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The Shadowsocks protocol, which underlies Jigsaw’s personal VPN service Outline, is now being used to provide access to the open web in Iran, Russia, and around the world, both directly and through vital civil society groups like nthlink and ASL19. Dedicated efforts to share learnings, tactics, tools, and technologies have already proven effective in advancing our understanding of repressive online tactics. Countering it will likewise require a deeply interconnected global movement. The threat to free access to information and the enjoyment of basic human rights is not an isolated one, but a global, networked menace. Likewise, the landslide victory last month of Doreen Bogdan-Martin in the election for secretary general of the International Telecommunications Union offered a rebuke to an alternative vision of the internet-one built from the ground up on censorship, surveillance, and social control-forwarded by repressive regimes. Among the declaration’s provisions is a commitment to “refrain from government-imposed internet shutdowns or degrading domestic Internet access, either entirely or partially.” The signatories to the declaration could form the foundation of an alliance to counter creeping digital authoritarianism. The Declaration for the Future of the Internet, signed last spring by the US, the European Union, and 60 other countries, is the strongest commitment governments have yet made to the future of a free, open, and global internet. These changes have granted Russia control over not only the physical territory but also the information environment of occupied Ukraine, subjecting Ukrainian citizens to the same system of strict censorship and surveillance that prevails throughout Russia.ĭrawing inspiration-and in the case of Iran, equipment and technical expertise-from countries where the internet is most tightly controlled, Russia and Iran have further committed to building national intranets, similar to North Korea’s, which would continue to work even if access to the global web were cut, isolating their citizens from the world.īut there is cause for hope. Ukrainians have seen walls like those surrounding the Iranian web go up as Russia has rerouted internet traffic from seized Ukrainian countries, first in Crimea in 2014 and subsequently in Kherson and other areas of occupied Eastern Ukraine this year. While China has long been a pioneer in leveraging its infrastructure to control its domestic internet, Russia has been learning quickly. The fight for freedom of expression online is a global game of cat and mouse. Implementing restrictions on the web requires access to both technical know-how and sophisticated physical equipment that is traded worldwide, and tactics that emerge in one context are invariably reproduced in others. While the triggers of internet shutdowns are most often exclusively domestic, it would be a mistake to view them as isolated incidents. And severe internet restrictions, including complete shutdowns, have followed popular protests in at least five countries in just the past 10 months. Access Now, a digital human rights advocacy group that tracks internet shutdowns, reports that protests and political instability were the cause of 128 of 182 confirmed internet shutdowns in 2021. The most repressive of these regimes learn from each other, sharing technology and in some cases even personnel to establish an ironclad grip on the web and their citizens.Īt least 225 internet shutdowns have taken place in response to popular protests since 2016. Around the world, a troubling number of nations have severely curtailed internet freedom, including full shutdowns, as their default response to popular protests. Even since the protests in Iran began, Cuba has cut access to the internet twice in response to protests over the government’s handling of the response to Hurricane Ian. She leads an interdisciplinary team that researches and develops technical solutions to a range of global security challenges, including violent extremism, repressive censorship, hate and harassment, and harmful misinformation.Īs we keep our eyes trained on the developing situation in Iran, it is critical to acknowledge that it is not an isolated event. YASMIN GREEN is the CEO of Jigsaw, a unit within Google that addresses threats to open societies.
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