areopagitica,” if you let truth and falsity fight it out in the marketplace of ideas, human rationality will most likely choose the truth. Regulating what can enter that marketplace could impair or destroy this process, by inadvertently keeping truth from public awareness.

Rational thinking’s ability to identify fake news is more than a Miltonian ideal: It’s been demonstrated in a carefully conducted 2015 experiment. When given a small financial incentive, the subjects were able to identify fake news as fake, even if the fake news supported the political views of the subjects.

Indeed, rationality is deeply implicit in democracy itself. You can’t have the latter without the former.

The key in combating fake news and kindred attacks on our body politic is to give our rationality maximum access to all information, including the truth. And in my view, this means resisting any attempts by government to limit the information that reaches us.

Paul Levinson is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on Nov. 28, 2017. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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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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Two digital rights NGOs are suing the Cameroonian government for imposing an internet shutdown on the country’s two Anglophone regions for more than three months in 2017, just before both regions planned to make a symbolic declaration of independence. Besides imposing the long-term internet shutdown (along with several shorter shutdowns of platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp), the government deployed security forces who clashed violently with Anglophone activists.

The two NGOs leading the lawsuit, Internet Sans Frontières and Access Now, aim to not only seek reparations for the shutdown, but also help counter the growing trend of using internet shutdowns for political gain.

Peter Micek, General Counsel of Access Now, said of the suit, “Cameroon’s courts have the opportunity to set a global precedent in favor of human rights and the rule of law. By declaring the government’s shutdown order a discriminatory, unnecessary, and disproportionate decree, issued under flawed procedures, the court can provide remedy to Cameroonians and light a path for victims of shutdowns elsewhere.”

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) estimates that internet shutdowns in 2017 cost the Cameroonian economy USD $1.67 million per day.

More recently, the Philippine National Telecommunications Commission approved a request by the National Police to shut down mobile services during the Dinagyang festival in the Visayas island region on January 27-28, 2018.

In January 2018 alone, similar network shutdowns were imposed during the Feast of the Black Nazarene, Sinulog, and Ati-atihan festivals, writes the Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA).

The FMA opposes network shutdowns because they violates the right of free expression and access to information, not to mention access to communication networks, which are vital to public safety. The non-profit group also notes there is little evidence that this tactic leads to greater security.

Hundreds arrested in Turkey for criticizing military operations on social media

Turkey’s Interior Ministry announced on January 29 that authorities had arrested and detained 311 people that it had identified as having made social media comments criticizing Turkish military efforts to push a Kurdish militia out of Syria’s northern Afrin region. Among the detainees, who authorities say were spreading “terrorist propaganda,” are journalists, activists and opposition politicians.

Thai woman faces criminal charges for sharing a BBC story on Facebook

Chanoknan Ruamsap, an anti-junta activist and member of the New Democracy Group, received a police summons on January 18 indicating that she was being charged under Thailand’s notoriously harsh lèse majesté or “royal insult” law for sharing a BBC article profiling King Vajiralongkorn. She had shared the article in December 2016. Upon reckoning with the maximum prison sentence that she could face — 15 years behind bars — the young woman elected to flee the country. She told independent news outlet Prachatai, “I had less than 30 minutes to decide whether to stay or to leave. What is difficult is the fact that I won’t return after this journey.”

Myanmar man faces police intimidation in real life, hate speech on Facebook

A Myanmar man is facing threats online after being arrested arbitrarily by the police and posting about it on Facebook. Police responded with a Facebook post in which they accused the man of fabricating the incident and revealed his name and religion, which is Islam. Given ethno-religious tensions in Myanmar, this left him vulnerable to further online abuse. Though the station has since deleted the post, hate speech comments directed at the man have become more prominent in recent days. Yangon Police say they will conduct an investigation in response.

#MeToo China

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

The #MeToo movement is catching on in China despite the censorship of phrases like “anti-sexual harassment” on social media platforms. Following the dismissal of prominent Beihang University professor Chen Xiaowu over multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, students and alumni from dozens of universities across China are advocating to establish official policies against sexual misconduct in universities (which are very uncommon in China) using the hashtag, #EveryoneIn. Though similar calls have been made in years past, no concrete policies have been introduced thus far.

St. Lucia launches nationwide free WiFi network

On January 24, the government of St. Lucia announced the installation phase of the Government Island-Wide Network—a USD $4 million project to establish public internet access across the Caribbean island. The network will provide free or low-cost wireless connection in public areas for both residents and visitors. The project is a partnership with the government of Taiwan, which is contributing USD $3.28 million in funding. The network is expected to be installed within three months.

WiFi spies in Buenos Aires’ subway system

A new investigative piece by Vice Argentina shows that while the public WiFi network of Buenos Aires’ subway system is indeed free of charge, it collects a barrage of personal data about the user, including the person’s name, home address, phone number, national ID number, geolocation data and — depending on their device settings — potentially much more, including photographs.

Strava is tracking fitness — and a whole lot more

The Strava app. Photo by Tracy A. Woodward/The Washington Post via Getty Images

When the company that owns the fitness tracker app Strava published a series of heat maps showing where its users were most active, it inadvertently revealed the locations of secret military bases. The company says that the data was made public because users allowed the app to capture this information, arguing that they ought to have “opted out” of tracking while in military zones. The Guardian also reported that the Strava website “allows users to drill down into the tracked runs to find the names of individuals”, raising additional personal privacy concerns.

Want more Twitter followers? You can buy them from Devumi.

A New York Times investigation into the obscure US-based company Devumi examines the dark underbelly of social media identity fraud. The firm sells bot accounts to anyone who wishes to “exert influence” in their social network and appears to have used the names, profile pictures, and other personal data of actual Twitter users to create more than 50K fraudulent accounts that it then sells for profit.

New Research

• Spying on a Budget: Inside a Phishing Operation with Targets in the Tibetan Community – The Citizen Lab
• Digital Deceit: The Technologies Behind Precision Propaganda on the Internet– New America Foundation
• Fit Leaking: When a fitbit blows your cover – John Scott-Railton

The post Netizen Report: The Rising Cost of Cameroon’s Internet Shutdowns appeared first on MediaShift.

Yemeni blogger and journalist Hisham Al-Omeisy was freed and reunited with his family in Yemen on January 15, after being detained for more than five months by Houthi forces. Security officers from the Houthi-controlled National Security Bureau arrested Al-Omeisy in August 2017 in the capital Sana’a.

With more than 35,000 Twitter followers, Al-Omeisy had been actively tweeting and blogging about the humanitarian crisis and violations committed by both warring parties. Prior to his arrest, he had analyzed and spoken about the conflict to international media including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, NPR and TRT World.

While in custody, he was unable to communicate with a lawyer or his wife and two young sons.

Though family and friends rejoice at his return, they worry for the many other Yemenis who have been subjected to enforced disappearance, either at the hands of either Houthis or the Saudi-led coalition fighting against them.

Reacting to Al-Omeisy’s release, fellow blogger and journalist Afrah Nasser tweeted:

As much as I’m overjoyed Hisham @omeisy was released, my heart aches for all the other forcibly disappeared young men by Houthis, who have no media profile, whose names we never know, whose mothers & sisters @ @abducteesmother plead everyday to release them.. #yemen

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) January 15, 2018

Pakistani journalist attacked after being harassed for social media criticism

Renowned Pakistani journalist and vocal social media user Taha Siddiqui was attacked in Islamabad by several armed men who attempted to abduct him. Although Siddiqui escaped with no serious injuries, the assailants took his laptop, mobile phone and passport. Siddiqui had been very critical of the military establishment on social media. In May 2017, he was summoned by the counter-terrorism wing of the civilian Federal Investigation Agency and asked to submit his laptop for forensic tests. Siddiqui filed a complaint against the agency, which was upheld by Islamabad High Court.

Philippines seeks to ban independent news site, berated by Duterte

Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte inspects the honour guards during the commemoration of the 121st death anniversary of the country’s national hero Jose Rizal. NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images

The Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission revoked the license to operate from Rappler, a news and social media site. The January 11 SEC decision asserts that Rappler is “violating the constitutional and statutory Foreign Equity Restriction in Mass Media” for receiving donations from the Omidyar Network, a foundation created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

While the Philippine Constitution limits mass media ownership and control to Filipino-owned corporation, it does not prohibit monetary donations from foreign foundations. Rappler is a 100 percent Filipino-owned and managed company.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte went after Rappler in his July 2017 State of the Nation address, charging that the site is “fully owned by Americans.”

The UAE is banning VoIP services — and a petition against the ban

After blocking multiple web services that offer free voice and video calling — including Skype, WhatsApp and Viber — UAE authorities are now stifling residents’ attempts to protest the ban. In late December 2017, Mostafa Amr mounted a petition asking the country’s telecommunications regulator, along with lead telecommunications providers Etisalat and Du, to reinstate VoIP service in the UAE. This week, authorities blocked the web-based platform Change.org, where the petition was hosted.

Written in the first person, the petition urges authorities to reconsider the block in order to help families stay connected through affordable communication services. Amr writes:

VoIP is crucial and needed for many families who are living in the United Arab Emirates and need to contact their loved ones who are living outside of the UAE. There are so many residents in the UAE who have family members and loved ones who live off-seas and an easy, and free way to contact them and keep in touch is via VoIP.

Egyptian media regulator goes after journalists on Facebook

The head of Egypt’s National Media Council said in a public statement that journalists should be liable for messages they post on Facebook. Makram Mohammed Ahmed said, “If Facebook is a publication platform for everyone, then anything published on it, whether insult or defamation, will be scrutinized. And if a complaints reached the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, we will look into it and issue a decision immediately.”

Visiting Chongqing? Watch where you look.

The southwestern city of Chongqing, China recently launched a pilot program for facial recognition technology called “Xue Liang”, meaning “Sharp Eyes”. The program combines video surveillance data collected from security cameras on the streets and residential compounds with China’s “Police Cloud”, which contains a vast store of personal data for all Chinese citizens including their identity numbers and machine-readable photographs.

Pakistani intelligence agency bashes Bitcoin

In an obligatory report to the Pakistani parliament — which was delayed by nearly a year — the Federal Investigation Agency asked the government to criminalize the use of Bitcoin and make this a punishable, offense under Pakistan’s 2016b Electronic Crimes Act.

Vladimir Putin has already won the March 2018 election (according to the internet)

Russian President Vladimir Putin raises a glass in Moscow on December 28,2017 in Moscow, Russia. (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

For about 20 minutes on January 15, a Russian-language Google search of “elections 2018″ resulted in a snapshot of the analogous Wikipedia article, which declared Vladimir Putin the winner of the yet-to-be-held election. This curious error came about thanks to Google’s search result technology, which sometimes features information from Wikipedia or other websites that are likely to answer the user’s query. In this case, Wikipedia’s Russian site had briefly listed Putin as the winner, an error that was resolved shortly after the news went viral on social media.

Amid protests, Psiphon reports record downloads from Iran

The censorship circumvention tool Psiphon has reported a 20-fold increase in users since protests erupted across Iran at the end of 2017. Hugely popular web platforms and apps including Telegram and Instagram have been periodically blocked since, leaving Iranians suddenly unable to communicate on these platforms without using special tools — like Psiphon — to get around the block. The app now serves eight to ten million daily users from Iran.

New Research

• Community networks: The internet by the people, for the people – Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil
• Voice, visibility and variety of viciousness: A Malaysian study on women’s lived realities on social media – Association for Progressive Communications

The post Netizen Report: Yemini Human Rights Blogger Hisham Al-Omeisy Freed appeared first on MediaShift.

A version of this post appeared on Medium.

Facebook announced on January 11 that it’s rolling out changes to the News Feed over the coming weeks to deprioritize posts from publishers, organizations, and businesses in favor of those from family and friends. In Facebook parlance, the News Feed will “prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people.”

In newsrooms large and small, the change immediately aroused angst — and anger — among social media managers who depend on the platform to reach and engage audiences, and those feelings are deepened by competing, confusing interpretations of Facebook-speak into real world strategies.

I spend a lot of time working with small publishers —especially niche and community publications with editorial teams of less than 15 people (and usually closer to one), and with audiences of less than 500,000. They’re scrambling, amid mounting frustration and a dash of despair, to figure out what this means for their day-to-day.

Here’s the good news: The planned changes will have less of an impact on the strategies of small publishers, and significant payoff awaits those embracing the fundamentals of engagement.

So if you’re a small publisher, here’s my advice: Don’t panic. You’ll adapt to the new algorithm. Here are a few tips on how to make the most of it.

Know why you’re posting

Publishers of all sizes have to justify their time on the platform, now more than ever. In years past, the fast and relatively easy traffic was enough. But as their time spent on the platform increased, their returns diminish with every algorithm update.

In response to this update, I’ve read reactions from small publishers that suggest they’ll be turning their backs on the platform. They intend to grow their newsletter lists, or are just fed up and will focus on creating great reporting for their websites. My friend Simon Galperin wrote a great post about how to meet the challenge of a post-Facebook world, and you should do everything he says.

But let’s be clear. No one, as more than one has flippantly suggested to me, is going to abandon Facebook because of this change. Facebook matters — a lot.

Ask yourself, how are you going to get new readers to that newsletter sign-up form, or to read your awesome reporting? Diversifying your distribution to other social media channels is one idea, as is partnerships or relying solely on search optimization. But the numbers just don’t bear out. If you give up on Facebook, you give up one of your most effective tools for finding new readers.

Facebook has two billion users — the largest social network by far. Take a look at this graph:

Facebook’s nearest competitor for audience is Youtube, which is three quarters its size, and not of much immediate use for those trying to build audiences for text-based content. Instagram is a third of Facebook’s size and doesn’t facilitate referral traffic for smaller accounts. Tumblr, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest and LinkedIn   are all a fraction of Facebook’s size, and with very specialized audiences.

So it follows that Facebook is currently the second largest source of referral traffic to content publishers, accounting for 24% of all such traffic even after a year of steep declines. Twitter, by comparison, accounts for just 3% of all referral traffic.

Even if the amount of traffic Facebook sends to websites next month is halved from where it is now — or even quartered — it would remain, by far, the second largest source of referral traffic to content publishers.

Facebook and Google are the most effective engines of new audience growth for media companies that the world has ever seen, and this algorithm update doesn’t change that.

What it does mean is that it’s time to stop caring about driving pageviews for your stories.

Instead, ask yourself what you want to get out of your time on Facebook. If it’s newsletter sign-ups, make sure they see a sign-up box when they arrive. If it’s to bring in new readers, emphasize sharing. If tightening up your relationship with readers is important, and you want to foster more loyalty, then entice readers to comment and contribute. If it’s to improve your journalism, use Facebook to involve readers in the process.

Chances are, you want to do all of these things — and you should. A comment or a share can be just as valuable as a newsletter sign-up; maybe more so. Incremental signs of engagement can build a much more meaningful relationship over time than, say, getting a first-time visitor to subscribe to your newsletter.

Regardless of what you prioritize, Facebook’s time as an easy source of pageviews is over. But for small publishers, its value in building a community of readers that can support your journalism remains quite strong.

Now some tips on how to get there…

Emphasize sharing

• On-site share buttons: Organic sharing between users is going to be the most valuable way your content gets to new readers. You should have share buttons on your posts. Are they clear and visible, especially on mobile? Do they appear when a user is most likely to share, such as when they finish the article? Are they surrounded by a bunch of clutter, or do they stand out? Here’s an example from one of my favorite hyperlocals, Racine County Eye:

• Remind readers to share. This can be on-site and on Facebook, though saying “Share this” on Facebook could get flagged as engagement bait. Use custom language that reinforces why users would want to share: to help get the word out about things important to them; to be known in their friends circle as the best-informed person, etc.
• Embrace novel sharing features. Use in-post widgets that enhance sharing. If you use WordPress, there are plugins like this one that make pull quotes shareable (Note: I’m not recommending any specific plugin, and don’t vouch for any particular one. This is just an example; search the plugin repository and read reviews before installing). You can also seek to meme-ify your news — for important stories, try including an image that has a gripping visual and some bullet points that summarize the story.
• Create an influencer circle. I’m immediately suspicious of the term “influencer,” but it’s useful shorthand here. If you’re a small publisher, you probably know a few people in your audience who lots of other people in your audience are connected to, and who have some sway over community conversations. If you’re a local news publisher, they could be the heads of civic associations, business owners, or Little League dads. When you’re working on a story you think will have impact, use Facebook messenger or e-mail and ask them to share it. You can go a step further and create a sub-community for them via a group chat, and reward them with small get togethers and free pizza. If they don’t know each other already, they’ll likely appreciate meeting other people involved in their community, and value your publication for making the connection.
• Here are some great tips from RJI’s Trusting News to deploy your fans for success on social networks.

Conversation is key

Conversation is definitely the harder part of this formula, but it also stands to be the most rewarding — on Facebook, and in your journalism.

• Recognize the value of comments. First and foremost, you need to recognize the value of conversation. When the new Facebook changes were announced, one publisher I know said something along the lines of “Great, so they want us to spend more time gabbing and less time reporting.” And as someone who has managed some toxic discussions online, I definitely understand the instinct to run in the opposite direction. But investing the time and effort into creating healthy dialogue with your community will help you in the new Facebook algorithm, and will surface new stories and additional insights that bring more context and meaning to your work. It’s much easier said than done, and you do have to balance it with your need to report other news — but what’s the point of publishing news if you’re not ensuring that the news you publish makes an impact?
• Learn best practices for civil discussions. The hardest part of managing conversations online is preventing it from becoming a dumpster fire. Fostering a quality comment section on Facebook, your website, or anywhere else online is a blog post in itself (or many), but here are a few things to get you started. Read up on Facebook’s moderation tools, including how to blacklist words. Understand how trolls work, and how to frame conversations in a way that discourages trolling. Read these best practices for journalists.

Here are a few tips on how to create conversations specifically for Facebook, and what signals the platform is looking to promote.

• Get readers involved before you report. If you’re working on a story, or even just thinking about a topic area, use Facebook to get your community involved before you begin writing. Ask them for expertise and insight. It’s a good way to gauge interest, and it’s an important way to bring transparency to your work. If you get a good conversation going, it also ensures a healthy audience once you finally do publish the story. You can drop the final link into the comment thread, and one of Facebook’s highly addictive notifications will go out to users.
• Reward commenters. In addition to citing commenters in your articles if they’ve helped you report the story, think about featuring thoughtful comments with a “Comment of the day/week” post and let them brag. Bring thoughtful commenters into your influencer circle, or create a special community for highly engaged commenters, notifying them as soon as posts go up and asking them to get the discussion going.
• Put a premium on long comments. Facebook’s new algorithm update won’t just weight the volume of comments, it’s going to try and determine the quality of the comment. For better or worse, it’s using comment length as a signal of high quality. We’ll save discussion of the flaws in that approach for another day. Still, keep in mind that probing your readers for longer, more thoughtful comments — and replies to them — is going to help expand your organic reach.
• Use the status text responsibly. The easiest way to get a conversation going is to post text that reacts to the content, and stokes emotions. That will work, but will likely lead to a dumpster fire. Instead, frame the conversation you want to have by asking questions.
• Post the first comment. It’s not clear yet if Facebook is going to count the publisher’s comments any differently from other users’ when ranking it for the algorithm. But regardless, this could be a great tool for steering the conversation to quality. If you use your status text to ask a question, try using the first comment to add more context from the article so the conversation is better informed. Speak respectfully and thoughtfully to set the tone of the conversation.
• Respond promptly, and ask follow ups. The speed of your response matters. It shows you’re an engaged presence, which both Facebook and your audience will reward. If you have a very active comment thread you don’t need to respond to everything — especially those spewing craziness; just hide those — but you do want to reward those who are contributing constructively by thanking them and asking follow ups. Always be thinking of this as a tool to generate story ideas.

Post only your best stuff

The small publishers that could be most affected by the algorithm change are those that simply post links to Facebook, usually using a service to automate the process. This minimalist strategy worked very well for a number of years. Even for bare links, the Facebook faucet was on and traffic flowed freely.

Since at least 2014, that tactic has had declining returns. It has still worked to some degree because local and niche communities are highly engaged. Posts that resonated were widely shared; posts that didn’t would sit without engagement. There was no real relationship between the two.

That’s changing. In his post about the announcement, Facebook’s head of News Feed Adam Mosseri said, “Pages making posts that people generally don’t react to or comment on could see the biggest decreases in distribution.”

It’s not immediately clear, but it seems Facebook will take into account a Page’s level of engagement across all posts when determining a post’s priority in the news feed. That means posts that don’t get any interactions, like those meeting announcements or calendar roundups, will begin dragging down distribution of your important investigation into the county’s finances.

Post only your best stuff, and put the time into making them successful discussions.

Beware the Facebook Groups dilemma

A lot of people have responded to the announcement by suggesting that Facebook Groups will be the new focus of publishers. I’ve also told publishers that they should start a group. But there are caveats here for the small publisher.

Groups will not replace your Page. If you think you’re going to create a group around your publication and all of your Facebook followers will go there to begin getting your links, you’re wrong.

Groups take a lot of work to build membership and get people involved. You can’t simply post links to your site; their purpose has to be a little more altruistic than that.

Moreover, the best groups are highly specific. If you’re a local publisher in GreatTown, USA, you might need groups like GreatTown Parents, GreatTown Cat Lovers, GreatTown GreatIdeas… and then invest time to manage all of those in ways that speak to them authentically. It will be a slog.

And then there’s another important caveat: One day when there’s too many groups with too many notices annoying too many readers…well, Facebook will be Facebook and will deprioritize Groups.

Groups are a great strategy for publishers who love spending time interacting on Facebook, and who also want to break up their audiences into specific, interest-based segments. But it’s not for everybody, and you should have a plan going into it.

The post How Small Publishers Can Survive and Thrive After Facebook’s News Feed Change 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.

The post Netizen Report: Fearful of ‘Fake News,’ Lawmakers in France, Brazil Want to Limit Free Speech Before Elections appeared first on MediaShift.

Amid the public discourse of fake news and President Trump’s announcement via Twitter about his planned “fake news” awards ceremony, CPJ is recognizing world leaders who have gone out of their way to attack the press and undermine the norms that support freedom of the media. From an unparalleled fear of their critics and the truth, to a relentless commitment to censorship, these five leaders and the runner-ups in their categories have gone above and beyond to silence critical voices and weaken democracy.

Most Thin-skinned

Winner: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey

Turkish authorities have repeatedly charged journalists, news outlets, and social media users for insulting Erdoğan, insulting other Turkish leaders, and insulting “Turkishness” in general. Over the course of 2016, the Turkish judicial system handled 46,193 cases of “insulting the president” or “insulting the Turkish nation, the Republic of Turkey, the parliament, the government, or the institutions of the judiciary,” the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet reported in June 2017, citing figures from the Justice Ministry.

Runner-Up: President Donald Trump, United States

In response to media coverage critical of him, Trump has threatened to “open-up” U.S. libel laws, sue news outlets, and subject their broadcast licenses to review. He regularly attacks outlets and individual journalists on Twitter and in speeches, calling them “sad,” “failing,” or “garbage.” Since declaring his presidential candidacy in 2015, Trump has posted about 1,000 tweets critical of the press. CPJ research shows that when public figures and political leaders lob insults at the media, they encourage self-censorship and expose journalists to unnecessary risk.

Most Outrageous Use of Terror Laws Against the Press

Winner: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey

Turkey is the world’s worst jailer of journalists, with at least 73 behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census on December 1. Every journalist jailed for their work in Turkey is under investigation for, or charged with, anti-state crimes — in most cases for belonging to, aiding, or making propaganda for an alleged terrorist organization.

Runner-Up: President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt

Of at least 20 journalists jailed in Egypt at the time of CPJ’s latest prison census, 18 were charged with, or convicted of, anti-state crimes such as aiding or inciting terrorism or belonging to banned groups.

In 2017, Sisi’s government passed a new anti-terrorism law that furthered its crackdown on the press by, among other things, enabling authorities to put journalists acquitted of terrorism-related charges on a watch list that restricts their financial and other rights, according to news reports.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi on September 5, 2017 in Xiamen, Fujian Province of China. (Du Yang/CHINA NEWS SERVICE/VCG via Getty Images)

Tightest Grip on Media*

Winner: President Xi Jinping, China

Beijing, under the increasingly iron grip of Xi, uses a combination of traditional censorship and internet controls to keep the news media in line. China is consistently one of the world’s worst jailers of the press; in 2017 it was the second worst globally, with at least 41 journalists in prison. Most traditional media is controlled by the government, and journalists risk losing their jobs or being banned from traveling if they push the boundaries of censorship directives at their news outlets or in personal blogs. Reporters’ sources and international journalists are also harassed and obstructed. Internet controls include the Great Firewall, human and automated censors, and pressure on technology companies to comply.

Runner-Up: President Vladimir Putin, Russia

Under Putin, independent media has been all but eradicated as journalists experience threats of violence or imprisonment and other types of harassment. His government recently ordered international news outlets including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to register as foreign agents (in response to a parallel move by the U.S.), and blocked their journalists from entering Parliament. Russian authorities have tried with varying success to emulate the Chinese model of internet censorship.

*This category excludes countries with no independent media, such as North Korea and Eritrea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin raises a glass in Moscow on December 28,2017 in Moscow, Russia. (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

Biggest Backslider in Press Freedom

Winner: State Counselor and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar

CPJ listed Myanmar in 2015 as the ninth most censored country worldwide, but after Suu Kyi’s party took power in 2016, the last five journalists in jail were pardoned and hopes for media freedom were high. However, most of the legal structure that has long restricted the press remains in place and journalists continue to be imprisoned. Security officials obstruct and harass journalists trying to cover what the U.N. has termed “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by authorities in the country’s northern Rakhine State. On December 12, two Reuters reporters covering the crisis were arrested on suspicion of violating the Official Secrets Act and held incommunicado for two weeks before being allowed to see their lawyer and families. Reuters reported that if convicted, the pair could face up to 14 years in prison.

Runner-Up: President Andrzej Duda, Poland

Under Duda, the conservative-nationalist government led by the Law and Justice party has dramatically changed the reputation of Poland, which for decades was a symbol of democracy for its peaceful journey from communism to European Union membership. The independent media was a pillar of that transition. More recently, the government has taken direct control of public media and announced plans to change regulations in a way that would force foreign owners of news outlets to give up their majority stakes, according to news reports. Government offices have canceled subscriptions to pro-opposition news outlets, while state-owned companies redirected advertising money to friendly media, according to U.S. watchdog Freedom House. In December, Poland’s media regulator levied a 1.5 million zloty ($415,000) fine on leading news broadcaster TVN24 in relation to its coverage of protests in parliament in 2016, according to news reports which cited critics as saying the government is trying to warn journalists to self-censor. The government’s parallel moves to reform the judiciary prompted the European Commission in December to take the unprecedented step of launching a process intended to suspend the country’s voting rights in the European Union.

Overall Achievement in Undermining Global Press Freedom

A version of this post originally appeared on CPJ’s website. The Committee to Protect Journalists is a New York-based, independent, non-profit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. You can learn more at CPJ.org or follow the CPJ on Twitter @pressfreedom or on Facebook here.

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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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