Brazil takes on Big Tech in the fight against ‘fake’ news
Authorities imposed internet shutdowns across Pakistan on May 9 as protests and riots broke out nationwide following the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Security forces arrested Khan on charges concerning a land acquisition during his time in office. But the move reflects long-standing tensions between Khan and Pakistan’s military, of which the former prime minister has become a vocal critic. Should Khan remain in custody, he will likely be barred from running for office in Pakistan’s general elections expected to be held later this year.
Alongside mobile broadband blackouts in several areas of the country, technical researchers at NetBlocks identified disruptions of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These kinds of outages have become a knee-jerk response of governments in many parts of the world when public unrest peaks and authorities are desperate to quell protests. But right now in Pakistan, it’s “not exactly a sign of strength,” tweeted Mohammed Taqi, a columnist for the Indian news website The Wire. Pakistani human rights lawyer and tech expert Nighat Dad called the blocks “unconstitutional” and noted that they could actually help promote the spread of disinformation online. We’ll see what effects it all has in the days to come.
Twitter continues to mediate the war in Sudan. Mohamed Suliman, who I spoke with for this newsletter a few weeks back, has been tracking digital effects of the war from afar. This week, he noted that the Twitter account belonging to the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary organization that is at war with the Sudanese army, was tweeting photos of people that the RSF claimed to have captured. “Does Twitter content policy allow this?” he wondered. This is a really good question. But I don’t think we can expect any answers from Twitter’s PR office, which now regularly replies to media requests with nothing but this: ????
Elon Musk also abruptly announced plans to “purge” inactive accounts. People were quick to point out that this will eliminate the historical value of accounts that were once held by major voices who have gone missing or passed away. Amnesty International’s Bissan Fakih offered a few familiar names of people missing in Syria, like Syrian human rights lawyer Razan Zeitouneh and U.S. journalist Austin Tice. “Twitter is an invaluable source of material relevant to war crimes investigations around the world, much of it from accounts dating back to 2010-on,” tweeted Charles Lister, of the Middle East Institute, a nonprofit think tank. “Simply ‘purging’ such a wealth of evidence would materially weaken the long-term pursuit of justice.”