Open Networks, Closed Regimes

kris writes "First Monday has an interesting article on Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule, presenting evidence that The Internet may not be automatic downfall of authoritan regimes as anecdotes commonly suggest. In their words: The authors trace Internet use in eight authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries: China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. They discover that authoritarian governments, far from fearing the information age, have chosen to direct Internet development in ways that bolster the state. At the same time, many regimes are struggling to cope with the potent challenges posed by new technologies. The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies to promote specific Internet-based initiatives that foster political liberalization, rather than perpetuating the myth of the Internet as an unstoppable "virus of freedom.""

Comments

Re:eight authoritarian countries

[FyRE666]

Actually it's not too bad over here in the UK... But only by virtue of the fact our government is so f*cking incompetent that most politicians don't even know what the internet is, let alone how to help censor it. Once they learn though...

The best thing I love about slashdot is..

[Gortbusters.org]

the vast majority of the users, authors, etc would like the internet to be an embodiement of freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom to post whatever you want, etc. While the internet was still becoming popular, before TV commercials posted website URL's in their ad's, corporate America (or the culture that embodies it) didn't have such a vicious stake in the ground. Yes, it allowed things like Napster, for a short while.

As technology is challenging old business models (the way mp3's have suposedly challenged traditional casette and CD purchasing), it is creating an increasing number of conflicts between the information eutopia and the ruling bodies (i.e. countries) it spans.

Does anyone have an idea on what the future will look like for the internet?

Re:The best thing I love about slashdot is..

[devleopard]

I think the cries of "free information" are typically hypocritical. Most of the Slashdot crowd who cry about free information are the first to cry about companies that want their "private information" and would have a tantrum if someone started reading files on their computer at leisure.

Re:eight authoritarian countries

[BrainInAJar]

By the time you're old enough to immigrate here, Canada'll have the same facist IP laws as the US and UK. There was an open discussion paper... thing a while ago about a Canadian DMCA. As it stands right now, our cost of blank CD's is rediculous. Future Shop (a Canadian electronics retailer) advertizes blank CDR's at $50 for 100 cd's.
Not a bad price (shitty CD's, but I just found the first ad for them I could find). Factor in the CDR tax, and it ends up costing you over $100 for them.

This tax is funneled straight into the **AA's, in a misguided effort to "compensate artists" for "illegal piracy"
Now, IANAL, but I don't think you can tax an illegal activity, or else Revenue Canada'd be down on East Hastings (drug riddled area) busting every dealer for not reporting income. If they're taxing it, it must be legal now... I'm going to go burn a whole bunch of IP law violations

Eventually, Canadas parliment will cave to corporate money (though I don't know why, the Liberal party doesn't need to campaign, they're going to win anyways) and make a restictive, evil law like the DMCA. When that day comes, I too will emigrate. I don't know where to though...

(either that, or bloody revolution. YAY!)

Myth

[Mikelikus]

It was always a myth that the world would be contaminated with the virus of US thinking.

At the time everyone was thinking about the impact the internet would have in dictatorships also everyone was saying that internet was boasting discussion about every topic possible. Free speech was bad for oppressive regimes.

Interesting it is that noone thought at the time the internet could be a major way to challenge the western regimes. It's not a bad thing (tm) per se, actually it's quite good to the world that discussion about what kind of regime is best for the world. Maybe new ideas might come up... Afterall for all it's failings democracy is the best form of government that we can come up with (quote: Winston Churchill)

Hurray for the internet.

USA - GLOBAL AUTHORITY

[Anonymous Coward]

The clever thing the USA Regime has done is to fool it's own citizens into thinking thats its not authoritarian like other evil authoritarians. You see, they have worked that letting you say anything you like doesn't really hurt them, in fact, it keeps you thinking that everything is cool, so you you dont RISE UP.

The USA is the most powerful nation on earth economically and militarily. It is the support which the USA gives to other evil regimes that makes the USA the most authoritarian regime in the world.

It was the USA that gave Saddam his weapons and supported him for many years. It was the USA that funded and armed the taliban/Osama bin Laden. It is the USA that continues to support many a coup in South America, against democratically elected governments.

Re:authoritarian

[hackwrench]

There's a difference between making murder illegal and resisting arrest illegal. (as well as talking back to the judge and speeding and I don't know what else... oh public intoxication perhaps. The United States is more authoritarian than it needs to be to remain a government.

Another relevant link: "Jury Rights"

Re:eight authoritarian countries

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to ask you a question, since you seem to be an American and native English speaker. How is it you cannot spell "troops" and "there" correctly?

And to the semantic content of your post: If you really want to assess the historic purpose of American troops in Germany after World War II, the following should be enlightening to you (or at the very least expose your hypocrisy). In the early 1950s, the Soviets offered to withdraw from East Germany, provided the Americans did the same from West Germany, and Germany was re-established as a neutral, non-aligned country under an elected government. If the real purpose of the Americans had been to "free" the Germans from Soviet occupation, surely they would have at least used this offer as a start for negotations. However the offer was dismissed by the Americans without hesitation, because it would mean the withdrawal of their own forces.

You can doubt the sincerity of the Soviet offer, certainly there was precedent for their government being dishonest. But the historical record suggests otherwise: An identical offer was made by the Soviets with regard to Austria, which was also in the Soviet occupation zone following World War II, and this was accepted: Austria became independent as a neutral, democratic state. In this case, since no part of Austria was under American occupation to begin with, there was nothing for the Americans to lose under this arrangement, so they were glad to accept it.

The fact that American troops remain in Germany, and elsewhere in Western Europe, more than a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, should alone be perfectly valid evidence that the American government had motives other than protecting Europeans from "godless Communnism" to begin with.

it is not an absolute

[zogger]

IMO, it is neither correct to say the US isn't or is authoritarian. Incidents occur, it's just a matter of scale and what the trends are. for example, here is an (randomly selected google reference) infamous example of obvious presidential abuse of power, ie "authoritarianism"

http://www.dailyrepublican.com/clintoninsulted.h tm l

Granted, relatively minor-but not for the victims. Reality and POV change once it ceases being a theory or opinion and becomes a fact that affects someone. I am sure there are any number of millions of similar examples, the vast majority of which are relatively unknown to anyone except the victims and their immediate friends and family. Hmm, the recent story about the lost wallet and the overreaction by armed police and a family dog is an example of "authoritarianism" carried to a harmful degree. Another, ask any relative of a kent state student shot and killed or wounded, their opinion will be different perhaps. It's scale and relativity to any "incident" that would make or break an "absolute" statement.

I would say that it is more correct to say that the US right now isn't "as bad" as those other named countries, not that "they are" and "we aren't", and that "status" can change on a political whim. Right now, codified into law and challenged and upheld in a "court", all of your US alleged "born with" civil rights may be abbrogated if the executive branch classifies you as an "enemy combatant" or as a "terrorist", with no other anything required but their say-so. A "terrorist" by codified definition (one definition) is anyone who destroys governmental property or a contract. That's a rather broad brush, but it's "de law" now. And once identified as such-again, just because "they say so"-you are rather en-screwed. It used to take either a grand jury indictment to do that, with some still remaining "rights", or being caught in the immediate commission of a crime by a sworn officer. This is no longer the case. That's a pretty good example of the "trends" lately into authoritariansim. There's another one I recall, there's a doctor associated with the investigations into the waco case, he's been held without charge for over 5 years now (IIRC), and been under forced drugging. The story is, he was developing and was about to release some rather embarassing evidence. So he (Charles Thomas Sell, D.D.S, just googled for his name) got snatched up a la the gulag with their historical "psychiatric" abuses for "dissidents". The US "court" has ruled this is perfectly "lawful".

hmmmmm

I guess it just depends on where you are standing at any given point in time, and who you are, and what's going on, what "authoritarianism" really is, and whether or not some "state" can be classified as such.

Who is the authoritarian?

[br00tus]

I find the choices of countries that are "authoritarian" odd. Every country in the world is authoritarian to some extent, so at that point countries become authoritarian relative to one another. Cuba is called authoritarian, although Colombia is not. Unsurprisingly, Cuba is a small country that has embarrassed the leaders of the United States a great deal, from the New Years revolution of 1959 to the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, the Mariel boatlift to it's offer in 2000 to mediate the US elections. And there's no doubt that it has a high degree of authoritarianism - but relative to the rest of Latin America I would ask if it is so much more so than virtually every other Latin American country. In Colombia, hundreds of union activists are killed every year by death squads - in Brazil, death squads roam city streets at night killing homeless children. And the average Cuban has one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Of course, US corporate media constantly puts Cuba under a microscope, and finds some real problems, but it seems odd to me that the only Latin American country found fault with is one US rulers have problems with, despite the fact that there are many countries in Latin America which are much worse.

And again in terms of small countries which have embarrassed the US - Vietnam is another example. It's almost beyond belief that a US-funded study would call Vietnam's government authoritarian. What would they call the puppet government they tried to prop up from the 1950's on, where memoes and even Eisenhower's memoirs say the US leaders didn't want an election in Vietnam because they knew the anti-colonialist/imperialist candidates would win? And before that the Western leaders (US, France, England etc.) were trying to keep it a French colony.

I'm tired of having the faults of only the countries who US leadership feels is not to their liking at the moment pointed out. I am an American, but I often think leaders who are criticized in the corporate press (Chavez, Lula) are better people than the ones glossed over. I find more common cause with the working class people like me in these countries than I do with the owners of the press and elite of my own country frankly. As the Bible says, check out the log in your own eye before pointing out the speck in someone else's.

Re:authoritarian

[Bicoid]

Yes, I agree that the US government is too strict about plenty of things. However, getting authoritarian and totalitarian governments confused (or worse yet, assuming they are the same) is a mistake. The US, no matter how much you dislike their policy, is not Sudan or Saudi Arabia. We don't have legal state-sponsored slavery, we don't have state-sponsored gang-raping a woman as punishment for her brother's misdeeds, we don't have the death penalty for adultery, etc. While the US does indeed have plenty of flaws, I challenge you to find 5 states that lack similar legislation.

I'm not saying we should settle for American government. I'm saying that going off and saying that America is equivalent to Sudan is just plain ignorant and seems to follow this "might-makes-wrong" doctrine that is currently screwing over the world. Military, political, and economic power does not have anything to do with a nation's power. I'm sick of seeing constant criticism of the US (and Israel, and the UK, and a few other nations) becaue they aren't ashamed that they have a powerful military whereas ethical transgressions of poorer countries are excused or even supported (consider the Sudanese slave trade) because they're poor and weak. Last time I checked, power/wealth and ethics are entirely unrelated.

Re:eight authoritarian countries

[Alex Belits]

I was in USSR since my birth in 1969 and until 1993 when I moved to US.

All I can say is -- we can have this discussion here because here TALK IS CHEAP, and nothing is supposed to depend on it. It's almost the same in Russia now. It may look less barbaric to have the government that never listens to anyone, and breeds just enough humanlike cattle to vote for itself than the government that restricts speech because it has a lot of educated humans that may listen to it.

But the problem is, I don't want to talk to the cattle. I want my arguments to be heard by people that may happen to be in control, and here it's not possible. People that disagree with government can just as well talk to each other in prison because no one anywhere close to power would listen to them.

Re:eight authoritarian countries

[jez9999]

What kind of fucking moron thinks there's such a thing as too much peace, freedom, and happiness?

from your sig: Pedophiles - an abomination that deserves neither tolerance nor compassion.


If there was such a thing as too much freedom, we wouldn't have laws against pedophiles, would we?