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

eight authoritarian countries

[matt4077]

they forgot the US

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...

Re:eight authoritarian countries

[jez9999]

First they came for the crackers, but I did not speak, for I was not a cracker.
Then they came for the pirates, but I did not speak, for I was not a pirate.
Then they came for the copiers of their purchased CDs for fair use, but I did not speak, for I was not a copier of my purchased CDs for fair use.
Than they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Re:eight authoritarian countries

[rela]

I have to ask you a question, since you appear to be German. How do you enjoy having all those US troups protecting your ass? If you don't like them their NOW, what about when the USSR was a threat?

The question now is if the USA ITSELF is increasingly a threat. Turn off your rabid extremist 'usa-rah-rah-rah' goggles for a moment and look at things.

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!)

Re:eight authoritarian countries

[radicalsubversiv]

Yes and no.

As an American who opposes most of "my" government's policies, who fall back on this sort of reasoning as a defense of American imperialism and plutocracy. The implication that we ought to stand united behind a government which fails to represent our interests simply because we don't get in locked in jail for saying so is absurd. Moreover, there are plenty of countries around the world which respect the most basic civil liberties of its citizens (and quite a number that do a better job of it).

The history of American is largely one two separate threads. One is those who have advocated for the continued expansion of this great experiment we call democracy -- the anti-Federalists, abolitionists, sufragettes, Populists, labor unionists, Socialists, (some) progressives, New Dealers, and the Civil Rights and peace activists of the 60s.

On the other side is those who have typically held power, in alliance with the nation's wealthiest and selfish interests. It is they who passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, maintained slavery in the South, opposed voting rights' for women, turned their back on starving farmers, martryed labor leaders, threw the Socialists in jail for speaking out against WWI, opposed anti-trust legislation, let loose the dogs on Martin Luther King, and sent our young men to die needlessly in Vietnam.

Today, that tradition is being continued by politicians like Bush and Ashcroft who seek precisely to limit our liberty and threaten democracy. To uphold America-under-Bush as a beacon of openness for the rest of the world plays into their hands.

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.

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?

Post predictions!

[Guppy06]

• 40% will say "They forgot the US"
• 20% will chide us for forcing US values on them
• 20% will say "Keep government out of the internet!"
• 10% will mention the Great Firewall of China ("Not really the whole internet!")
• 5% will mention FreeNet, etc.
• 4% will blame it all on Microsoft's TCP/IP stack in IE.
• 1% will be inane post predictions

Only a myth if you think it happens overnight...

[MyNameIsFred]

So many of the comments here say that Internet leading to freedom is a myth because it hasn't worked yet. The problem is that there is no way it can work quickly. Does anyone really think that just giving someone the Internet is going to make the population of some country slap themselves on the collective forehead, and say "How dumb were we?" At best, it will take years before even relatively free desemination of information will undermine a totalitarian regime. The flow information must cause ideas to germinate, discussion to start, groups to form, and a movement to start. Just look at the Vietnam war protests. They didn't happen overnight. It took 10 years for them to develop into their full-blown power. Or even the American Revolution, that didn't happen overnight in 1776. There were years, arguably decades, of events leading up to it.

Pretty loose definition of authoritarian

[raju1kabir]

I've lived in Saudi Arabia and Singapore, and anyone who mentions them both in one breath is insane. Saudi Arabia is a society where religious police patrol the streets looking for and beating people who don't go to prayers, who keep their stores open or use pay phones during the 5 daily prayer periods, or who are women and show their ankles or noses. It's a country where government agents hang around in the mosques listening for rabblerousers, who are summarily dragged off for interrogation.

Singapore, on the other hand, is basically what you get if you combine the social conservatism and corporate-centricity of the USA with the ridiculous libel laws of the UK. It's far closer to the USA than it is to Saudi Arabia.

And the big difference is, in Singapore, people want it that way. They have one of the world's highest income levels, they have safety, they have long life and good health, and they have enough freedom not to feel stifled. One of the greatest achievements is that there's basically no sectarian trouble despite significant Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu populations all sharing a small and dense space. Any number of polls has turned up time and time again that the vast majority wouldn't change a thing.

Singapore is effectively a one-party state. In part that's because only a minority have wanted change. It's also because the PAP is aggressive in its use of libel action to silence non-member candidates who make too much noise.

Personally, coming from a tradition where freedom of expression is a cherished core social value, I find that uncomfortable. But it doesn't change the fact that it works for Singapore. And it's not the sort of country where people would feel like they couldn't complain to me because they'd get taken away by the secret police.

Anyway, by conflating these - though the material online was too thin to really be able to get to the bottom of their evidence - they seem to elide over the likely fact that the internet's open expression is a far greater threat to a regime like Saudi Arabia, which is unpopular anyway - than to one like Singapore's. Without relatively complacent countries like Singapore and UAE to soften the mix, I doubt their thesis would stand. Additionally, the inclusion of countries like Burma and to some extent Vietnam, where internet is a non-factor in general society, clouds their point further.