Freedom Trends and Assumptions Net Freedom: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media Cyber Dissidents: Global Successes and Challenges George W. Bush Institute, Dallas, Texas April 19, 2010

1. Freedom Trends and Assumptions
Cyber Dissidents: Global Successes and Challenges
George W. Bush Institute
Dallas, Texas
April 19, 2010

2. FREEDOM TRENDS AND ASSUMPTIONS
• Post-Cold War period brings greater freedom
• Open, democratic standards dominant
• Onset of “Freedom Recession”

3. TESTING THE ASSUMPTIONS
• Economic Growth = Greater Freedom
• Globalization = Greater Freedom
• Internet = Greater Freedom

4. NEW ASSUMPTIONS
• Controlling everything is neither
essential, nor desirable
• Censorship can be “commercialized”
• Authoritarianism 2.0 and the Internet

5. NET FREEDOM:
A Global Assessment of Internet
and Digital Media
Cyber Dissidents: Global Successes and Challenges
George W. Bush Institute
Dallas, Texas
April 19, 2010

6. What is Net Freedom?
• What techniques are used to
control and censor online
content?
• What are the main threats to
internet and digital media
freedom?
• What are the positive trends
and uses of these
technologies?

7. HOW DO WE MEASURE NET FREEDOM
• Obstacles to Access
• Limits on Content
• Violations of User Rights

9. WHAT WE FOUND:

10. MORE NET FREEDOM THAN PRESS FREEDOM
• Every country
except the UK
scored better on
FOTN than
Freedom of the
Press
• Differences most
noticeable in
partially free
countries.

11. GROWING CIVIC ACTIVISM
Bloggers and other internet
users are using digital media
in creative ways to mobilize:
• Facebook activists in Egypt
• Use of Twitter for political
change in Moldova
• Text messages report
election violence in Kenya
• “Sneakernets” in Cuba

12. BUT ALSO…GROWING THREATS
• Conditions deteriorated
in many countries over
the review period.
• 11 of the 15 countries
censored some political
content.
• Six of the 15 countries
sentenced a blogger or
online journalist to
prison.
• Five introduced new
internet-restricting
legislation.

13. LEGAL REPERCUSSIONS AND VIOLENCE
• Legal repercussions:
– Use of general media legislation
against online activities as well
as development of internet-
specific legislation
– “Libel Tourism” a danger in the
UK
• Extra-legal harassment and
violence:
– Detentions, intimidation, torture
– Technical violence: hacking,
DDoS attacks, Cyber espionage
• Surveillance and
infringements on privacy in a
wide range of environments

14. RESTRICTING ACCESS TO TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS
• Seven of the 15 countries
studied had blocked „Web 2.0‟
applications such as:
– Facebook
– YouTube
– Twitter
– Flickr
• Iran restricts broadband and
Mobile SMS

15. CENSORSHIP
• Some censorship in
every country studied,
though not always
political/social content.
• Wide range of techniques for removing content:
– Technical filtering
– Manual removal because of government directives,
judicial orders, intimidation
• China‟s apparatus is the most sophisticated,
multi-layered, and includes censored SMS.
• Significant lack of transparency in censorship
procedures, including in some democracies.

16. WHAT CENSORSHIP LOOKS LIKE
We compared the results from three
searches using Google, a top search
engine in the U.S. with results from
Baidu, the top search engine in
China.
The search terms were:
•Freedom House
•FalunDafa
•Tiananmen Square

17. FREEDOM HOUSE

18. FALUNDAFA

19. TIANANMEN SQUARE

20. GOING THE DISTANCE FOR ACCESS
Would you travel over 600 miles just to check your email?
Residents in the Xinjiang province of China faced crippling
restrictions of email, SMS, and the Internet after the
government clamped down on civil unrest in the area.
Business owners and residents of Xinjiang were forced to
travel 24 hours by car and hundreds of miles by train and
airplane to reach the nearest internet café.

21. RECOMMENDATIONS
• Foresight and creativity needed from
democratic countries to establish policies
to protect free expression online.
• Legislation such as GOFA would help
prevention of technology transfer to
repressive regimes.
• Funding for research and monitoring at
both international and national levels.
• Support for in-country activists.

22. Freedom House is an independent watchdog organization that supports the
expansion of freedom around the world. Freedom House supports democratic
change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights.
For more information visit:
www.freedomhouse.org
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