Freedom Online: The Global Rise in Intentional Internet Disruptions

[Commentary] In late October, I attended the sixth annual Freedom Online Conference (FOC) in San José, Costa Rica. It was my third FOC, including Tallinn in 2014 and Ulaanbaatar in 2015. Every year, I am thrilled to see the growing number of governments joining the Coalition to promote and protect human rights online through multilateral diplomacy and multi-stakeholder engagement. This year, more than 200 participants representing government, civil society, business, and academia from 47 countries came together to discuss the role of the Coalition in advancing Internet freedom.

A worrying trend at the top of the conference agenda was the global rise in intentional shutdowns of the Internet and mobile networks. According to modest estimates, some 25 governments on almost every continent have intentionally prevented or disrupted access to such networks more than 50 times since the beginning of 2016, a rate of at least once every six days. Earlier in 2016, we joined consensus at the UN Human Rights Council in passing a resolution condemning intentional disruptions of access to or dissemination of information online, in violation of human rights law. This Internet freedom resolution, which calls on States to refrain from and cease network disruptions, echoes a FOC joint statement from 2011 that labeled “mandatory blocking” of social networking technologies and platforms to be “an extreme measure” strictly subject to human rights law.

[Tom Malinowski is the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor]