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The Internet Still Bites Back: The role played by Discord in the Nepal uprising
Recent events in Nepal and Bangladesh highlight the internet's evolving role in democracy. Initially seen as a force for good, it now faces concerns over manipulation and misinformation. Governments are increasingly using digital regulations for control, but heavy-handed tactics can backfire, triggering social backlash. India should avoid digital authoritarianism, recognizing its incompatibility with democratic and economic goals.
The recent protests and political changes in Nepal, triggered by attempts to block social media, impart a moment to reflect on the evolution of the role of the internet in democracies.
It appears that there were two phases in how the internet was impacting the operation and deepening of democracy globally.
Phase 1 was in the first half of the 2010s, starting with the Arab Spring and the online campaigns of political figures like Barack Obama and numerous others. This was when the internet and a rising social media were seen as a force for good, challenging authoritarianism and deepening established democracies by allowing political office bearers to directly connect with the people.
Phase 2, from the end of the 2010s into the 2020s, saw a rising concern at the darker role the internet could play with respect to mis/disinformation and other malicious efforts by actors seeking to manipulate or undermine democratic processes.
From Cambridge Analytica to alleged nation-state interference in several key electoral moments, it appeared to many of us that the promise of the early 2010s had faded away.
However, the death of the transformative potential of the internet in politics, including in inducing sudden moments of change, might have been called a bit too early.
Deep layer of internet
The internet now is deeply integrated into our societies and economies, being core to many networks and institutions that shape our mechanisms for governance and politics. In effect, the internet is no longer a separate, special place. It is a deep layer shaping our everyday individual lives, communities and nations.As many in Nepal have helped clarify, the recent spate of protests and upheaval were not just about the attempted ban on social media services. It was a key galvanising moment that channelled and tipped over existing resentment at grave social injustices and discomfort with the last decade of politics and concerns of corruption.
The same could be said to have taken place in Bangladesh last year. The widespread public protests and resulting institutional change were in part due to the Sheikh Hasina government's repression of media and the targeting of activists online, along with punitive efforts to quell all dissent via internet shutdowns.
A definitive change between the early 2010s and our present mid-2020s is the role of the tech sector and web platforms. Tech firms are now, more than ever before, actively engaging with national governments to see better political, administrative and legal arrangements for themselves.
There are many reasons for this, from accessing market to preventing regulatory action, to gaining better access to government-restricted spaces such as payments or public funds. The once-prevalent romantic notion of rebellious internet exceptionalism has given way to negotiated political conversations around give-and-take.
Governments too are copying and adapting from each other in using regulatory and legislative proposals aimed at combating ostensible harms. Instead, they are being used as a bargaining chip to secure compliance from tech firms and to acquiesce to information control and surveillance demands in politically important cases, involving opposition figures or grassroots protests that may challenge the establishment.
South Asia has seen two examples where political administrations have been lazily complacent about their increasing digital authoritarianism.
Digital missteps
Nepal's effort at social media blocking was the final step in a journey of many attempts to bully tech platforms into agreeing to closer government cooperation to facilitate information control demands. This began with the earlier targeting of TikTok with blocking unless it registered with the Nepal government authorities.Efforts to block Telegram on alleged concerns of online fraud followed, along with a social media executive directive and a bill being rushed through Nepal's parliament to codify this framework.
In Bangladesh, the previous government strengthened its already draconian Digital Security Act, while increasingly forcing its telecommunication regulator to shut down the internet for political reasons while claiming those were technical outages.
In both situations, there were sudden 180-degree turns by officials after political upheavals, with Nepal cancelling its plans to block social media services and Bangladesh's telecom regulator saying its staff had been coerced into ordering network shutdowns which they knew to be illegitimate and damaging.
When established political institutions, including opposition parties, suffer crises of legitimacy, new coalitions and networks enabled by the internet end up facilitating an easy point of entry into the political space.
Discord, a signal of things
This was demonstrated by the coordination that took place via Discord—a communication service originally started for online computer gamers—among Nepal citizens, which influenced the appointment of the current interim prime minister.The takeaway: the internet is a layer of our mainstream lives and a multiplier. When done rapidly or crudely, widespread efforts to disrupt or change access to it, especially in key urban hubs in the heartland of nations, can trigger social backlash in a way that is unpredictable for those in power.
The internet is not a guaranteed insurance against authoritarianism, but it does sometimes bite back. It will still try to toss off those who may be a bit too comfortable while trying to ride a saddle of control.
Digital dictatorships, beware
India, at this time of strained economic pathways, geopolitical contestation and social challenges, cannot afford the backlash that is always a possible response to further cyber control efforts, including internet shutdowns, something the country had become famous for over the years.The wrong takeaway would be to put energy into deepening the scale and sophistication of digital authoritarianism. Policymakers at the Centre and in state governments in India have often been tempted by this in recent times; from IT rules and efforts to undermine encrypted private communications under the garb of ensuring “traceability,” to broad laws against fake news proposed in state capitals, and the frequent usage of power to conduct internet shutdowns.
As we see the results of failed digital authoritarianism in diverse South Asian societies in our neighbourhood, policymakers need to recognise the limits of such dangerous, Orwellian efforts.
The political model that India has chosen for itself as a democratic republic is fundamentally at odds with the Great Firewall of China model—which requires full commitment to implement and leaves no space for half-hearted deployment. Nor does the economic path we have taken allow us that space, given how it depends on global communications, access to information and open models to collaborate with colleagues and business partners within our diverse country, and across borders.
(Views are personal)
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Source: EconomicTimes
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