Netizenship, security and freedom

Abstract

We [Cyberspace] must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty … We will spread ourselves across the planet so that no-one can arrest our thoughts… May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.1

Failing to anticipate how authoritarian governments would respond to the Internet, cyber-utopians did not predict how useful it would prove for propaganda purposes, how masterfully dictators would learn to use it for surveillance, and how sophisticated modern systems of Internet censorship would become. Instead most cyber-utopians stuck to a populist account of how technology empowers the people, who, oppressed by years of authoritarian rule, will inevitably rebel, mobilizing themselves through text messages, Facebook, Twitter, and whatever new tool comes along next year.2

The above statements seem to suggest that the Internet is a space for contestation between freedom and security, but, for Morozov, in that contestation it is the forces of security, for regulation and control of the Internet which may be gaining the upper hand. (cf. Mueller3) The primary aim of this article is to consider ways in which a Netizen culture of free and open internet is constrained by forces of state surveillance and control. The developments in the Middle East provide one example of the apparent relationship of contestation between oppressive states and freedom-seeking cyber-citizens or Netizens within cyberspace's complex plural network modes of governance. The article compares Middle Eastern developments with developments elsewhere, particularly in China and the United States. It suggests that the relationship between Netizens and states needs to be understood in the context of the culture of the internet and modes of governance that involve complex networking among Netizen groups, commercial providers, governments and international institutions. Only through such a contextual examination of the complex interactions is it possible to understand the power (im)balances that provide the continuing tensions of global network information society. There have been many claims that the Arab spring was an Internet event. Egyptian security personnel cut off almost all access to the Internet other than to the stock exchange.4 Yet this did not stop the filling of Tahrir Square and ultimately the end of Mubarak. Some attributed this to the ‘mosque net’ as the traditional channel of communication, others have extolled the role of the more traditional medium of television and especially the new El Jezira.5 Some have focused on the role played by collaboration between social network sites, for example enabling Google and Twitter to allow people in Egypt to send Twitter messages by leaving a voicemail on a specific phone number.6 The Google executive Wael Ghoneim became an internet hero of the revolution through coordinating a crucial Facebook page.7 Global Cybercitizen organisations such as the Electronic Freedom Frontier had already been urging social network sites such as Facebook to take technical steps that would ensure the privacy of web users in countries with heavy internet surveillance.8

Keywords:

• internet regulation
• Netizenship
• governance
• state surveillance
• security
• freedom

Acknowledgement

This paper is based on but is a substantially extended, reworked and updated version of ‘The governance of cyberspace: between security and freedom’ in Kleve, P. and van Noortwijk, K. (eds) (2011) Something bigger than yourself: essays in honour of Richard de Mulder (Rotterdam: Erasmus).

Notes

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