Conversation with Chaminda Dias, and members of the Good Governance Yaya (GGY) cohort on Sri Lanka’s Online Safety Act, conducted last week, is now on YouTube. This is also on GGY’s Facebook Page, which I’ve followed with interest for a while.
In the 1 ½ hour interaction, which I didn’t feel go by, I made a couple of key points regarding the OSA, & its near guaranteed weaponisation.
Noted the Online Safety Act (OSA) is an unprecedented assault on freedom of expression in Sri Lanka, allowing the government to control and censor online speech under vague pretexts. I call it an obscenity in the presentation, which is putting it mildly.
The OSA’s broad language around “feelings of ill will” can be weaponised to silence government critics and suppress dissent, even targeting past online content from the time one started to use the internet, and social media.
The Act is part of a larger trend, and legislative scaffolding by the current government to consolidate power and prevent another Aragalaya-like people’s movement. The centrality of the Ministry of Defence in the proposed ATA, cybersecurity, and telecoms Bills is a red-flag.
While marginalised groups will likely bear the brunt of the OSA, it ultimately threatens all Sri Lankans regardless of their political affiliations. I use a decades old case, involving a celebrated Tamil journalist – J. S. Tissainayagam – to clarify this point.
The OSA will have a chilling effect, & foster climate of pervasive self-censorship as people fear prosecution for their online speech. Towards the end of the conversation, I link this to how virality will now be a vector to clamp down on critical dissent, & inconvenient truths.
Investigative journalism, whistleblowing, and encrypted communications face severe threats under the OSA, which grossly undermines privileged communications protections. I also link this to Clause/Article 65 of the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), & what’s going on in India.
Despite claiming to protect women and children, the OSA fails to substantively address online harms, instead focusing on expanding government control. Flagging laws, and regulations to deal with online harms proposed or enacted from around the world, I make the point that while social media companies are doing a terrible job at addressing online harms, the OSA isn’t a remedy to their inaction, and actually, makes things worse.
As I’ve said since January, & even prior, passed without proper scrutiny, & through dubious parliamentary procedure, the fundamentally flawed OSA must be rejected, and repealed entirely. No amount of amendments can fix its draconian nature, censorious purpose, and potential for abuse as the prosthetic of a malevolent Executive Presidency.
And thanks for putting Chaminda Dias in touch with me Sulochana Peiris. Glad I took part in this conversation which keeps the spirit of 2022’s aragalaya – as a narrative that critiques power, and holds it accountable – alive. It’s precisely this kind of production the OSA targets, and aims to comprehensively wipe out.
Sanjana Hattotuwa 