Will the revolutionary changes of the “Arab Spring” result in more open and democratic media in the affected countries in the Middle East and North Africa? Using developments in Tunisia as a case study, the authors argue that democratically reformed media, Internet, and spectrum policies can lead to a more enabling and pluralistic environment that encourages new market entrants. Progress has been made, but ongoing challenges in structural and institutional reforms remain. The authors make a series of policy recommendations in the hope that Tunisia can be a model for its regional and global peers.
2011, the year of the Arab Spring, presents a unique opportunity to look back and study how the relative freedom and development of information environments affect stability in nations throughout the Middle East and world. Such study raises interesting questions about whether freedom of information and speech are ultimately stabilizing influences for society in terms of loyalty, violence and political unrest — questions all the more important as societies face the onslaught of the internet, mobile devices and cell phones. Are non-democratic regimes “better off” by monopolizing and controlling the flow of information over new information channels? Are democratic societies, particularly developing democracies, more stable when the flow of information over such channels is relatively unrestricted? While these questions are not definitively answered, valuable insights into the relationship of information environments and stability are gained by the Market for Loyalties theory and the empirical study advanced by this article.
The advent of new technology brings new challenges to international law. The Internet is now the world’s primary information source, and websites like Facebook and Twitter have become crucial communication means. During the Arab Spring of 2011, activists used the Internet and social media sites to support their actions against existing oppressive regimes. In response, those governments required Internet service providers to interrupt Internet access, closing down social media communication.
The United States has the will and apparently the technology to restore the Internet in countries where the government has blocked connectivity. Contemporary international law supports a human right to Internet access. After all, people have a right to access information and a freedom to associate and assemble; these norms create a right of access to the Internet, including social media sites.
The issue presented by another nation’s reintroduction of Internet access is whether international law norms prohibiting use of force or intervention are violated. The absolute use of force prohibition found in United Nations Charter Article 2(4) and customary international law only applies to a significant military attack or act of physical violence. Reestablishment of the Internet would require no such actions, making that prohibition inapplicable.
Forcing the Internet on an unwilling country would not violate international norms against foreign intervention. An illegal intervention occurs when one state attempts to coerce another state to change policies within its sovereign domain to reflect the first state’s interests. The reintroduction of the Internet and social media sites cannot be seen as an act of coercion because the outside state is simply providing neutral access to information and communication. In addition, the creation of human rights laws has lessened the exclusive competence of a nation to determine how its inhabitants should be treated. Internet access is a protected international right, which the international community has an interest in upholding. An action to reestablish that basic right does not violate international law; instead, it furthers the peoples’ fundamental self-determination entitlement.
The Internet is an increasingly contested space, particularly in countries with repressive governments. Infringements on Internet freedom, particularly through Internet filtering and surveillance, have inspired activists and technologists to develop technological counter-measures, most notably circumvention tools to defeat Internet filters and anonymity tools to help protect user privacy and avoid online surveillance efforts. The widely heralded role of online activism in the Arab spring and the increasing incidence of Internet filtering around the world have spurred greater interest in supporting the development and dissemination of these tools as a means to foster greater freedom of expression online and strengthen the hand of activists demanding political reform. However, despite the perceived importance of this field, relatively little is known about the demand for and usage patterns of these tools.
In December 2010, we surveyed a sample of international bloggers to better understand how, where, why, and by whom these tools are being used.
From previous research, we know that circumvention tools are effective in evading national Internet filtering, though they can be slow, insecure and difficult to use. We also know that worldwide circumvention tool usage is limited. In our recent report on circumvention tool usage, we found that at most (and likely far fewer than) 3% of Internet users in countries that engage in substantial filtering use circumvention tools once a month or more. Through this survey, we aim to better understand usage of these tools by a specific community of politically- and internationally-oriented bloggers.
The full, aggregated results of the survey are available at: International Bloggers and Internet Control: Full Survey Results
In this paper we explore the interaction between of Internet communications, activists, and the state in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Uganda and northern Sudan. This paper addresses the following problem: Under what conditions are authoritarian regimes able to disrupt Internet traffic in situations of a popular uprising, and what can be done to prevent it? We illustrate that there are three critical variables in this interaction: redundancy in communications, distribution of power across organizations and individuals, and state regulation. We argue for a more resilient, redundant network. We propose policies that can be implemented in more open states with greater influence on the development of the network. We illustrate that the same investments that will empower dissidents strengthen the Internet for commerce and government, and against unauthorized attacks.
In the winter of 2011-12, Russian citizens participated in their first large street demonstrations since the early 1990s. This paper looks at a specific element of the internet’s role in these protests by examining different news frames in state-run television news, commercial news, and online content for the protests on December 10, December 24, and February 4. The research finds that state-run news admitted only that people were dissatisfied with the political process, while commercial news and the internet were far more critical of political leaders and the regime. Overall, a ‘war of frames’ emerged, with all of the news sources attempting to either dismiss or support the idea that the protests had significant grass-roots support and represented a legitimate threat to the Putin regime. Online news sources provided not only a broader range of voices and ideas, but also gave important details about the protest events themselves. What emerges from this study is that state-run news will struggle to contain future protests using the same post-Soviet propaganda methods, suggesting that the Russian state will either have to find a more effective way to control information challenges or experience change on the scale of the Arab Spring. This research was funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (The Internet and Everyday Rights in Russia, RES-000-22-4159).
The true role of new communications technologies in the dramatic events of the “Arab Spring” in 2011 is still under discussion, but wireless communications were certainly used widely by activists and protesters. This article uses events in Jordan as a case study, and the authors argue that reform of that country’s spectrum licensing policies and speech laws is essential for future democratic progress and economic development. The authors combine research into Jordan’s emergent high-tech industry, and successful and equitable spectrum policies in the United States, to form a series of policy recommendations for the Jordanian government.