Wael Abbas, a human rights activist centered on police brutality in Egypt has been under arrest since May on expenses of spreading faux information and “misusing social media.” Andy Corridor, a labor rights researcher, has been combating expenses underneath Thailand’s laptop crime legal guidelines due to a report printed on-line that recognized abuses of migrant employees.
You wouldn’t usually point out Egypt and Thailand in the identical breath. However each international locations underwent navy coups throughout the final 5 years, and even among the many many oppressive regimes on this planet, they’ll additional lengths at this time to prosecute free speech.
Abbas and Corridor are simply two examples of a whole bunch of latest prosecutions. In 2017 alone, Egyptian safety forces arrested at least 240 people based mostly on on-line posts. Three years after the coup, Thai authorities had charged greater than 105 people just for posting comments deemed offensive to the monarchy.
To be clear, neither nation has ever been a bastion of free speech. With one exception, Thailand has been ranked “not free” yearly that political-rights nonprofit Freedom Home has printed its Freedom on the Net Report. Egypt’s score has steadily declined for the reason that peak of the Arab Spring, going from “partly free” to “not free” within the final three years.
Sanja Kelly has been with Freedom Home for 14 years and has headed its Web Freedom division since 2010. She tells me that what’s particularly alarming is the extent to which authorities in each Egypt and Thailand have gone to silence on-line dissent. Activists and dissidents could effectively anticipate persecution world wide, however at this time housewives, college students and even vacationers in Egypt and Thailand have turn into the goal of prosecutions for as little as posting a video or responding to a personal message on social media.
Over the final 5 years each Egypt and Thailand have skilled an unprecedented crackdown on web freedom. “In 2015, the Egyptian authorities blocked solely two web sites. At this time, they’re blocking over 500,” Kelly defined. “The scenario in Egypt and Thailand is now among the many most repressive on this planet.”
Egypt
Since El-Sisi seized energy in 2013 in a coup, the Egyptian authorities has taken drastic steps to clamp down on-line. In its newest transfer, the federal government handed a legislation in September that makes any social media consumer with greater than 5,000 followers subject to regulation as a publisher. So now in Egypt, in case you have greater than 5,000 Twitter followers, for instance, you’re topic to the identical rules that the New York Occasions has on what it publishes.
It wasn’t all the time like this. Again in 2011, Fb and Twitter had been hailed as drivers behind the Arab Spring. The protests that resulted led to the toppling of Hosni Mubarak who had dominated the nation for almost 30 years. At their peak, many journalists even began calling the protests the “Twitter uprising” and the “Fb revolution.”
Kelly tells me that freedom on the web in Egypt has been getting progressively worse since Sisi seized energy. Even underneath Mubarak, the authorities weren’t as involved with policing speech on the web. However that has utterly modified since 2013.
Kelly provides that the measures Egyptian authorities handed this 12 months had been meant to tighten their grip on social media and web use even additional. The end result has been an increasing number of Egyptians being arrested, with the authorities utilizing a mix of legal guidelines to convey expenses.
Thailand
Thailand has lengthy been identified for its strict software of its lèse majesté laws underneath which any criticism of the Thai king or his household can lead to years in jail. However for the reason that 2014 navy coup, the enforcement of those legal guidelines has gone into overdrive. The ruling navy junta in Thailand has additionally beefed up laptop crimes and defamation legal guidelines to make all of it however inconceivable to precise dissent on-line.
Based on Human Rights Watch, for the reason that coup in 2014, the junta has ramped up arrests under the 2007 Computer-Related Crime Act (CCA). Final 12 months, the navy amplified the 2007 legislation by offering grounds for the federal government to prosecute something they designate as “false,” “partially false,” or “distorted” info, a dedication that the federal government itself will get to make.
Even criticism of the modifications to the legislation itself had been outlawed, with the Thai Army Cyber Center warning that posting or sharing on-line commentary that criticizes the legislation might be thought of false info and end in prosecution.
Kelly tells me that, whereas the CCA and lèse majesté legal guidelines have lengthy been used to stifle on-line dissent, the amendments final 12 months granted Thai authorities even broader powers. They closed down loopholes in earlier variations of the legislation, together with permitting authorities to jail folks for vital messages they obtain on their cellphone even when they don’t share them. Which means that should you get a Fb message in Thailand at this time criticizing the royal household, then you’re underneath an obligation to delete the message or face prosecution.
Andy Corridor discovered himself in the midst of this development in direction of heavier handed enforcement. A labor rights activist, Corridor performed analysis for a report for the group Finnwatch that discovered that the Pure Fruit Firm, Thailand’s largest producer of pineapples, mistreated its employees. Corridor then confronted felony prosecution underneath the CCA and cyber defamation legal guidelines for the report’s publication on-line and for an interview he later gave to Al-Jazeera concerning the report.
Talking to me from an undisclosed location, Corridor tells me he has spent greater than $100,000 defending the felony expenses towards him — primarily fundraised from supporters — and the higher a part of the final 5 years coping with the costs and his appeals. He admits issues may have been a lot worse: “If I weren’t a British citizen and my case hadn’t gotten as a lot consideration because it has, then I’m undecided I’d be round at this time to inform my story. Many Thai residents have misplaced their lives doing comparable work.”
Corridor didn’t got down to be a freedom of speech crusader, he had dropped out of his PhD program in 2005 to maneuver to Southeast Asia to turn into a labor rights investigator, solely to seek out himself within the crosshairs of the nation’s defamation legal guidelines in 2013. When he was first charged, the federal government requested him to make a public apology denouncing his analysis. When he refused, the prosecution continued along with his passport being confiscated at one level to stop him from leaving the nation.
Now having taken refuge in a 3rd nation, Corridor tells me that the actions of the federal government — particularly its elevated enforcement of cyber defamation legal guidelines during the last 12 months — has bred concern amongst activists and has had a chilling impact on the work of human rights advocates in Thailand.
It’s Not Simply Activists
Based on Kelly, one particularly worrying development about Thailand and Egypt’s elevated prosecutions is that authorities have been more and more keen to go after anybody they deem vital on-line, not simply seasoned activists. Housewives, college students and even vacationers.
Simply in September, a Lebanese vacationer was arrested on her approach out of Egypt for posting a ten-minute video on Fb that had gone viral. Within the video, she’d complained of sexual harassment she’d skilled whereas within the nation. She was found guilty of deliberately spreading fake news and public indecency for simply talking out about what had been achieved to her. She now faces an eight year-sentence.
Over in Thailand, a housewife confronted as much as 15 years in prison for violating lèse-majesté laws as a result of she had responded to a Fb message vital of the federal government with one phrase, “ja” (roughly “yeah” in Thai). Whereas a legislation pupil was sentenced to 2.5 years final 12 months underneath the identical legal guidelines for sharing a BBC article profiling the brand new Thai king.
Function of Facebook and Twitter
What function have social media platforms performed in all of this? To their credit score, corporations like Fb and Twitter haven’t been silent bystanders who’ve merely utilized these draconian legal guidelines blindly. To start with, they enforce global standards for what can and may’t be posted on their platforms, they usually don’t modify these requirements based mostly on anyone nation’s repressive defamation legal guidelines.
Each Fb and Twitter additionally publish periodic transparency reports that combination the variety of requests they get from governments to take down posts or get hold of info on customers. This week, Twitter announced that it will let customers know when a tweet has been deleted on the premise of a authorities request.
A evaluation of the transparency reviews for every of Egypt and Thailand although reveals that the variety of requests are remarkably low given their respective populations and the huge use of Fb in every of those international locations. Fb says that in 2017 it solely obtained seven requests from Thai authorities and only one from the Egyptians. In response, Fb offered 17% of information requested by Thais and didn’t present any information to the Egyptian authorities (in comparison with 32,000 requests by the US authorities with an 85% manufacturing fee by Fb over the identical interval).
So how can the variety of prosecutions based mostly on social media posts be reconciled with the low variety of requests? Kelly tells me it’s doubtless as a result of Thai and Egyptian authorities have discovered methods to avoid platforms altogether figuring out that their requests won’t be complied with.
What Freedom Home has documented as a substitute is arms of the federal government devoted to monitoring what’s posted on social media. Within the case of Twitter, Thai and Egyptian governments filter for sure phrases after which use the publicly accessible tweets as a foundation for prosecution. With personal Fb posts, governments go one step additional. They create faux profiles with footage of enticing women and men, ship a buddy request to their goal and get entry to a profile when their buddy request is accepted. They then use no matter personal posts they discover to prosecute.
In a single case in Egypt, Kelly tells me the federal government scanned footage on Fb from a live performance at which the rainbow flag was displayed. Egyptian authorities then went after the folks it may determine from these footage on the basis of violating morality laws. Utilizing on-line platforms to entrap members of the LGBTQ group has turn into a favourite instrument of repression by Egyptian authorities. Based on the Electronic Frontier Foundation, at the very least 77 members of the LGBTQ group have been arrested for the reason that coup for his or her on-line expression.
Are Egypt and Thailand the Worst Offenders?
Though Egypt and Thailand have rung alarm bells this 12 months with the sheer variety of prosecutions of on-line speech, they’re nonetheless not the worst offenders towards speech on-line. Kelly names Saudi Arabia, China, the UAE, North Korea, and Iran as just a few examples of worse offenders. The distinction, Kelly explains, is that the regimes in these international locations have turn into extraordinarily adept at combating on-line dissent.
The truth that there could have been extra prosecutions in Egypt and Thailand this 12 months doesn’t inform the entire story. Folks within the different international locations that Kelly names have simply given up on the power to precise dissent on-line. China’s clampdown doesn’t even have to get to the consumer stage – as a substitute they’ve corporations like Baidu and WeChat management and filter messages on the supplier stage earlier than they’re even printed. Egypt and Thailand are working at a decrease stage of sophistication and have a powerful and energetic civil society – which implies folks there nonetheless see a much bigger opening and haven’t turn into utterly self-censoring.
The query then turns into, how lengthy will it’s earlier than Thailand and Egypt flip into the following China or Saudi Arabia? Will dictatorships be converging of their practices to stifle on-line speech? Social media could have turned the world into a world village, however evidently village can also be enabling dictators on reverse ends of the globe to higher study from one another’s repressive measures.