Keynote speech delivered by science writer and digital media analyst Nalaka Gunawardene at the Sri Lanka National IT Conference held in Colombo from 2 to 4 October 2018.
Nalaka Gunawardene speaking at National IT Conference 2018 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Photo by ReadMe.lk
Here is a summary of what I covered (PPT embedded below):
With around a third of Sri Lanka’s 21 million people using at least one type of social media, the phenomenon is no longer limited to cities or English speakers. But as social media users increase and diversify, so do various excesses and abuses on these platforms: hate speech, fake news, identity theft, cyber bullying/harassment, and privacy violations among them.
Public discourse in Sri Lanka has been focused heavily on social media abuses by a relatively small number of users. In a balanced stock taking of the overall phenomenon, the multitude of substantial benefits should also be counted. Social media has allowed ordinary Lankans to share information, collaborate around common goals, pursue entrepreneurship and mobilise communities in times of elections or disasters. In a country where the mainstream media has been captured by political and business interests, social media remains the ‘last frontier’ for citizens to discuss issues of public interest. The economic, educational, cultural benefits of social media for the Lankan society have not been scientifically quantified as yet but they are significant – and keep growing by the year.
Whether or not Sri Lanka needs to regulate social media, and if so in what manner, requires the widest possible public debate involving all stakeholders. The executive branch of government and the defence establishment should NOT be deciding unilaterally on this – as was done in March 2018, when Facebook and Instagram were blocked for 8 days and WhatsApp and Viber were restricted (to text only) owing to concerns that a few individuals had used these services to instigate violence against Muslims in the Eastern and Central Provinces.
In this talk, I caution that social media regulation in the name of curbing excesses could easily be extended to crack down on political criticism and minority views that do not conform to majority orthodoxy. An increasingly insular and unpopular government – now in its last 18 months of its 5-year term – probably fears citizen expressions on social media.
Yet the current Lankan government’s democratic claims and credentials will be tested in how they respond to social media challenges: will that be done in ways that are entirely consistent with the country’s obligations under international human rights laws that have safeguards for the right to Freedom of Expression (FOE)? This is the crucial question.
Already, calls for social media regulation (in unspecified ways) are being made by certain religious groups as well as the military. At a recent closed-door symposium convened by the Lankan defence ministry’s think tank, the military was reported to have said “Misinformation directed at the military is a national security concern” and urged: “Regulation is needed on misinformation in the public domain.”
How will the usually opaque and unpredictable public policy making process in Sri Lanka respond to such partisan and strident advocacy? Might the democratic, societal and economic benefits of social media be sacrificed for political expediency and claims of national security?
To keep overbearing state regulation at bay, social media users and global platforms can step up arrangements for self-regulation, i.e. where the community of users and the platform administrators work together to monitor, determine and remove content that violates pre-agreed norms or standards. However, the presentation acknowledges that this approach is fraught with practical difficulties given the hundreds of languages involved and the tens of millions of new content items being published every day.
What is to be done to balance the competing interests within a democratic framework?
I quote the views of David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression from his June 2018 report to the UN Human Rights Council about online content regulation. He cautioned against the criminalising of online criticism of governments, religion or other public institutions. He also expressed concerns about some recent national laws making global social media companies responsible, at the risk of steep financial penalties, to assess what is illegal online, without the kind of public accountability that such decisions require (e.g. judicial oversight).
Kaye recommends that States ensure an enabling environment for online freedom of expression and that companies apply human rights standards at all stages of their operations. Human rights law gives companies the tools to articulate their positions in ways that respect democratic norms and
counter authoritarian demands. At a minimum, he says, global SM companies and States should pursue radically improved transparency, from rule-making to enforcement of the rules, to ensure user autonomy as individuals increasingly exercise fundamental rights online.
We can shape the new cyber frontier to be safer and more inclusive. But a safer web experience would lose its meaning if the heavy hand of government tries to make it a sanitized, lame or sycophantic environment. Sri Lanka has suffered for decades from having a nanny state, and in the twenty first century it does not need to evolve into a cyber nanny state.
Drawing from my recent interactions with the IGF Academy, as well as several academic and civil society groups, I position the current public debates on web’s socio-cultural impacts in the context of freedom of expression.
With 30 per cent of our population now using the Internet, it is no longer a peripheral pursuit. Neither is it limited to cities or rich people. So we urgently need more accurate insights into how society and economy are being transformed by these modern tools.
My basic premise: many well-meaning persons who urge for greater regulation of the web and social media overlook that governments in Sri Lanka have a terrible track record in stifling dissent in the name of safeguarding the public.
Cartoon by John Jonik
I argue: “As a democracy recovering from a decade of authoritarianism, we need to be especially careful how public sentiments based on fear or populism can push policymakers to restrict freedom of expression online. The web has become the last frontier for free speech when it is under pressure elsewhere.
“When our politicians look up to academics and researchers for policy guidance, the advice they often get is control or block these new media. Instead, what we need is more study, deeper reflection and – after that, if really required – some light-touch regulation.”
I acknowledge that there indeed are problems arising from these new technologies – some predictable, and others not. They include cyber-bullying, hate speech, identity theft through account hijacking, trolling (deliberately offensive or provocative online postings) and sexting (sending and receiving sexually explicit messages, primarily via mobile phones).
I cite some research findings from the work done by non-profit groups or media activists. These findings are not pretty, and some of them outright damning. But bans, blocks and penalties alone cannot deal with these or other abuses, I argue.
I end with these words: “We can and must shape the new cyber frontier to be safer and more inclusive. But a safer web experience would lose its meaning if the heavy hand of government or social orthodoxy tries to make it a sanitized, lame or sycophantic environment at the same time. We sure don’t need a cyber nanny state.”
A Popular Election Meme created by Hashtag Generation, Sri Lanka
“Every citizen – including activists and academics — can play a part in shaping the future of our democracy. In this, technology is not the only key driver; what matters even more is the strategic use of our imagination and determination.
“We may not yet have all the detailed answers of our digital future, but one thing is clear. In 2015, we the people of Sri Lanka embarked on a progressive digitalization of our politics and governance.
“It is going to be a bumpy road – be forewarned — but there is no turning back.”
Since then, things have evolved further. In this essay, I look at how the Elections Commission, political parties, election candidates, civil society advocacy groups and individual cyber activists have used various social media tools and platforms in the run-up to, during and immediately after the Parliamentary Election.
“What role (if any) did social media play in the recently concluded General Election on 17 August 2015?
“Many are asking this question – and coming up with different answers. That is characteristic of the cyber realm: there is no single right answer when it comes to a multi-faceted and fast-evolving phenomenon like social media.
“Shortly after the Presidential Election of 8 January 2015 ended, I called it Sri Lanka’s first cyber election. That was based on my insights from over 20 years of watching and chronicling the gradual spread of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in Sri Lanka and the resulting rise of an information society.
“That was not the first time social media had figured in Lankan election campaigns. The trend started slowly some years ago, with a few tech-aware politicians and advertising agencies using websites, Facebook pages and twitter accounts for political outreach. However, such uses did not reach a ‘critical mass’ in the general and presidential elections held in 2010, or in the provincial and local government elections held thereafter.
“By late 2014, that changed significantly but this time the frontrunners were politically charged and digitally empowered citizens, not politicians or their support teams.”
The above is an extract from an op-ed I have just written and published in Daily Mirror broadsheet national newspaper in Sri Lanka (3 Sep 2015).
As I have often said on this blog, Television used to be the favourite whipping boy of those who love to criticise communication technologies and consumer gadgets — until the Internet and mobile phones came along.
When it finally arrived in Asia in 1991, direct TV broadcasting by satellite scared the daylights out of many Asian governments and self-appointed guardians of culture and public morals. How can the unexposed (i.e. ‘unspoilt’) hundreds of millions of Asians cope with massive volumes of information and entertainment beaming down from the skies, they asked. Their real concern was the loss of control over what the public watched, which governments and ruling elites had tightly controlled for decades since radio and TV emerged as mass media.
So, for much of that decade, we witnessed howls of protests from them — but their worst fears never materialised. Satellite TV found its niche alongside terrestrial transmissions, and Asian broadcasters soon mastered the medium. Today, global broadcasters like CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera compete with hundreds of Asian satellite TV channels and the audiences have a far greater choice.
As I wrote in September 2008: “In 1990, most Asian viewers had access to an average of 2.4 TV channels, all of them state owned. This has changed dramatically — first with the advent of satellite television over Asia in 1991, and then through the gradual (albeit partial) broadcast liberalisation during the 1990s. Asian audiences, at last freed from the unimaginative, propaganda-laden state channels, exercised their new-found choice and quickly migrated to privately owned, commercially operated channels.”
Sir Arthur Clarke was the man who triggered this satellite communication revolution. In 1945, while still in his late 20s, he was the first to propose the concept of using a network of satellites in the geo-synchronous orbit for television and telecommunications. His vision became a reality in the mid 1960s, and within a generation, humankind has come to rely critically on the network of comsats placed, in what is now called the Clarke Orbit, some 22,300 miles above the earth.
In December 2003, on the eve of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and days before his 86th birthday, I did a wide-ranging interview with Sir Arthur Clarke on satellite TV, internet, censorship and other challenges of information societies. It was published in One World South Asia on 5 December 2003.
For my Ravaya column this week (18 Dec 2011), I have adapted parts of that interview into Sinhala, making the point that much of what he said about satellite TV at the time is now equally relevant to the rapid spread of the Internet. It’s also a nice way to mark his 94th birth anniversary this week.
Sir Arthur C Clarke: Opened up the heavens as part of information superhighway...
Arthur C Clare (extreme right) with Indian ISRO engineers who installed satellite antenna at his Colombo home, in 1975හොඳම උදාහරණය ලැඛෙන්නේ දකුණු අප්රිකාවෙන්. 1960 දශකය වන විට ලෝකයේ ඉසුරුබර රාජ්යයන් අතුරෙන් ටෙලිවිෂන් සේවාවක් අරඹා නොතිබූ එක ම රට වූයේ දකුණු අපිකාවයි. එවකට එහි පැවති සුදු පාලකයන්ගේ රජයේ සන්නිවේදන අමාත්යවරයා එරට ටෙලිවිෂන් සේවාවක් ඇරඹීමට කිසිසේත් එකග වූයේ නැහැ. ‘ටෙලිවිෂන් තමයි අප්රිකාවේ සුදු මිනිසාගේ පාලනය හමාර කරන්නේ’ යයි ඔහු කළ ප්රකාශයෙහි ලොකු අරුතක් ගැබ් වී තිබුණා. ^‘Television will mean the end of the white man in Africa.’)
Who’s Afraid of Online Journalists? This was the provocative title of my presentation to a national media conference on media self-regulation in Colombo in September 2011, organised by Sri Lanka Press Institute. Speaking in the session devoted to online media, I argued that SLPI was ill-equipped to tackle online news content when it lacked even full representation of the mainstream print media in Sri Lanka, and had no representation whatsoever from the radio and TV broadcasters whose outreach far outstrips that of print.
This is the Sinhala text of my weekly column in Ravaya newspaper of 20 Nov 2011. This week, I continue our discussion on Internet freedom: what can – and must – be regulated online, and how regulation is fundamentally different from control and censorship. I insist that conceptual clarity is as important as technical understanding of how the Internet works.
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 