A new chapter

The Long Tweet 3 Minutes

ITN’s website on Thursday featured a story on the caring side of government, if this wasn’t already evident to citizens.  It noted, “There have been continuous complaints from the general public about certain websites publishing malicious, defamatory and row (sic) filth and stories defamatory to the characters of certain people.  Therefore, it has become necessary to protect the dignity of the general public being victimized by these filthy websites”.

The government’s genius solution to this perceived conundrum was to slap a steep and recurring tax on ‘news websites’, which at the time of writing remains a loosely used term. Obviously, mainstream media websites will fall under this new tax. But online, anyone from anywhere at any time can report something newsworthy, so this new regulation could potentially and very quickly embrace personal blogs, micro-blogs (Twitter accounts), Facebook groups and fan pages, content on platforms like Bundlr that curate news items over the long-term or around a certain issue or event, Flickr photo-streams that are on current events and YouTube video channels. In addition the government announced it would amend the relevant legal framework, dating from 1973, so that anyone associated with running or curating any of these platforms, blogs or websites can be, at the government’s whim (or through a paid proxy in court) be slapped with lawsuits, fines and even imprisonment.

The development is a seriously disturbing one, but in it lies an opportunity as well. For years, independent media online has published the most damning accounts of government excesses, including graft, corruption and probing debates on allegations of war crimes. Post-war, this trend will increase. The change in legislation and the imposition of tax are points of no return. During the years of war, government never tired of saying there was no official censorship in place. That’s gone now – the law and tax are very real, and the unspoken yet palpable threat is that perceived non-compliance will most likely lead to content censorship coupled with duress and possible criminal proceedings.

What’s new is the fact that anyone, anywhere in Sri Lanka is now liable for prosecution at the sole discretion of government. It is likely this columnist’s paper, one of the first to register with the government even when there was no legal requirement to do so, as well as other mainstream media will immediately pay the tax and supinely comply with the law. A tremendous increase in self-censorship will be the result of this. It’s unlikely a single media institution in this country will have the backbone to resist it. Where things get interesting is when it comes to blogs and social media, sites that are located out of Sri Lanka and the other web and mobile based platforms which can be easily and effortlessly set up by individuals, groups, institutions or political parties. Henceforth, no matter whether you write, photograph, record or tweet – if what you say is newsworthy and seen as particularly inconvenient, you will be blocked, and if identified and geo-located within Sri Lanka, face criminal proceedings. And because it’s now the law, the government will say this clamp down on media freedom is all very democratic.

The opportunity in all this lies in the impossibility of the intended goal – which is to control content with extreme prejudice. Going after a few voices online for entirely parochial reasons, the Rajapaksa’s have grossly underestimated the scope and fallout of what they have now brought about. Fighting new forms of dissent – agile, multi-platform, real-time, glocal and mobile – with antiquated means and mind-sets was tried early last year in Tunisia, for example. Didn’t exactly turn out as expected for Ben Ali et al. Forget about higher democratic ideals – a modicum of enlightened self-interest would suggest that the government simply cannot sustain this level of censorship without serious domestic and international repercussions. And mind-bogglingly, it sees fit to propose these laws to secure decency and dignity when Gotabaya Rajapaksa, not for the first time, demonstrated to the world and us just how unhinged he is, and Mervyn Silva, despite the most heinous violence, threats and language in public for years on end, roams free after being found innocent of any wrongdoing by government.

The impunity of powerful individuals, retrogressive laws and censorious taxes respectively showcase so much of what’s wrong and getting worse with the freedom of expression our country. We are impervious to the violent censorship of Tamil dissidents in the country, writing against both LTTE and the State, during and after war. But the noose now ensnares a larger community. If you’re producing content on how you see and choose to describe Sri Lanka, you’re now liable for criminal prosecution, regulation and possible taxation. It’s as simple as that.

Good luck.

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Published in the print edition of The Nation, 15 July 2012.

Published by Sanjana

An Ashoka, Rotary World Peace and TED Fellow, I have since 2002 used, studied and advocated Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to strengthen peace, human rights & democratic governance. I founded in 2006 and till June 2020 edited the award-winning Groundviews, Sri Lanka's first civic media website. From 2002-2020 I was a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives. I pioneered both the use of social media for activism and online citizen journalism/civic media in Sri Lanka, including setting up South Asia's first Twitter and Facebook accounts for civic media, in 2007. Having started digital security training for human rights activists in 2010, I continue to advise civil society on digital hygiene, mass and personal surveillance, privacy and secure communications to date. I also curate a comprehensive digital archive of material linked to peace and conflict in Sri Lanka, since 2002. I specialise in, advise and train on social media communications strategy, countering-violence extremism online, web-based activism, online advocacy and grounded, context-based, platform-specific social media research. My work experience over two-decades spans five continents. Through the ICT4Peace Foundation and since 2006, I help strengthen information management during crises and work on countering violent extremism online. For over a decade, this included leading the Foundation's work on these lines with the United Nations and other multi-lateral organisations involved in peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and humanitarian affairs. Since 2008, I have worked in South Asia, South East Asia, North Africa, Europe and the Balkans to capture, disseminate and archive inconvenient truths in austere, violent contexts. I completed doctoral studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand, looking at the symbiotic relationship between offline unrest and online instigation of hate and harm in Sri Lanka and, in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre in 2019, facilitated by leading research based on New Zealand's first ever Data for Good grant by Twitter.

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2 thoughts on “A new chapter”

  1. But I thought that The United Nations Human Rights Council recently passed a landmark resolution declaring freedom of expression on the Internet to be a basic human right. Even China, backed the resolution. Does this not go against this resolution?

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