Corporate responsibility: How far will tech firms go in helping repressive regimes? (original) (raw)

Big Tech’s Partnership with Authoritarianism

Middle East Report, 2023

The problem of digital repression and digital authoritarianism is often framed as something done exclusively by states like China, Iran or Russia. But this framing is a misconception. Authoritarian regimes across the world and US-based Big Tech converge in transnational repression through a combination of content control, surveillance and data collection. Driven by profits, Big Tech platforms often selectively moderate content, amplifying certain narratives while suppressing others based on corporate interests or geopolitical alignments. These tech giants, with their vast reach and influence, exceed or complement the power of states, enabling a broader scope for repression.

Negotiating Boundaries between Control and Dissent: Free Speech, Business, and Repressitarian Governments

Increases in access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) have given citizens new tools to organize politically. This development has particular importance for those living under authoritarian regimes that rely on the repression of free speech to maintain power. These repressitarian elites resort to a variety of means to establish (or re-establish) control over citizen online communications. However, it is counterproductive for countries to crack down too tightly on Internet expression, because such actions can create negative economic consequences for countries hoping to engage in the 21st century’s wired economy. The friction between online free expression and government repression is playing out with close interest of Western governments, human rights advocates, and citizens because it places many technology companies in the difficult position of either facilitating such government repression or finding themselves unable to compete in those markets. This chapter ex...

When Do Authoritarian Regimes Use Digital Technologies for Covert Repression? A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Politico-Economic Conditions

Swiss Political Science Rerview, 2024

Although autocracies increasingly learn how to integrate digital technologies into their covert repression toolbox, it remains unclear under which conditions they succeed in doing so. While some technologically developed autocra- cies seldom use covert repression, other technologically underdeveloped autocracies apply significantly more cov- ert repression. This begs the question: what are the nec- essary and sufficient conditions involving strong digital uptake leading to high levels of covert repression? The paper uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to 83 non-democratic regimes and leverages the 2021 digi- tal repression dataset to answer this question. The findings show that digital uptake interacts with a pre-existing history of overt repression. In-depth case illustrations of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan elucidate this argument. The findings also show two other “non-digital” pathways to high levels of covert repression, providing foundations for future evidence-based case selection investigating covert repression patterns in autocracies.

Illiberal and Authoritarian Practices in the Digital Sphere Prologue

International Journal of Communication, 2018

Concern about how digital communication technologies contribute to a decline of democracy and the rise of authoritarian tendencies abounds in academic and public debate. In this conceptual contribution-which connects insights from new media studies, critical security studies, human rights law, and authoritarianism research-we argue that the threats citizens may be exposed to in a digitally networked world can be grouped into three categories: (1) arbitrary surveillance, (2) secrecy and disinformation, and (3) violation of freedom of expression. We introduce the twin concepts of digital illiberal and authoritarian practices to better identify and disaggregate how such threats can be produced and diffused in transnational and multi-actor configurations. Illiberal practices, we argue, infringe on the autonomy and dignity of the person, and they are a human rights problem. Authoritarian practices sabotage accountability and thereby threaten democratic processes. We use the example of the U.S. National Security Agency's massive secret data-gathering program to illustrate both what constitutes a practice and the distinctions as well as the connections between illiberal and authoritarian practices in the digital sphere.

Cyber-Dissent and Power: Negotiating Online Boundaries in Repressitarian Regimes

International Journal of Information …, 2012

The expansion of access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) has provided new political organizing tools for citizens -a development of particular importance for individuals living under authoritarian regimes that rely on the repression of free speech to maintain power. Such repressitarian elites exert control over citizen online communications, but it is economically counterproductive for countries hoping to engage in the 21 st century's wired economy to crack down tightly on Internet. This article examines the struggles between maintaining openness and crackdowns in Iran, Egypt, China, and Singapore. These four countries are known to exert severe controls over free expression. However, Iran and Egypt have seen the rise of organized opposition movements despite the controls on media expression, whereas China and Singapore offer useful case studies on the economic dimensions of the balance between participating in the globally networked society and controlling citizen expression. . The Internet and the visibility of oppression in non-democratic states:

Beyond Big Brother: How to Study Tech-Driven Authoritarianism With Restricted Access to State Institutions

With the tremendous advancements in Internet, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence, the power and potential of digital technologies has a special appeal to political rulers. How can qualitative researchers explore tech-driven authoritarianism when they have limited access to state institutions? This article addresses this question by arguing for a wider and more nuanced understanding of tech-driven authoritarianism as a statemarket complex mediating the political application of digital technologies. Based on my own research on China's Internet surveillance, I find that the engagement of the private sector, especially technology companies, in authoritarian control creates new opportunities for qualitative researchers to study state power in non-state fields. By reflecting on my experience of field-site choice, gaining access, and informant recruitment, I discuss how thorough preparation in both theory and fieldwork approaches help qualitative investigators develop creative ways of collecting information on tech-driven authoritarianism.

Platform Surveillance and Resistance in Iran and Russia: The Case of Telegram

Surveillance & Society , 2019

Telegram messenger, created by an exiled Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, brands itself as a non-mainstream and non-Western guarantor of privacy in messaging. This paper offers an in-depth analysis of the challenges faced by the platform in Iran, with 59.5% of the population using its services, and in Russia, where Telegram is popular among the urban dissent. Both governments demanded access to the platform's encrypted content and, with Durov's refusal, took measures to ban it. Relying on the concept of surveillant assemblage (Haggerty and Ericson 2000), this paper portrays how authoritarian states disrupt, block, and police platforms that do not comply with their intrusive surveillance. Additionally, we consider the tools and actors that make up internet control assemblages as well as the resistance assemblages that take shape in response to such control.

Open networks, closed regimes: The impact of the Internet on authoritarian rule

2003

Many hope that information technology will generate new opportunities for global communications, breaking down national barriers even in dictatorial regimes with minimal freedom of the press. Kalathil and Boas provide a path-breaking and thoughtful analysis of this issue. A fascinating study, this should be widely read by all concerned with understanding and promoting democratization, regime change, and new information technology." -Pippa Norris, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University "Through a country-by-country analysis, Kalathil and Boas shed light on practices formerly known only by anecdote, and their findings chip away at the apocryphal notion that going digital necessarily means going democratic. Their work answers a number of important questions, and frames a worthy challenge to those who wish to deploy technology for the cause of political openness."