Abstract
In his chapter, Cristiano explores the controversial correlation between technology and political freedoms by questioning the inclusion of internet access into the human rights agenda. Drawing from the dystopian case of Palestinian digital rights—tightly held through Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s vise-like jaws of censorship and algorithmic control—the chapter unpacks the conceptual duality common/right in order to open up the question of accessibility to broader digital rights, such as content management and data privacy. In conclusion, it looks at potential alternatives, and the negation thereof, as a way to argue that envisioning human rights in prescriptive terms might detract political freedoms rather than enabling them.
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Notes
- 1.
In this chapter, the word internet is used without capitalization. On the one hand, this choice reflects what has become largely the norm in European publications. On the other hand, the common noun appears more coherent with the arguments proposed throughout this piece.
- 2.
The non-governmental organization AccessDown defines an internet shutdown as the “intentional disruption of internet or electronic communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable, for a specific population or within a location, often to exert control over the flow of information”. More information and empirical studies can be found at https://www.accessnow.org/ (Last accessed on 7 January 2018).
- 3.
Already in 2003, under the auspice of the United Nations (UN), the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) underlines the importance of protecting the ‘information society’ to guarantee freedom of expression. Only in 2011, however, the UN Special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression recognized the importance of the internet, and access to it, as “unlike any other medium, the internet enables individuals to seek, receive and impart information of all kinds instantaneously and inexpensively across national borders” (Recommendation nr. 67).
- 4.
Different global campaigns have a strong focus on monitoring and advocating for the ‘right to internet access’: such as AccessNow established in 2009 after the Iranian elections and promoting the campaign #KeepItOn (now joined by hundreds of other networks and organizations) or ONE.org that focuses on the relationship between internet access and sustainable development.
- 5.
Among those peculiar factors that are commonly referred to as triggering the Arab Spring—authoritarian regimes and poverty (see Gelvin 2012)—the importance of social media, and internet more in general, is debated between cyberphiles and cyberskeptics. Whether facilitating and igniting protests (see Stepanova 2011), or existing only as subordinated to protests in the ‘real world’ (Khondker 2011), the young age of Arab populations (and thus a very high percentage of digital natives) collided with the authoritarian policies of the regimes.
- 6.
Produced by AccessNow’s Shutdown Tracker Optimization Project (STOP), this data includes “full network shutdowns, bandwidth throttling, and service-based blocking of two-way communication platforms, such as social media (for example, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Viber) or email” (https://www.accessnow.org/keepiton-shutdown-tracker/).
- 7.
At its very beginning, the digital rights movement focused on questions related to copyright, data privacy, and its proprietorship (as internet technologies were mainly available in the West). Only in the aftermath of internet shutdowns across the globe, digital rights activists included internet access in their political platforms, whereas many international organizations prioritized accessibility over the broader range of digital rights (as their focus primarily targeted developing countries).
- 8.
Far from being established in academic circles, this debate has mainly opposed ‘technologists’ (i.e. tech professionals) to international organizations. In this sense, the critique has largely focused on internet access and its essence, rather than taking issue with what constitutes a human right.
- 9.
The term kill-switch, mainly employed in cyber-defense discourses, refers to a government’s activation of a single shutoff system for the closure of internet access and traffic for its entire territory. Different countries—such as Egypt, India, Turkey, and the United Kingdom—adopted legislations entrusting the military to activate internet kill-switches in cases of threats to national security.
- 10.
For example, in response to pressures about enforcing net neutrality, the United States’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC) classified Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as ‘common carriers’. In common law countries, this definition applies to carriers that, in line with specific legislations, are bound to provide services to the general public (as opposed to ‘contract carriers’ that do not have the same obligation). However, this distinction does not exist in civil-law systems.
- 11.
Independent wireless communities, available across different countries, consist of computer networks that are built by users without a central control or ownership, contrarily to traditional single-entity ISPs that manage the network.
- 12.
Of course, this debate also pertains how embodied experiences occur in the encounter between the individual and the web (cfr. Cristiano 2018).
- 13.
According to Twitter and Facebook transparency reports, available on their websites, the respective sites remove a significant amount of content at the request of governments around the world. The reports note that the companies fulfill government requests upon finding that the post violates either their Community Standards or the requesting government’s laws.
- 14.
As of June 2017, 51% of the world’s population is on internet. In 2015, the International Telecommunication Union estimated 75% would be online by the end of the year.
- 15.
I2P consists of an anonymous overlay network, that is, ‘a network within a network’. Its scope resides into the protection of data from dragnet surveillance and monitoring by third parties such as ISPs. More info at https://geti2p.net/en/about/intro.
- 16.
Also in this case, identifying the ‘individual’ (and their individual data) is not a univocal process—as data are produced in relation to other dynamics of proprietorship.
- 17.
As in fact no network can ever be fully ‘secure’—in terms of data and privacy protection—many activists (especially in North America and Western Europe) decide to withdraw from the internet and coordinate only offline.
- 18.
Palestinian Authority’s (PA) online public relations have become increasingly professionalized (Craig Parsons, 2005). Palestinian political parties, armed factions, and advocacy groups have strengthened their online presence. Aligning Israeli occupation policies to apartheid South Africa, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigners mainly rely on digital platforms to advocate for an economic, academic, and cultural boycott of Israel (Barghouti 2011).
- 19.
Evidence shows how Israel makes pressure to social media companies in order to remove contents that are critical of Israel. Moreover, The Guardian has leaked information regarding the inclusion of the category ‘Zionists’ in those that are to be protected in content management. Similarly, Facebook, solicited by the Israeli Cyber Unit, suspended several accounts of Palestinian journalists associated to large news networks.
- 20.
In 2015, IDF also released a virtual game—IDF Ranks—that provides players with the opportunity of making a virtual career in the army. By commenting on online pro-Israeli news or sharing IDF’s media contents, users earn points and thus virtual career advances. The so-called gamification of the conflict also encompasses full immersive and augmented reality video games (cfr. Cristiano and Distretti 2017).
- 21.
Only in 2017, Palestinian ISPs and mobile companies provided 3G internet services in the West Bank, when Israeli authorities finally lifted a ban on the technology as a result of an agreement reached with the Palestinian Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology (MTIT). The ban, however, was not lifted on the Gaza Strip that still relies on 2G connectivity.
- 22.
This only applies to Palestinians both in the territories and in Israel, whereas Israelis enjoy wide freedom of speech online (as in the emblematic case of Ayelet Shaked, Ministry of Justice, who wished a genocidal solution for Palestinians).
- 23.
Convicted Palestinians are not informed about which online activity led to their administrative detention.
- 24.
In October 2015, poet Dareen Tatour was arrested for posting a poem about resistance to Israel’s 50-year-old military rule. She spent time in jail and has been under house arrest for over a year and a half. Civil rights groups and individuals in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and abroad have criticized Israel’s detention of Tatour and other Palestinian internet users as violations of civil and human rights.
- 25.
The full English translation of the Presidential Decree No. 16 is available at: https://goo.gl/Dj1t1Q.
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Cristiano, F. (2019). Internet Access as Human Right: A Dystopian Critique from the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In: Blouin-Genest, G., Doran, MC., Paquerot, S. (eds) Human Rights as Battlefields. Human Rights Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91770-2_12
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