August 6, 2025 • 14 mins
Explores the multifaceted impact of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as social media and mobile phones, on authoritarian regimes and democratization efforts. The text examines how activists and citizens utilize these technologies for mobilization, information dissemination, and holding governments accountable, exemplified by cases in China, Iran, Egypt, and Tunisia. Conversely, it also investigates how authoritarian states employ sophisticated methods like censorship, surveillance, and network disruptions to control online discourse and suppress dissent. The collection highlights the ongoing struggle between forces seeking liberation and those aiming for control within the digital realm, emphasizing that the ultimate outcome depends not solely on technology but on human agency, organizations, and governmental actions.
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You can listen and download our episodes for free on more than 10 different platforms:
https://linktr.ee/book_shelter
Get the Book now from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Liberation-Technology-Struggle-Democracy-Journal/dp/1421405687?&linkCode=ll1&tag=cvthunderx-20&linkId=292d24dc64b17c396de482cf707d8eeb&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome curious minds to another deep dive. Today. We're plunging
into well, a really timely and urgent topic, the power
somebody's quite contradictory of digital tech, you know, information and
communication technologies or ICTs, how they're shaping politics, civil society,
really everything around the world. We're talking the Internet, blogs,
(00:21):
social media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, even just the phones in
our pockets. And our mission today is to explore this
really central, hotly contested question. Do these technologies genuinely empower
people to mobilize for freedom, for accountability, or on the
flip side, do they just give authoritarian regimes even smarter
tools to monitor and shut down descent. It's like a
(00:42):
technological arms race. Really, we're going to try and unpack
who's actually getting the upper hand here and what that
means for you.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, and it's fascinating because, as our sources point out,
the term liberation technology itself is well, it's debated. Some
critics worry it sort of automatically assumes these tools are
inherently good for democracy. But the focus here and in
our deep dive is really about being evidence driven, looking
at when and how these technologies actually do extend political, social, economic,
(01:09):
freedom or when they don't. It's definitely way more complex
than just you know, good versus bad.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Okay, So let's unpack that core tension. Then liberation versus control.
On one hand, you've got this view of digital tools
as these powerful engines for well liberation, empowering individuals right,
letting people communicate independently, strengthening civil society. Think about how
people can report news, directly, expose wrongdoing, share opinions, even
(01:36):
organize protests. It's that two way street, completely different from
old media like TV or radio exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It's decentralized, potentially very democratic in that sense you can
reach huge numbers quickly, perfect or grassroots stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
But you mentioned complexity. There's always a butt, isn't there
There is?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And the history gives us a bit of perspective here,
maybe a warning. Think about the printing press back in
the fifteenth century. Absolutely revolutionary for information. It fueled the
Renaissance Reformation, laid groundwork for modern democracy. But at the
same time it also helps centralize state power and ironically censorship.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Huh. So the tool enabled both.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Sides precisely where the telegraph hailed is this great tool
for peace and understanding? And then what followed the bloodiest
century in human history. So it really raises that question,
are we maybe a bit too optimistic falling into that
technological utopianism trap again with digital tech assuming it must
lead to good outcomes.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
That's a really sobering thought, and it leads us right
into well, the darker side. Our sources explore. Ronald Daibert
and raffaller Husinski really get into this cyberspace. Isn't some
wide open frontier. They describe it more like a quote
gangster dominated version of New York.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Huh, that's quite an image.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
It is, but it makes a point. It's not ungoverned.
It's this tangled web. You've got governments, private companies, activists, criminals,
underground economies all bumping up against each other, and benign
and ten don't automatically win out. Repression finds a way.
They even highlight that malware production, malicious software now actually
exceeds legitimate software production, ah exceeds it. Yeah, growing incredibly fast,
(03:13):
and often it comes from these criminal networks, networks that
states can sometimes you know, hire or just turn a
blind eye to, using them for espionage or cracking down
on descent. It gets murky. Really fast.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And this isn't just happening in isolated pockets, is it.
It's global. Diebert talks about how these tools and techniques
for control spread internationally. Internet filtering, tech surveillance methods. States
are literally borrowing and sharing best practices.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Like disabling text messaging or chat aps during protests. We've
seen that exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
That tactic pops up in different places, and they use
broad justifications, right fighting terrorism, protecting copyright. These can become
excuses for much wider control by authoritarian regimes, and the
private sector is deeply involved too. There's this massive cybersecurity market,
something like eighty billion dollars. Sometimes companies are forced to
(04:02):
cooperate with states. Sometimes they're just selling the tools that
enable repression. It's outsourcing control in a way.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Which leads to another really chilling point from Evgetty Morozov.
He warns against focusing only on technological fixes, like thinking
we can just invent better anti censorship tools and win, because,
as he points out, sophisticated sociopolitical controls are emerging alongside.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
The tech ones, meaning wide exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, if it gets harder to technically block a blog,
maybe it just gets easier to arrest the blogger.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Ah okay, shifting the pressure.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Point right or holding the platform legally responsible for user content,
forcing them to censor. And then there are things like
didas attacks, distributed denial of.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Service right flooding a website with so much traffic it
just crashes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
It can shut down activist sites, news outlets globally, imposes
huge costs. And the scary part, Morozov notes, you can
basically rent these attacks on a black market. Sometimes they're
clearly politically motivated, aimed at silencing specific voices.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
It's not just about firewalls anymore. It's a whole ecosystem
of control, both technical and well human precisely.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So, okay, we've mapped out this tension, this dual nature.
Let's make it real. Let's look at some case studies
where this battle is playing out on the ground. China
seems like the obvious place to start massive population authoritarian government.
Shau Chang uses three Chinese characters to describe the dynamic
fung to.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Block or censor, okay, the defensive move.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Then shy to reveal, to put something out in the
open like under.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
The sun, the counter move exposing things.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
And finally, wol to set on fire, meaning information spreading
incredibly rapidly like wildfire.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Ah, the viral effect exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And Chinese medicines are incredibly creative at this game, using anonymity,
clever wordplay, euphemisms, and these information brokers who help people
get around the Great Firewall, maybe sharing BPN access.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So even with massive censorship, information still leaks and spreads.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Right, That whole phenomenon can take a local issue and
suddenly make it national news, even state media to cover
things the authorities wanted buried. It's this constant push and pull.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And Rebecca McKinnon adds another layer to understanding China, calling
it networked authoritarianism. She uses this analogy of the state
managing the Internet like a water system, vital, yes, but
also potentially dangerous if not controlled.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
How does that control work in practice, Well.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
A key part is making all Internet companies, whether Chinese
or foreign, legally liable for the content on their platforms,
so they essentially have to do the censoring themselves to
avoid penalties.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
It's outsourced liability clever in a disturbing way.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And it's reinforced by maybe a quarter million paid commenters,
the so called fifty centers. Their job is to flood
comment sections with pro government views steer conversations.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
It's called astroturfing, like fake grassroots support exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
But interestingly, the system isn't just about blocking. They also
have these official interactive portals places where they solicit citizen feedback.
Were eating this veneer of listening of liberalization.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, at the same time arrests for endangering state security
online are actually increasing.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right, it's a sophisticated mix control, manipulation and a carefully
managed appearance of openness.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Okay, let's shift gears. What about the Arab world? The
Arab Spring is often cited in this context. Patrick Meyer
talks about using crisis mapping, specifically a tool called Ushahiti
during Egypt's twenty ten elections.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Ushahidi that's the open source platform right with people map
events using SMS reports from eyewitnesses.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
That's the one. A civil society group called DSc used
a version Ushaheed to try and track election fraud in
real time, crowdsourcing evidence. Basically. Now, the Egyptian regime at
the time wasn't maybe as sophisticated as.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
China, right, less advanced technically, but.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Their response was eventually just blunt force. They tried to
shut down the entire Internet.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Which famously backfire, didn't it?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, massively. It seemed to push more people, especially the
middle class who might have stayed home, out onto the streets.
The blackout itself became a catalyst.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And why did it backfire so badly? There? Philip Howard
and Mozamil Hussain suggest Egypt already had a pretty vibrant
online civil society. It wasn't starting from scratch. Think of
the we are All Kelled said Facebook group.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
After the young man beaten to death by police. Yeah,
that became a huge rallying point.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Exactly. That online solidarity quickly translated into real world action.
And in Tunisia the uprising kicked off almost leaderlessly, fueled
by social media. You've even had activists taking down government websites.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So there's a pattern emerging across the region.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Seems so. Howard and Hussein describe it as stages. First,
activists connect online, build networks, the preparation phase. Then some incident,
often ignored by the state, initially catches fire online. The
ignition followed by street protests coordinated online, and finally international
attention amplified by digital media.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
It shows how quickly things could escalate. Let's look at
Yemen too, will lead else Saief a journalist.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
There, Ah, Yes, he developed al Kasir, which means the circumventor.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Right. He built it after his own news site, yemen Portal,
got blocked. His work actually showed just how much Arab
governments were spending on blocking.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Software targeting news, social media, multimedia specially.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
But his tool al Kasir essentially routes traffic through proxy
servers intermediaries that make it look like you're somewhere.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Else, like a detour around the roadblock exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And it was used millions of times by tens of
thousands of users, even in places like Syria and Yemen
under heavy censorship.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
It really proves it censorship, even when well funded, is
never totally leakpoof people actively fight back.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Okay, one more case, Iran's Green movement after the disputed
two thousand and nine elections.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
All right, medi Yehyanajad and Elhem Gaytanci looked at the
role of blogs Facebook.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Balataran Balataran, that's the Persian social news site, like a
Reddit equivalent.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Kind of Yeah, they argue the Persian bloggisp fear had
already been fostering democratic idea for years, preparing the ground, so.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
When the election protests happened, the networks were already there.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yes, and then you had that incredibly powerful moment, the
video of Nita Aga Saltan's.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Death uploaded to Facebook YouTube. It went global almost instantly.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It became this undeniable symbol of the regime's brutality. It
even forced major international news outlets like the BBC to
change their reporting because citizen media was getting the truth
out faster and more powerfully.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
But Iran also showed the limits, didn't it. It wasn't
all straightforward empowerment.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
No, definitely not. That open, horizontal nature of the movement
facilitated by social media could also be a weakness. Sometimes
it led to confusion when you need coordinated action, discipline,
maybe central leadership. A purely decentralized network can struggle like that.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
One protest plan exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
The details were discussed openly online. The government clearly knew,
and they shut it down effectively, Azadi Square was empty
except for regime supporters. Busted.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It's a stark reminder, isn't it. Technology is a powerful tool,
but it's not It's not magic strategy, organization leadership. They
still matter hugely.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Absolutely, it doesn't replace the hard work of political organization.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So bringing this all together, what are the big takeaways
for international policy? How should democracies respond? Daniel Kllinger lays
out some pretty big challenges. Even though the US, the
EU they say internet freedom is a.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Priority, the reality is restrictions are actually growing globally. It's
not getting easier.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So he suggests some concrete steps defend cyber dissidents publicly
and privately, avoid policies that could fragment the Internet or
inadvertently legitimize authoritarian control, like demands for back doors for
government surveillance.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
If those back doors can be exploited by anyone right exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
He also says ban exports of surveillance tech to repressive regimes,
challenge censorship as a human rights issue but also as
a trade.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Barrier, and crucially promote digital freedom collectively as a united
front among democracies.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
But that raises the question you touched on earlier. How
do we stop the bad practices, the norms of control
from spreading.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
It's tough because governments do learn from each other. There's
this arms race spiral and cyberspace Dibert talksicook. One state
builds cyber warfare capacity, others feel they have to respond.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
And the whole idea of securitizing cyberspace, framing everything as
a security.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Threat, driven partly by that huge cybersecurity market we mentioned,
it legitimizes more and more government intervention, more control.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And here's a tricky part. Sometimes the policies of democratic countries,
maybe for monitoring terrorism or enforcing copyright, can unintentionally create precedents.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Right, They create these enabling environments where authoritarian states can say, look,
even the democracies are doing surveillance, so why can't we.
It muddies the waters.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So at the end of this deep dive, it really
feels like we're looking at a constantly shifting balance, doesn't
it versus control? Always in flux?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Definitely dynamic. Yeah, But despite all the sophisticated censorship and surveillance,
there's that quote from the Egyptian activists you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Ray technology, by nature is a very neutral tool. But
the most important thing is information. Information is the key.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Information wants to be found. Those who want to suppress
it will have a harder time, So people in favor
of spreading information are going to win.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
It's a hopeful note, but maybe a bit optimistic. What
does it really mean for information to want to be found?
Is it inevitable?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Maybe it's less about the information itself and more about
the human drive behind it, the desire for knowledge, for truth,
for connection. That's what keeps pushing back against control. Because ultimately,
as the sources emphasize, it's not the tech itself that
decides the outcome. It's people. It's organizations, activist governments, their choices,
their resilience, their strategies. The loyalty of the people maintaining
(13:52):
the control systems matters, The tenacity of the activist matters.
The decisions made by international players matter. It's a human
struggle waged on a digital battlefield.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That really sums it up well. It certainly makes you think,
doesn't it. This whole digital world we live in, it's
this constant contest innovation control, human ingenuity clashing. Maybe next
time you're scrolling through your feet or send a message,
it's worth considering those unseen forces, those battles being fought,
and what it all means for freedom everywhere. So here's
something to maybe all over until our next deep dive,
(14:23):
we talked about information wanting to be found about human
resilience in this digital age with AI and ever smarter tools.
On Bob sides, what does critical thinking, our ability to question,
analyze and seek truth look like? Is that becoming our
most essential tool for navigating it all
Welcome curious minds to another deep dive. Today. We're plunging
into well, a really timely and urgent topic, the power
somebody's quite contradictory of digital tech, you know, information and
communication technologies or ICTs, how they're shaping politics, civil society,
really everything around the world. We're talking the Internet, blogs,
(00:21):
social media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, even just the phones in
our pockets. And our mission today is to explore this
really central, hotly contested question. Do these technologies genuinely empower
people to mobilize for freedom, for accountability, or on the
flip side, do they just give authoritarian regimes even smarter
tools to monitor and shut down descent. It's like a
(00:42):
technological arms race. Really, we're going to try and unpack
who's actually getting the upper hand here and what that
means for you.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, and it's fascinating because, as our sources point out,
the term liberation technology itself is well, it's debated. Some
critics worry it sort of automatically assumes these tools are
inherently good for democracy. But the focus here and in
our deep dive is really about being evidence driven, looking
at when and how these technologies actually do extend political, social, economic,
(01:09):
freedom or when they don't. It's definitely way more complex
than just you know, good versus bad.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Okay, So let's unpack that core tension. Then liberation versus control.
On one hand, you've got this view of digital tools
as these powerful engines for well liberation, empowering individuals right,
letting people communicate independently, strengthening civil society. Think about how
people can report news, directly, expose wrongdoing, share opinions, even
(01:36):
organize protests. It's that two way street, completely different from
old media like TV or radio exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It's decentralized, potentially very democratic in that sense you can
reach huge numbers quickly, perfect or grassroots stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
But you mentioned complexity. There's always a butt, isn't there
There is?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And the history gives us a bit of perspective here,
maybe a warning. Think about the printing press back in
the fifteenth century. Absolutely revolutionary for information. It fueled the
Renaissance Reformation, laid groundwork for modern democracy. But at the
same time it also helps centralize state power and ironically censorship.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Huh. So the tool enabled both.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Sides precisely where the telegraph hailed is this great tool
for peace and understanding? And then what followed the bloodiest
century in human history. So it really raises that question,
are we maybe a bit too optimistic falling into that
technological utopianism trap again with digital tech assuming it must
lead to good outcomes.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
That's a really sobering thought, and it leads us right
into well, the darker side. Our sources explore. Ronald Daibert
and raffaller Husinski really get into this cyberspace. Isn't some
wide open frontier. They describe it more like a quote
gangster dominated version of New York.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Huh, that's quite an image.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
It is, but it makes a point. It's not ungoverned.
It's this tangled web. You've got governments, private companies, activists, criminals,
underground economies all bumping up against each other, and benign
and ten don't automatically win out. Repression finds a way.
They even highlight that malware production, malicious software now actually
exceeds legitimate software production, ah exceeds it. Yeah, growing incredibly fast,
(03:13):
and often it comes from these criminal networks, networks that
states can sometimes you know, hire or just turn a
blind eye to, using them for espionage or cracking down
on descent. It gets murky. Really fast.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And this isn't just happening in isolated pockets, is it.
It's global. Diebert talks about how these tools and techniques
for control spread internationally. Internet filtering, tech surveillance methods. States
are literally borrowing and sharing best practices.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Like disabling text messaging or chat aps during protests. We've
seen that exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
That tactic pops up in different places, and they use
broad justifications, right fighting terrorism, protecting copyright. These can become
excuses for much wider control by authoritarian regimes, and the
private sector is deeply involved too. There's this massive cybersecurity market,
something like eighty billion dollars. Sometimes companies are forced to
(04:02):
cooperate with states. Sometimes they're just selling the tools that
enable repression. It's outsourcing control in a way.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Which leads to another really chilling point from Evgetty Morozov.
He warns against focusing only on technological fixes, like thinking
we can just invent better anti censorship tools and win, because,
as he points out, sophisticated sociopolitical controls are emerging alongside.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
The tech ones, meaning wide exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, if it gets harder to technically block a blog,
maybe it just gets easier to arrest the blogger.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Ah okay, shifting the pressure.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Point right or holding the platform legally responsible for user content,
forcing them to censor. And then there are things like
didas attacks, distributed denial of.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Service right flooding a website with so much traffic it
just crashes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
It can shut down activist sites, news outlets globally, imposes
huge costs. And the scary part, Morozov notes, you can
basically rent these attacks on a black market. Sometimes they're
clearly politically motivated, aimed at silencing specific voices.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
It's not just about firewalls anymore. It's a whole ecosystem
of control, both technical and well human precisely.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So, okay, we've mapped out this tension, this dual nature.
Let's make it real. Let's look at some case studies
where this battle is playing out on the ground. China
seems like the obvious place to start massive population authoritarian government.
Shau Chang uses three Chinese characters to describe the dynamic
fung to.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Block or censor, okay, the defensive move.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Then shy to reveal, to put something out in the
open like under.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
The sun, the counter move exposing things.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
And finally, wol to set on fire, meaning information spreading
incredibly rapidly like wildfire.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Ah, the viral effect exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And Chinese medicines are incredibly creative at this game, using anonymity,
clever wordplay, euphemisms, and these information brokers who help people
get around the Great Firewall, maybe sharing BPN access.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So even with massive censorship, information still leaks and spreads.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Right, That whole phenomenon can take a local issue and
suddenly make it national news, even state media to cover
things the authorities wanted buried. It's this constant push and pull.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And Rebecca McKinnon adds another layer to understanding China, calling
it networked authoritarianism. She uses this analogy of the state
managing the Internet like a water system, vital, yes, but
also potentially dangerous if not controlled.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
How does that control work in practice, Well.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
A key part is making all Internet companies, whether Chinese
or foreign, legally liable for the content on their platforms,
so they essentially have to do the censoring themselves to
avoid penalties.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
It's outsourced liability clever in a disturbing way.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And it's reinforced by maybe a quarter million paid commenters,
the so called fifty centers. Their job is to flood
comment sections with pro government views steer conversations.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
It's called astroturfing, like fake grassroots support exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
But interestingly, the system isn't just about blocking. They also
have these official interactive portals places where they solicit citizen feedback.
Were eating this veneer of listening of liberalization.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, at the same time arrests for endangering state security
online are actually increasing.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right, it's a sophisticated mix control, manipulation and a carefully
managed appearance of openness.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Okay, let's shift gears. What about the Arab world? The
Arab Spring is often cited in this context. Patrick Meyer
talks about using crisis mapping, specifically a tool called Ushahiti
during Egypt's twenty ten elections.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Ushahidi that's the open source platform right with people map
events using SMS reports from eyewitnesses.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
That's the one. A civil society group called DSc used
a version Ushaheed to try and track election fraud in
real time, crowdsourcing evidence. Basically. Now, the Egyptian regime at
the time wasn't maybe as sophisticated as.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
China, right, less advanced technically, but.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Their response was eventually just blunt force. They tried to
shut down the entire Internet.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Which famously backfire, didn't it?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, massively. It seemed to push more people, especially the
middle class who might have stayed home, out onto the streets.
The blackout itself became a catalyst.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And why did it backfire so badly? There? Philip Howard
and Mozamil Hussain suggest Egypt already had a pretty vibrant
online civil society. It wasn't starting from scratch. Think of
the we are All Kelled said Facebook group.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
After the young man beaten to death by police. Yeah,
that became a huge rallying point.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Exactly. That online solidarity quickly translated into real world action.
And in Tunisia the uprising kicked off almost leaderlessly, fueled
by social media. You've even had activists taking down government websites.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So there's a pattern emerging across the region.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Seems so. Howard and Hussein describe it as stages. First,
activists connect online, build networks, the preparation phase. Then some incident,
often ignored by the state, initially catches fire online. The
ignition followed by street protests coordinated online, and finally international
attention amplified by digital media.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
It shows how quickly things could escalate. Let's look at
Yemen too, will lead else Saief a journalist.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
There, Ah, Yes, he developed al Kasir, which means the circumventor.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Right. He built it after his own news site, yemen Portal,
got blocked. His work actually showed just how much Arab
governments were spending on blocking.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Software targeting news, social media, multimedia specially.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
But his tool al Kasir essentially routes traffic through proxy
servers intermediaries that make it look like you're somewhere.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Else, like a detour around the roadblock exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And it was used millions of times by tens of
thousands of users, even in places like Syria and Yemen
under heavy censorship.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
It really proves it censorship, even when well funded, is
never totally leakpoof people actively fight back.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Okay, one more case, Iran's Green movement after the disputed
two thousand and nine elections.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
All right, medi Yehyanajad and Elhem Gaytanci looked at the
role of blogs Facebook.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Balataran Balataran, that's the Persian social news site, like a
Reddit equivalent.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Kind of Yeah, they argue the Persian bloggisp fear had
already been fostering democratic idea for years, preparing the ground, so.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
When the election protests happened, the networks were already there.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yes, and then you had that incredibly powerful moment, the
video of Nita Aga Saltan's.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Death uploaded to Facebook YouTube. It went global almost instantly.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It became this undeniable symbol of the regime's brutality. It
even forced major international news outlets like the BBC to
change their reporting because citizen media was getting the truth
out faster and more powerfully.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
But Iran also showed the limits, didn't it. It wasn't
all straightforward empowerment.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
No, definitely not. That open, horizontal nature of the movement
facilitated by social media could also be a weakness. Sometimes
it led to confusion when you need coordinated action, discipline,
maybe central leadership. A purely decentralized network can struggle like that.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
One protest plan exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
The details were discussed openly online. The government clearly knew,
and they shut it down effectively, Azadi Square was empty
except for regime supporters. Busted.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It's a stark reminder, isn't it. Technology is a powerful tool,
but it's not It's not magic strategy, organization leadership. They
still matter hugely.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Absolutely, it doesn't replace the hard work of political organization.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So bringing this all together, what are the big takeaways
for international policy? How should democracies respond? Daniel Kllinger lays
out some pretty big challenges. Even though the US, the
EU they say internet freedom is a.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Priority, the reality is restrictions are actually growing globally. It's
not getting easier.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So he suggests some concrete steps defend cyber dissidents publicly
and privately, avoid policies that could fragment the Internet or
inadvertently legitimize authoritarian control, like demands for back doors for
government surveillance.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
If those back doors can be exploited by anyone right exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
He also says ban exports of surveillance tech to repressive regimes,
challenge censorship as a human rights issue but also as
a trade.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Barrier, and crucially promote digital freedom collectively as a united
front among democracies.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
But that raises the question you touched on earlier. How
do we stop the bad practices, the norms of control
from spreading.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
It's tough because governments do learn from each other. There's
this arms race spiral and cyberspace Dibert talksicook. One state
builds cyber warfare capacity, others feel they have to respond.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
And the whole idea of securitizing cyberspace, framing everything as
a security.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Threat, driven partly by that huge cybersecurity market we mentioned,
it legitimizes more and more government intervention, more control.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And here's a tricky part. Sometimes the policies of democratic countries,
maybe for monitoring terrorism or enforcing copyright, can unintentionally create precedents.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Right, They create these enabling environments where authoritarian states can say, look,
even the democracies are doing surveillance, so why can't we.
It muddies the waters.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So at the end of this deep dive, it really
feels like we're looking at a constantly shifting balance, doesn't
it versus control? Always in flux?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Definitely dynamic. Yeah, But despite all the sophisticated censorship and surveillance,
there's that quote from the Egyptian activists you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Ray technology, by nature is a very neutral tool. But
the most important thing is information. Information is the key.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Information wants to be found. Those who want to suppress
it will have a harder time, So people in favor
of spreading information are going to win.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
It's a hopeful note, but maybe a bit optimistic. What
does it really mean for information to want to be found?
Is it inevitable?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Maybe it's less about the information itself and more about
the human drive behind it, the desire for knowledge, for truth,
for connection. That's what keeps pushing back against control. Because ultimately,
as the sources emphasize, it's not the tech itself that
decides the outcome. It's people. It's organizations, activist governments, their choices,
their resilience, their strategies. The loyalty of the people maintaining
(13:52):
the control systems matters, The tenacity of the activist matters.
The decisions made by international players matter. It's a human
struggle waged on a digital battlefield.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That really sums it up well. It certainly makes you think,
doesn't it. This whole digital world we live in, it's
this constant contest innovation control, human ingenuity clashing. Maybe next
time you're scrolling through your feet or send a message,
it's worth considering those unseen forces, those battles being fought,
and what it all means for freedom everywhere. So here's
something to maybe all over until our next deep dive,
(14:23):
we talked about information wanting to be found about human
resilience in this digital age with AI and ever smarter tools.
On Bob sides, what does critical thinking, our ability to question,
analyze and seek truth look like? Is that becoming our
most essential tool for navigating it all
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