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Begin New Search Topic Censorship Political Geography Global Focus

1. Segment and rule: Modern censorship in authoritarian regimes

Author:
Kun Heo and Antoine Zerbini
Publication Date:
06-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
We analyze the incentives of authoritarian regimes to segment access to censored content tthrough technology. Citizens choose whether to pay to access censored online content at a cost fixed by the regime: the firewall. A low firewall segments access and generates more compliance than full censorship – a high firewall – ever could. Regime opponents self-select into consuming censored content, and comply conditional on positive independent reporting. Regime supporters exclusively consume state propaganda, which secures their compliance. This segment-and-rule strategy can be engineered by making local news outlets uninformative, or by affecting the intrinsic benefit from access.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Authoritarianism, Internet, and Censorship
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Jawboning against Speech: How Government Bullying Shapes the Rules of Social Media

Author:
Will Duffield
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Over the past two decades, social media has drastically reduced the cost of speaking, allowing users the world over to publish with the push of a button. This amazing capability is limited by the fact that speakers do not own the platforms they increasingly rely on. If access to the platforms is withdrawn, speakers lose the reach that social media grants. In America, government censorship is limited by the First Amendment. Nevertheless, seizing upon the relationship between platforms and speakers, government officials increasingly demand that platforms refrain from publishing disfavored speech. They threaten platforms with punitive legislation, antitrust investigations, and prosecution. Government officials can use informal pressure — bullying, threatening, and cajoling — to sway the decisions of private platforms and limit the publication of disfavored speech. The use of this informal pressure, known as jawboning, is growing. Left unchecked, it threatens to become normalized as an extraconstitutional method of speech regulation. While courts have censured jawboning in other contexts, existing judicial remedies struggle to address social media jawboning. Amid the opacity and scale of social media moderation, government influence is difficult to detect or prevent. Ultimately, congressional rulemaking and the people’s selection of liberal, temperate officials remain the only reliable checks on this novel threat to free speech.
Topic:
Government, Regulation, Social Media, Censorship, and Free Speech
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

3. Does Deplatforming Work? Unintended consequences of banning far-right content creators

Author:
Danny Klinenberg
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
Abstract:
Social media has become an outlet for extremists to fundraise and organize on, potentially leading to deadly consequences. While governments deliberate on how to regulate this challenge, some social media companies have removed creators of offensive content—deplatforming. I estimate the effects of deplatforming on revenue and viewership, using variation in the timing of removals across two video-streaming companies- YouTube, and its far-right competitor, Bitchute. I construct a novel dataset including Bitcoin wallets linking YouTube and Bitchute accounts for 79 far-right content creators, including propagandists for violent domestic extremist movements. Being deplatformed on YouTube results in a 30% increase in weekly Bitcoin revenue and a 50% increase in viewership on Bitchute. This increase in Bitchute activity accounts for about 65% of the estimated foregone revenue and 5.9% of viewership lost from YouTube, implying a negative net effect of deplatforming.
Topic:
Media, Social Media, Far Right, Censorship, and Digital Space
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship: How The Communist Party's Media Restrictions Affect News Outlets Around the World

Author:
Sarah Cook
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship: How the Communist Party’s Media Restrictions Affect News Outlets Around the World provides a survey of this phenomenon and its recent evolution as it pertains to the news media sector, though similar dynamics also affect the film, literature, and performing arts industries. Specifically, this report focuses on six types of media outlets based outside mainland China that together reach news consumers in dozens of countries: major international media; local outlets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; mainstream media in Hong Kong and Taiwan; exile Chinese outlets providing uncensored news to people in China; and media serving Chinese diaspora communities around the world.
Topic:
Media, Journalism, and Censorship
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Global Focus