Policy 360: Freedom of Speech
Launched in March 2021, Policy 360 is a new initiative by Columbia Political Review that aims to assess policies from around the world on similar political issues. Its goal is to highlight and provoke critical discussions through an international lens, broadening American-centric perspectives on pertinent political issues. This is the first piece of an ongoing series.
A simple Google search of “free speech” returns countless articles about the American commitment to, and perspective on, free speech and First Amendment rights. However, there are far more countries grappling with free speech policies, with each confronting an exigent challenge that has emerged in the past two decades: how to approach the regulation of speech on the Internet, an intangible virtual space that transcends geopolitical borders.
This piece focuses on the policy decisions made at the intersection of technology and free speech. It aims to walk readers through the different policy approaches towards the regulation of online speech in six countries across three continents: Germany struggles with preserving civil liberties and preventing violence, and China similarly struggles with continuing censorship and expanding economic growth; South Africa’s censorship has shown to be driven largely by the pandemic, while India has engaged in Internet shutdowns to quell agrarian protests despite being the world’s largest democracy; finally, given recent political strife, both Myanmar and Syria have seen a crackdown on digital consent, which has provoked questions on the preservation of fundamental human rights.
Admittedly, the dynamic of technological advancement has complicated free speech in more countries than the ones covered here. However, this article is meant to prompt readers to approach important political issues with a more diversified, international perspective—much like our six writers did when crafting their pieces—while offering a glimpse of the free speech policy challenges some countries face today, pandemic and all.
Internet Restrictions and Censorship during State of Disaster in South Africa
By James Hu, Columbia College ’24
On March 15, 2020, the South African government, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, issued a national state of disaster in response to the unprecedented public safety threat of COVID-19. Ramaphosa declared the action under the 2002 Disaster Management Act (DMA), which allows the government to place special restrictions on movement and information within disaster-stricken areas. Given the widespread impact of the novel coronavirus, that “area” was declared to be the entire nation.
South Africa’s state of disaster, recently extended until March 15, 2021, limits a host of rights, including free speech. The regulations indicate that anyone who publishes misinformation intended to deceive the public about COVID-19 and government measures to address it is committing a criminal offense. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution guarantees the freedom of expression. Unfortunately, the vagueness of the new regulations, along with the government’s unceasing extension of the state of disaster, puts this hard-fought right at risk.
South Africa’s censorship is no anomaly. The International Press Institute reports that at least 17 countries passed some form of regulation intended to target coronavirus disinformation since March 2020. In comparison to other governments, South Africa could even be commended for delegating the process of fact-checking to independent non-profits like Media Monitoring Africa, just one tenet of their genuine attempt to establish a multi-stakeholder monitoring program. However, the vagueness of the unprecedented regulations makes it difficult to apply the law consistently across many publications and internet users in the first place, diminishing the value of employing a third-party fact-checker. What constitutes an intention to deceive? To what extent is criticism of government measures allowed? These questions remain unanswered.
From 2009-2018, then-President Jacob Zuma cracked down on independent media that viewed the government with a critical gaze. He effectively seized control of South Africa’s largest broadcasting corporation, encouraged the establishment of new pro-government media, and purchased huge swaths of critical newspapers. For Ramaphosa, who had thus far been dedicated to ridding South Africa of the corruption rampant under Zuma, the optics of totalizing censorship laws are detrimental to his credibility. Notably, Ramaphosa and Zuma are both members of the African National Congress. Ramaphosa must lift the current free speech regulations to rebuild the party’s reputation and affirm South Africa’s commitment to free media. If he does not, Ramaphosa runs the additional risk of discrediting the launch of the Digital Platform for the Safety of Journalists in Africa, a recent initiative with the African Union Chair to end impunity for crimes against journalists across the continent.
All this is not to say that South Africa ought to let misinformation run rampant. Experts at the Free Market Foundation recommend that the government post accurate and accessible information on their website to develop a strong counter-narrative strategy against misinformation. While this solution is not perfect, it is undoubtedly preferable to the censorship laws that run contradictory to Ramaphosa’s own goal of reestablishing faith in South Africa’s right to free speech.
Internet Shutdowns in India Amidst Farmer Protests
By Samuel Braun, Columbia College ’24
The ongoing farmer protests unfolding across India and their subsequent Internet shutdowns illuminate the tension between India’s supposed democratic status and its burgeoning authoritarian tendencies. Long before the Internet became essential in organizing popular protests, Indian farmers faced a different crisis in the mid-twentieth century in the form of severe food insecurity. Such a threat was stymied partly by government regulation, yet as India’s economy underwent rapid growth and diversification in recent decades, the same regulations have hindered private economic activity in the broader Indian economy. Proposed solutions to this issue transferred India’s plight from the economic to the political: addressing India’s economic flaws prompted a political crisis.
In efforts to reform India’s agricultural policy, Prime Minister Modi’s government has repealed much mid-century regulation, including farmer subsidies and price controls. The livelihoods of farmers will suffer from such reforms, which have motivated hundreds of thousands of farmers to pour into Delhi and protest. As farmer-government violence intensifies, the Modi government has suspended Internet services in regions experiencing the greatest protest activity, quelling protesters’ ability to coordinate demonstrations. The Indian Internet has been shut down before; in fact, India is a world leader in targeted Internet shutdown as a government-sanctioned means of repression.
Authoritarian states across the world employ various tools to control the flow of speech and public opinion, oftentimes resorting to forthright government-sponsored Internet and media censoring. Yet Prime Minister Modi’s increasingly undemocratic Indian government has seen similarly successful results in its tangent approach. Whereas effective censorship regimes like those seen in China and Syria require coordinated, long-term institutional support, Indian Internet shutdowns are by nature temporary. Thus, Modi’s actions can be understood as a middle way between freedom of expression and restricted speech.
In 2020, India utilized Internet shutdowns 109 times. Following a typical free speech restriction script, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs cited an “interest of maintaining public safety and averting public emergency” as justification for its technological attacks. The concern of preserving peace, so commonly cited in free speech restrictions around the world, has dire consequences in Delhi. A leader of Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body representing protesting farmers, believes the government “is fearful of the coordinated work of the farmers’ unions across different protest sites and is trying to cut off communication means between them.”
Set against the global backdrop of heightened free speech abuse prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Modi government’s choice of Internet shutdown to stall free speech aligns with the global trend towards authoritarianism: as with the rest of the world, speech is but a frontier upon which authoritarian and populist forces compete in India. Tarunabh Khaitan, vice-dean of law at Oxford University and founding General Editor of the Indian Law Review, argues that “what we are getting is not quite a one-party state, but certainly a hegemonic state.” The Modi government’s response to the farmer protests reflects India’s avoidance of one-party-styled, institutionalized censorship, yet it certainly increases tension with its own democratic identity.
The Greatest Threat of Myanmar’s Coup: Censorship and Internet Shutdown
By Kaitlyn Saldanha, Barnard College ’24
When Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) took office in 2016, many believed a new age of progressiveness would unfold, particularly regarding the protection of civil liberties. What followed instead was a continuation of the criminalization of nonviolent expression that has plagued Myanmar for decades. Myanmar’s present political crisis and history of domestic strife are directly and inextricably connected to the state-sanctioned attack on free speech, and civilian suffering will only—can only—worsen should this suppression of civil liberties persist. Besides the ongoing unjust persecution of journalists, two specific laws have enabled the government’s suppression of free speech in Myanmar.
In the Telecommunications Law of 2013, Section 66(d) effectively provides up to three years imprisonment for anyone who “extort[s], coerc[es], restrain[s] wrongfully, defam[es], disturb[es], caus[es] undue influence or threaten[s] any person using a telecommunications network.” In other words, the law allows for criminal prosecution against one engaged in criticism of others on a telecommunications network. Section 66(d) is also a non-bailable charge that entails months in detainment for many of those charged (predominantly journalists).
To a similar effect, the Unlawful Associations Act of 1908 is most commonly used to “intimidate and arrest political activists” via presidential determination of an act as “unlawful.” What constitutes as “unlawful” has been left intentionally vague, essentially covering anything which “encourages or aids persons to commit acts of violence or intimidation.” Moreover, a conviction under Sections 17(1-2) could lead to punishments of up to five years of imprisonment, during which many prisoners are subjected to extensive torture at the hands of Burmese officials.
These two pieces of legislation are not without consequences: on February 1, 2021, Myanmar collapsed into a full-blown crisis with the forceful removal of the de-facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her administration. An unstable military government means Myanmar’s two most threatening censorship laws could easily be invoked in the name of quelling dissent and restoring stability. This attack has already commenced: the military’s main strategy to stifle anti-coup protests is strict restrictions on online speech and internet usage. On February 14, in one of five all-out internet blackouts since the coup d’état, the military shut down the country’s internet in a blatant attempt to crush civilian opposition. In moments of national crisis, revolutionaries often depend upon the Internet to organize protests and to capture and disseminate scenes of brutality to international news organizations. The Internet serves as an essential medium for the expression of civil liberties in the 21st century: between the right to assemble and the right to free speech, online censorship and internet shutdowns emerge as tools of oppression and centralization of power, and signifiers of illiberalism regardless of government form. The military junta’s internet shutdown has invariably limited the organization of protests by the Myanmar populace.
At this moment, the world holds its breath in anticipation of the military junta’s next move to stifle civilian outcry. Until safeguards for free speech reach legislative fruition, the military junta will be able to exploit the remnants of Myanmar’s flawed democracy, and innocent civilians will bear the burden of the ensuing violence.
Widening Cracks in the “Great Firewall” of China
By Rohil Sabherwal, Columbia College ’24
On February 8, 2021, as millions of Chinese began preparations for the highly anticipated festivities of the Lunar New Year, many found themselves unable to access the audio-chat social networking app, Clubhouse. In the weeks leading up to its ban, the platform became a temporary haven for discussions on highly sensitive, anti-party topics like the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement and the Uighur Muslim concentration camps. Unsurprisingly, the app is now the most recent addition to a long list of such platforms that have been curtailed by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) heavy free speech restrictions.
Since 1978, China has undergone massive economic reforms, culminating in the country’s entrance into the World Trade Organization in 2001, and its establishment as the world’s second-largest economy in 2010. This rapid globalization has resulted in an enormous influx of information and media technology, as attested by China’s burgeoning 5G market. Today, compared to the US, China has more 5G subscribers per capita, more 5G phones for sale, and significantly wider coverage.
This technological boom, however, has not come without cost to the CCP’s absolute political authority. In 2005, a seemingly harmless online Chinese petition to protest against Japan’s attempt to permanently join the UN Security Council rapidly gained popularity. After gathering more than 40 million signatures, protestors took to the streets in 20 different cities. However, nationalist fervor quickly turned into anti-party sentiment when the protests shifted focus towards the government over issues like pollution and labor representation. Within five years of the turn of the 21st century, media technology had become a powerful tool for domestic dissent. The government has since instituted far-reaching online censorship, earning China the spot of last place on Freedom House’s ranking of countries’ internet freedom.
While the Chinese constitution includes freedom of speech and press clauses, its nebulous language allows for the prosecution of anything deemed threatening to the state’s security. Under the Golden Shield Project, the government has spent billions developing the “Great Firewall” and the “Great Cannon,” which can block traffic and replace content within milliseconds of being uploaded. In fact, the CCP’s obscure “information security” protection policy has allowed the Central Propaganda Department and other smaller, more specialized groups to not only review and surveil all information flowing in and out of the country but also limit access to Western media through the restriction of virtual private networks (VPNs). Despite such efforts, technological development, like the expansion of 5G coverage, will only make online content restrictions harder to enforce, as the recent Clubhouse ban shows. Beyond this, the government has increasingly turned to less rigid and conspicuous methods of censorship. According to a 2016 Harvard study, the Chinese government’s “cyber-army” creates around 448 million fake posts on social media annually—misinformation has become a new mode of filling in cracks in the “Great Firewall.”
As China continues to develop economically and integrate into the broader world order with ambitious undertakings like the Belt and Road Initiative and its recent pledge to be a carbon-neutral country by 2060, its technological capacity will only continue to grow. In turn, its online censorship policies will only become increasingly harder to enforce. The natural globalization that accompanies the CCP's grand strategy to assert Chinese global hegemony directly threatens its censorship efforts and in turn, political power. This contradictory dynamic, therefore, may soon force the party to choose between absolute authoritarianism and its long-term foreign policy goals.
Free Speech as a Safeguard for the Syrian People under a Tightly Controlled State?
By Jenna Yuan, Columbia College ’24
Amid a brutal civil war and displacement crisis, Syrian activists and civilians face their own fight: the right to free speech online. Once broadly recognized as a conduit of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, technology’s role in facilitating free expression has seen a dramatic shift in recent years. Now, many of the warring political factions in Syria have found ways to crack down on dissent online, turning once-promising platforms into additional mechanisms to centralize their power.
Led by President Bashar al-Assad, the incumbent Syrian Arab Republic government has perhaps developed the most sophisticated infrastructure for suppressing online speech. During the Arab Spring, the Assad regime used force against peaceful protests, sparking the current civil war; since then, the Assad regime has only doubled down, implementing policies to bring its harsh crackdowns on dissent online. In the regions it controls, the government has enacted strict internet rationing guidelines, permitting processes, and compliance monitoring which tightly controls access to cell and internet services and, in turn, drives up prices.
Not only has Assad’s incumbent government implemented formal policies to control speech, but it has also arbitrarily prevented the expression of anti-regime views online. In 2020 alone, they launched three distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on independent media organizations (and successfully booted one off of the internet), leveraged Facebook’s copyright claim process to take down videos of protests from the city Daraa, and arrested multiple human rights activists and journalists such as Nada Mashraki for reasons including “publishing false news to undermine the prestige of the state.”
The weaponization of the internet as a tool for suppressing free speech, not facilitating it, has not only been limited to Assad’s regime. Instead, many parties with stakes in the Syrian civil war have found ways to limit speech against their interests expressed on technological platforms. On two separate occasions in 2018 and 2019, after offensive operations against the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Turkish forces and their allies cut off internet services for SDF-controlled areas, almost all of northern Syria. Like Assad’s regime, the militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham has also detained online activists and journalists without just cause.
Still, ongoing instability and conflict mean technology and internet access are still not widespread in Syria. Only about 34 percent of Syrians have internet access, and many are facing more immediate threats to their basic needs: 9.3 million Syrians are food insecure, and the ongoing conflict has displaced almost 1 million. However, as the civil war rages with no end in sight, the fight for free speech online by activists, journalists, and civilians remains critically urgent. Against repression from all different factions, especially the authoritarian Assad regime, and under the risk of great personal danger, expression on technology platforms represents a way for the Syrian people to fight for themselves, launch coordinated action, and document human rights abuses. Through prioritizing technology access in humanitarian efforts and finding an end to the conflict, free speech must be protected at all costs.
Restricting “Illegal” Content: Well-Intentioned but Flawed Legislation in Germany
By Adam Szczepankowski, Columbia College ’24
As Western nations try to balance longstanding speech protections with the newfound challenges of the digital era, Germany has made headlines with its passage of restrictions on several forms of free expression. While the country is well-known for its strict enforcement of laws that ban Holocaust denial, more recent legislation that aims to combat online hate speech has ignited a debate on the merits and detriments of such censorship.
The Network Enforcement Act, known in Germany as NetzDG, first came into force in 2017 and requires social networks like Facebook and Twitter to remove hate speech, fake news, and any other “obviously illegal” posts within 24 hours, blocking access to the content within Germany. Failure to comply with the Act results in steep fines. Last year, Germany expanded the law’s scope by passing a provision that requires platforms to report alleged criminal content directly to Federal authorities.
The provision is part of a larger reform effort that aims to strengthen restrictions to deter the spread of far-right rhetoric. The number of politically motivated hate crimes rose by 14.2 percent in 2019, marking yet another year in which violence has increased. For many Germans, though, it was the murder of local politician Walter Lübcke in June 2019 which convinced them that new measures were necessary. Lübcke, whose defense of Germany’s open border policy towards refugees was widely shared on social media and right-wing online forums, was shot and killed by a neo-Nazi outside his own home, sparking a public outcry.
Despite its seemingly good intentions, NetzDG has not escaped criticism, either at home or abroad. Since it was first proposed in the Bundestag by members of the CDU/CSU and Social Democratic Party, other groups including Germany’s Free Democratic (FDP), Green, and Left parties have all voiced vehement opposition to the online speech law and called for its repeal. Human Rights Watch has called the NetzDG a “flawed social media law,” and a major Danish think tank likened Germany’s online restrictions to those of countries with authoritarian regimes, among them Russia, Belarus, and Venezuela.
It is easy to see such pushback and believe that the country’s free speech debate is based on the controversial provisions of one law. The reality, though, is that Germany’s online speech restrictions predate 2017. One such example is the country’s prohibition of insults against a person’s character, both online and in public. In 2013 alone, German courts heard 26,757 cases related to criminal insults, which resulted in 21,454 convictions and 20,390 fines. While the criteria for a “criminal insult” is quite specific, the very existence of such a restriction is troubling for advocates of free expression. The distinction between insult and criticism can be a slippery slope, and the ease with which the former can be punished can stifle productive dialogue and critiques.
It appears the West remains at a crossroads in its pursuit of preserving civil liberties and curbing violence, perhaps more so than ever before.