A2K4 Panel II: Technologies of Dissent: Information and Expression in a Digital World

by Jake Gardener | February 10, 2010 | a2k4, conference | 3 Comments

This panel explores A2K issues relevant to classic civil and political rights, particularly freedom of expression.

Political expression and dissent are increasingly exercised online, through technologies ranging from social networking tools, blogs, email, and cell phones to more concealed and complex technical approaches such as the use of distributed denial of service attacks to disrupt government servers. Some governments have responded to new forms of digital dissent with new forms of technological repression.

The same technologies that expand opportunities to engage in legitimate political protest have created unprecedented privacy concerns; of particular concern is the practice of deep packet inspection allowing scrutiny by governments, often through private industry, of the details of users’ text messages, web searches, and emails.

The panelists included:

Anupam Chander, UC Davis School of Law

Laura DeNardis, Yale Information Society Project

Theresa Harris, Human Rights USA

Eddan Katz, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Moderator: Nabiha Syed, Yale Information Society Project

Some of the questions to be pursued by this panel include:

What are examples of online technology and expression that may be empowered or made vulnerable? How are governments responding to these new forms of dissent? Is there anything truly new about these forms of protest versus more traditional forms?

What is the nature of the technical architecture that enables these new types of democratic expression and protest? In what ways can the same technologies be used to violate human rights? Is there a human right to any particular form of technology, or rights vis a vis technology?

What is the role of corporate social responsibility in relationship to Internet freedom? To what extent should we be concerned about private control over new forms of dissent and speech, as well as government control?

What is the role of government investment in telecommunications, universal access and closing the digital divide, and infrastructure design as human rights issues? Does freedom of expression require positive government efforts to extend technological access and what would these look like?

Laura DeNardis kicked off the panel by discussing her current research exploring the relationship between Internet technical architecture and political protest and expression.  The theoretical framework for her research emanates from her discipline of Science and Technology Studies (STS).  This is a field that studies how cultural and political values shape technological and scientific innovations and how these technologies in turn can transform society.  In her research, particular STS influences include: material-semiotic approaches such as Actor Network Theory; theories from feminist philosophers of science; and critical STS theories emanating from the work of Langdon Winner and Michel Foucault.  Within this framework, she is studying the dissolution of boundaries between virtual and material realities of political protest and is asking two overarching questions: (1) How does this phenomenon require a reconceptualization of our understanding of 21st Century social action?  (2) What is our responsibility for not only using technologies but for preserving and promoting certain forms of technological architecture and legal structures to create what Jack Balkin refers to as an infrastructure of free expression?

In her upcoming book, Technologies of Dissent, DeNardis uses case studies to analyze these issues.  One of her case studies involves distributed denial of service attacks for political protest.   These cyber attacks were famously used in Iran, Georgia, Estonia and for Google’s Initial Public Offering.  She also focuses on how citizen journalism impacts political debates and elections (see, for example, Virginia Senator George Allen’s racial slur captured on YouTube).

Another area of her research involves Internet mapping technology.  She brought up the example of Proposition 8 and the public disclosure of contributors to this ballot measure.   An anonymous web site developer (or developers) created “Prop 8 Maps” a web site identifying the names and geographical locations of individuals who had contributed to the campaign to end legalized same-sex marriage in California.  The web site was a mash-up of Google mapping software and publicly available information about Proposition 8 supporters published by the state of California.  The web site provides a graphical depiction of donors in three areas with high concentrations of donors who funded the campaign to overturn same-sex marriage: San Francisco, Salt Lake City Utah, and Orange County California.  It led to the public shaming of Prop 8 campaign contributors.

DeNardis concluded her remarks by drawing some observations from her research: First, technologies of dissent seem to be a particular locus of conflicting values; Second, technologies of dissent sometimes amplify and remix publicly available information in ways that are attracting heightened legal and social scrutiny; Third, the use of Google mapping technology, twitter, and different forms of social media and Internet architecture as part of political protests emphasizes a somewhat increasing role of private industry in communicative freedom and reflects the need to examine voluntary corporate social responsibility and a possible role of government in scrutinizing this area; Fourth, although this is not unique to new technologies of dissent, it’s important to note the caveat that the same technologies that enable new forms of protest and expression can be used by governments and others to restrict these freedoms; Finally,  it’s important to note that the use of technologies of dissent is always accompanied or even preceded by social change.

Next up was Anupam Chander.   He spoke about what he called “the Web’s possible futures”: public discourse vs. government surveillance.  He began by detailing the rich history of governments crushing “seabeds of political unrest.”  He expressed concern about governments suppressing free speech by controlling technologies of dissent.  However, he pointed to a number of examples where the Internet is leading to rich public discourse and undermining repressive governments.  He asked what the US can do to make the Internet a vehicle for public discourse rather than a tool of government surveillance.

The third panelist was Theresa Harris.  She discussed how private corporations can assist in fostering public discourse and preventing government repression.  Technology companies have largely been using an international trade approach to business, and have shirked their corporate social responsibility.  In the interest of making profits, they are using a “business as usual”/”we’re just following local laws” defense in refusing to confront human rights issues relating to the technologies they produce.  Where companies know that their tools are being used by governments to abuse human rights, they have a duty to be more responsible.  Companies need to adopt a human rights approach.  Implementing corporate social responsibility lies in, among other places, domestic legislation and international treaties.

The final panelist was Eddan Katz.  He brought up Hillary Clinton’s recent speech about Internet freedom.  This speech underscored the salience of this issue in international affairs.  Katz framed the issue of Internet freedom as “preventing disruption of networks.”  Katz noted that anonymity can be problematic but is important for political expression by dissidents and therefore should be defended in many circumstances (there are technologies, like the Tor network, that can defeat Internet surveillance).

An important message in Clinton’s speech was the need for corporate responsibility.  Katz listed numerous examples of US corporations selling surveillance technologies to repressive foreign regimes.  Katz brought up possible approaches to address this issue, including an instrumental approach and a capabilities approach.  Katz cited a good white paper on this subject called “Surveillance Self-Defense International.”

Questions and Answers:

Chander: Suppression in the US (filtering and monitoring, for instance) is not the same as suppression in countries with repressive governments.  The US allows for more open debate.  Katz: There are many similarities between the rhetoric on the war on piracy and the rhetoric on the war on terror.

Q: How can we use new media to push for human rights?  Chander: Search engines such as Google have significant power they can wield to pressure totalitarian regimes to be more liberal. Katz: Disclosing business practices and pushing socially responsible norms can help improve corporate behavior. DeNardis: China’s standards policies are frustrating interoperability.

For twitter commentary on this panel from the audience, check out http://twapperkeeper.com/a2k4/ entries for Friday, February 12 at 16:00h to 17:30h

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