Of tact and democracy. Mr. Shabazz, before we get into the freedom of the net report that Freedom House has put out, what is Freedom House . Guest Freedom House is an independent organization founded in 1941 to promote democracy both in the United States and overseas. We do this through research, advocacy and on the ground programming in many countries around the world. Host how are you funded and is their government funding about . Guest there is government funding in part from the state department and the u. S. Agency for International Development but its also a bit diverse in that we have funding from Tech Companies, from foundations and private individuals. Host you just put out a new report called the crisis of social media. Whats the main take away in this report . Guest the main take away is of the internet is becoming less free around the world. There are many trends that weve seen around how Free Expression and privacy are under threat but the main theme we looked at this year is our governments around the world are using social media to manipulate elections and to monitor their own citizens. Host to help us dig into some of those issues is sara fischer of axios. Thank you so much and thank you so much for joining us today. I want to dive into that dynamic more. You say some governments are weaponizing social media to target their own populations. What does it mean exactly . Guest there are three distinct tactics we saw in the 65 countries we covered. That translates to roughly 87 of all Internet Users around the world. The most common tactic we saw, particularly about elections was the use of disinformation campaigns. Thats something that is been in the news a lot around foreign meddling and the actions of wraps russia and china but in our research we are seeing domestic actors are perhaps the strongest purveyors of this information and propaganda. And the impact thats having on free and Fair Elections is very alarming. The second tactic we look at is a technical interference. This happened in half of the countries that elections we covered. And for this in part under the guise of curbing disinformation or false news and rumors, many governments are not blocking access to news websites, to the websites of opposition candidates. In some cases to social media apps or the internet altogether. They are denying their citizens the ability to access information at a really critical time. The third and final tactic is the more like traditional censorship heavyhanded tactic of passing laws that criminalize forms of expression online and then jailing either ordinary users for speaking out against the government or opposition candidates and critical journalists. When were talking about governments are we talk about the military, Administration Branches or talking but the actual president ial leaders of countries themselves dictating these roles . Guest its a mixture in some cases its the election authorities themselves who in aa place like thailand lacked independence from the military junta that is controlling it. That then has an impact on the free and for elections in the country. In other cases its the ruling party and i think when it comes to disinformation in particular that when it becomes very murky and rather than being able to say very clearly that this was a candidate or a government actor, they are also working with third parties and political operatives in this very shady industry for Information Operations on social media. You mention three types of targeted campaigns, disinformation, technical and friends, and censorship. Can you provide an example from each with one country . Guest sure. One of the more fascinating examples of disinformation, and there are many, but in the philippines, they are pretty strict rules and what candidates can spend on social media around lets a political advertisement that the conversation were having now in the u. S. In order to skirt the rules around political advertising we saw candidates actually pay socalled micro influences their rather than targeting the people on social media that have one or 2 million followers, theyre going after the people with perhaps 3000 or 10,000 followers. So micro influences. You will see sometimes there will be a gamer who is just talking to his usual audience and then that usual message will be interspersed with an advertisement for local politician. Other interesting cases in brazil and india where we seem candidates actually build the instruments are disinformation themselves almost from scratch as if they are manufacturing these i could chambers. They own and control that vehicles for disseminating disinformation, then theres really, then oversight and accountability becomes far more difficult. Continue. Guest on the question of technical interference, we saw in cambodia, for example, 17 news websites that were blocked shortly before an election was about to take place, and thats, because these are critical independent news websites. Some of them are based in the United States and i think many, the same conversation were having around foreign interference are happening in more authoritarian or oppressive environments where they see perhaps american or independent International News websites as interfering in their elections. The impact thats having on Free Expression and access to information is really alarming. On legal so legal interference is more traditional crackdown, india is a great example where you had many individuals who were arrested for insulting the Prime Minister ahead of the election. Similarly in turkey is a rise in defamation. This is a country where its illegal to insult the president and the governing officials. Weve seen around the world how the number of countries that are now arresting individuals for their nonviolent political, social and religious speech has grown to a record high of 47 out of the 65 countries that we cover. When it comes to some of the countries you surveyed you said some are becoming more free in terms of internet. Ethiopia is an example unit. Ethiopia is in africa were a lot of countries are blocking Technological Access to the internet. Why is ethiopia and athletic . Guest its an interesting, lets say a volatile region because we had the largest improvement in ethiopia and the largest decline in neighboring sudan. Its one of these places where i think the internet environment depends greatly on the political environment. In ethiopia we saw a new Prime Minister who represents a a traditionally disadvantaged minority in ethiopia. There had been years a protest in certain regions of ethiopia that now started to calm down, and the new Prime Minister had enacted a pretty great reform agenda on removing certain forms of censorship, unblocking news websites, releasing journalists and bloggers whod be in jail for the online writings. Thats what are these places where the country seems to be moving in the right direction. I should also note there are certain things that happened after the coverage of our report which was ended in may 2019 that are a bit alarming. There was a continuum of certain blocking. Its interesting to see how the political dynamics are at play. If you look at sudan which is of this country with the biggest decline of any country in our report, actually activists and ordinary citizens and in particular women had used digital tools, things like whatsapp and facebook, to communicate, for networks and do this anymore secret private way weather didnt risk any repercussions from the very harsh security agencies that in the country. Theres an example of a Facebook Group that was initially built as a way to sort of that prospective romantic crushes. Here are all of these young women on facebook sharing images of young men and reaching out to the women in the network and saying do you know any dirt on him i should know of, like anything i should be aware of . Once the revolution started in the mass protests, that quickly transform into almost a crowdsourced intelligence agency. Women within posting photos of men who had harassed them or their family members on the street and saying can you identify this person, this plain clothed Security Forces member . Its amazing how these almost banal networks that we have can be activated in moments of political crisis and actually achieve positive democratic ends. Speaking of those networks this report acknowledged in efforts by them to curb some of these efforts of disinformation campaigns like governments, Networks Like facebook and youtube or instagram . Guest its been fascinating to see over the years how Tech Companies i think in part due to the uproar about their activities have really taken this issue increasingly seriously. Now theres been an outpouring of investment and knowhow into these companies in order to really tackle disinformation. What we always recommend is, sometimes they cure can be just as harsh as the virus. And with Something Like disinformation that waste its not clearcut to note okay, this is something that should be removed from the platform, or this is just something that is perhaps a harsh take but free speech. So with all of this i think with Tech Companies we are really pushing them to take a more nuanced approach to have a treat misinformation on the platforms, to make sure that they are aware of the ways that the rules that they have on a global level play out locally. And any unintended consequences that the policies can have, and one interesting part of it is how these tools can be sort of weaponized by the people in power. And so what we are generally seeing is social media is come used to be this level Playing Field i think for Free Expression activists and ordinary users, and now it is being coopted by some of the more powerful, well resourced actors in our society. I think thats where social Media Companies need to let say like we level the Playing Field to root out the bad actors and i think too perhaps make certain policy changes within the algorithms, to incentivize the type of productive democratic discourse in conversation rather than incentivizing some of the worst of us. Host Adrian Shahbaz come in your Freedom House report are you finding on the flipside that some of these Major Companies that sarah mentioned are yielding to National Governments in Different Countries . Guest its very tricky because these are global companies. They are in many cases the most powerful based in the United States, and so by and large they uphold u. S. Lost. I think thats a good thing. There are certain cases where governments abroad have become much more adept at forcing these Tech Companies hand. Turkey is a really good example of this, how a few years ago now, they have, even in 2010 i think it was, had blocked youtube for refusing to take uncertain videos that they claimed insulted the number of a revered figure in turkey. And because youtube had refused, turkey can block all of you too. We are starting to see that same dynamic play out in a lot of countries. Twitter, for example, is active in turkey, and as part of their deal to stay online in turkey, they actually have to remove certain content from being viewed within turkey. Thats an important distinction that when a Government Asks a tech company, can you censor essentially these types of posts . What we started to see his companies implement that but only on a local country level. So it remains available for people all around the world but also people in those countries who are using vpn to circumvent any government restriction. Host when it comes to blocking and mass surveillance, china is at the bottom of your freedom list, isnt it . Guest yes. China has been at the bottom of our list for four years now. In many ways it encapsulates the opposite of Internet Freedom. Something we call digital authoritarianism, weather, is actually channeling technology for authoritarian ends. We set it in the way they have automated censorship of peoples private messages that are sending on Services Like we chat. Massive investment in a social media surveillance and the use of Artificial Intelligence and big data tools to comb through massive information sets to root out certain, anything that the Commons Party can deem against its interest. And finally when you look at just surveillance technology, even beyond the internet in places like shen jon province, autonomous region, this is a place with a local Uighur Community has come under massive Human Rights Violations by the local authorities. They are using every tool they can for the most oldschool traditional means of in person checkpoints with a force squeakers over the devices. Also they forced the all to download this spyware app that can monitor everything theyre doing on their devices. When it comes to some of these companies here in the United States, people are arguing, conservatives especially, that they are using censorship is sent to some of their ideals. Have you found there is less form of Internet Freedom here in the United States . Where does the u. S. Fall . Guest that he was false and sixth place in a report it has declined for three consecutive years. Part of overseeing and the United States, edition specifically weve been to the u. S. For the growing, the use of surveillance by border agencies a special agencies that under the department of homeland security. We have seen unwarranted device searches up i think 300 over the past three years. Its really, what Many Americans dont understand is that the certain protections that the half when it comes to the local police or two other federal authorities, those are not available with dhs. As we start to see that awareness, also these very public aspects of that dhs is now collecting the social media details of immigrants were coming into the country, so theres a lot of alarming ways that a thing privacy is under threat in america. As a relates to disinformation, what we call for is generally Greater Transparency and a accountability. Many people point out that private companies are not liable to the first amendment, and so i think there are certain unintended consequences if you were to force private companies to adhere to a very strict definition of the first amendment. All sorts of harassment withstand the platforms and we wouldnt have any way to create a more productive space online. What were calling for is greater censorship because censorship is not the answer. Different ways that platforms can incentivize better speech can sort of downright harmful speech, but also for any actions that they take, that they report in transparence reports that there are avenues for appeal, so if youre a user and you find one of your posts with censored you think unfairly, theres a way you can appeal to a company. I know its hard, theres no but you can call on the phone to make sure that your kids get a second look, i think that something worse thing with for example, facebooks oversight board. So its good to see Tech Companies move in that direction. When it comes to privacy in you mentioned that as you make it in the trunk which is knocking down on the index, in places like your privacy is of unknown human rights. What are you seeing in terms of privacy their . Guest its interesting to see i think the europeans are perhaps better on privacy and the u. S. Is that on free speech. So when it comes to privacy, the eu had something called gdpr, the general Data Protection regulation. That came online i think last year. What this did was provide users, ordinary europeans, with greater control and protections over their data. And at the same time rather than being a protectionist approach, it also harmonized rules for Data Protection in all of the eu member states. So now youre creating a giant market for crossborder data flows and a great economic market. And now the europeans are moving to export that model. They have reached an agreement with japan for greater data sharing, and that is in part because they are able to use the European Market as leverage and say hey, is what axis to all of our goods and services then you need to prove that you are apply the same level of protections the europeans that we are. Host mr. Shabazz, other european nations or the u. S. Collecting this data that were sending out . Guest clearly so. Unfortunately we were also jut giving it away. And i think that something that we dont come with a fundamentally understood the risks that come with having all of our devices connected to the internet. Theres a thought that the data where hanging over as part of, willingly, but then theres always sorts of other data were handing over just by using service. Even if youre on facebook or twitter not posting anything many of these companies are still monitoring your behavior while youre surfing the internet. If youre if you are having youn your pocket. The interesting part about