Chinese Government Dragnet Now Folding In American Social Media Platforms To Silence Dissent

from the multinational-surveillance-startup-seeks-nonconsensual-investment dept

The Chinese government's surveillance of undesirables isn't limited to its borders. It has been working with tech companies to produce an outsider-oriented surveillance platform to keep tabs on visiting students and foreign journalists -- neither of whom might feel particularly obliged to maintain the party line.

The journalist-targeting surveillance system, detailed in a December 2021 Yahoo report, is apparently already mostly a reality. This New York Times report shows the government is already applying its oppression to visitors to the country, hoping to ensure nothing contradicting the official narrative makes its way to the internet airwaves.

Jennifier Chen went back to China to visit her hometown for the Lunar New Year. While she was there, she tweeted from her anonymous account to around 100 followers. Those actions managed to attract the attention of the Chinese government's social media surveillance apparatus.

While living in China, she retweeted news and videos, and occasionally made comments censored on Chinese platforms, like voicing her support for Hong Kong’s protesters and her solidarity with minorities who have been interned.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough for the authorities to go after her. The police knocked on her parents’ door when she was visiting. She said they had summoned her to the station, questioned her and then commanded her to delete her Twitter posts and account. They continued to track her when she went overseas to study, calling her and her mother to ask if Ms. Chen had recently visited any human rights websites.

This isn't completely a new idea for China, which has always sought to suppress anti-government sentiment, no matter where it originates. But the surveillance system behind this tracking of visitors and foreigners is somewhat new, and it utilizes new techniques to harvest social media content from foreign accounts posted to sites blocked in China. Security forces -- including local law enforcement -- keep tabs on the internet, combining offending social media posts with public records and government databases to identify and track surveillance targets.

Content not specifically under the government's jurisdiction can still cause trouble back at home. Anyone associated with the person offending the government will be targeted by efforts to suppress speech.

One video recording, provided by a Chinese student living in Australia, showed how the police in her hometown had summoned her father, called her with his phone and pushed her to remove her Twitter account.

[...]

Three weeks later, they summoned him again. This time, calling her via video chat, they told her to report to the station when she returned to China and asked how much longer her Australian visa was valid. Fearful, she denied owning the Twitter account but filmed the call and kept the account up. A few months later, Twitter suspended it.

This foreign-facing work begins at home. Documents seen by the New York Times show law enforcement agencies are paying up to $1,500 per "investigation" targeting an overseas social media account. Contractors start with easily accessible social media content before digging into voter registries, drivers license databases, and whatever hacked data can be purchased or obtained from dark web data purveyors.

The offending content is subjected to a ranking system that allows the government to determine the person's threat level. Criticism of government officials or attempts to organize protests is considered the biggest threat. Forbidden content like libel or porn is considered the least threatening, although it can also subject people to government harassment. The end result of these surveillance programs manifest themselves as visits from law enforcement, not-so-veiled threats delivered to close relatives, and, in at least one case, the temporary "disappearing" of parents or siblings.

Oppression without borders. That's the Chinese government's goal. Visitors who can't play by the rules will be encouraged to leave. Locals traveling abroad will be reminded they can never escape their homeland's grasp. A surveillance system that operates without constraint or consent rolls on uninterrupted, gaining power and momentum with each new iteration.

Filed Under: china, dissent, free speech, social media, surveillance

UK Home Office Floats Bill That Would Make It Illegal To Be Too Loud During A Protest

from the quiet,-you dept

The British government is looking to literally silence dissent. Protests are a fact of life. There hasn't been a government yet that's been able to avoid them. But governments still do all they can to prevent them from reaching critical mass. In Hong Kong, the Chinese government has turned protesting into a national security crime with life sentences. In the United States, legislators are still trying to find ways to shut people up without violating their long-protected right to be verbally and demonstratively angry at their government.

Over in the UK, the government wants people to shut up. So, the Home Office has crafted a bill that would do exactly that: criminalize the "noise" protesters make. The bill would amend the 1986's Public Order Act to make it a crime to do the one thing demonstrations and protests are supposed to do: draw the public's attention. Here's Ian Dunt, writing for Politics.co.uk.

On Tuesday, the Home Office published the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill. It covers a wide range of areas, from sentencing to digital information. But it has a specific section on the policing of protests. And the function of this section is simple: It aims to silence them.

This isn't a metaphorical silencing. It's a literal silencing. The 1986 law forbids protests that threaten serious damage or disruption. These amendments add "noise" to the list of aspects that allow the government to intervene or shut down demonstrations.

If the noise of the protest “may result in serious disruption to the activities of an organisation” – for instance by distracting employees in a nearby office, then the police can impose restrictions. It goes without saying that this applies to almost any protest at all around parliament, the whole purpose of which is to get the attention of politicians. It can therefore cause “serious disruption” of an organisation.

It also applies to passers-by. If the noise of the protest could have “a relevant impact on persons in the vicinity of the procession”, the police can impose restrictions. The standard for this threshold is very low indeed: If the police believe that just one person nearby could be caused “serious unease, alarm or distress”, they can impose restrictions.

Unease and alarm are often byproducts of even peaceful protests. It's something commonly suffered by those targeted by the targets of demonstrations. Their unease is the point, because without it, it's pretty hard to compel change.

With this amendment, anyone could complain about the "noise" made by protesters and prompt a law enforcement response. Law enforcement can also use any imagined level of noise as impetus for shutting down protests under the presumption that stopping a protest before it gets "too" loud is just proactive police work.

It's SHUT UP: the law. The entire point of protests is to draw attention to and disrupt the status quo. This bill makes it illegal to hold an effective protest. And that appears to be the way the Home Office wants it. As Dunt points out, Home Secretary Priti Patel has been openly critical of many different protests, calling Extinction Rebellion protesters "eco-terrorists" and saying Black Lives Matter protests are not "the right way" to protest.

This is a gag order on dissent. Every government would love to have one. And it looks like the UK may be the next to criminalize complaints by the public it's apparently failing to serve properly.

Filed Under: dissent, noise, protests, uk

Chinese Government Implements Cybersecurity Law Designed To Spy On Citizens, Quell Dissent

from the protected-from-everything-but-their-own-government dept

The Chinese government is going in for a third pass on its "cybersecurity" law -- one that has little to do with security and everything to do with control.

This is something the government has been working on for a few years now. It's a chance for it to tame the "Wild West" internet, particularly the "West" part of it with all these ideals about free speech and the spreading of information. The third reading, with all alterations and additions appended, will likely be going into effect this week. Human Rights Watch has a long post detailing the law's negative aspects -- which is almost all of them.

Among other things, service providers will be forced to censor "prohibited content." They'll also be required to collect real names and other identifying user information, even if the only service provided is instant messaging.

There's also an information-sharing plan not unlike the one the US government has set up for its cyberwar operations. The difference is that the Chinese government makes no pretense about two-way sharing. It simply demands companies turn over harvested info and other data.

[The law] requires companies to monitor and report to the government undefined “network security incidents,” as well as provide undefined “technical support” to security agencies to aid in investigations, raising fears of increased surveillance. The final draft further specifies that network operators must retain network logs for at least six months and accept government supervision.

"Government supervision" sounds like fun, especially combined with another aspect of the proposed law, which gives the government the legal right to shut down internet infrastructure to respond to "major security incidents."

Earlier versions also demanded local storage of Chinese user data by foreign service providers, with the government's stated intent being to "preserve internet sovereignty" by walling off its citizens from the rest of the connected world. It's unclear whether these demands have survived multiple alterations as the full final version of the cybersecurity law has yet to be released.

That's not the extent of the control the government is seeking to exert. It goes far beyond its attempt to create a siloed Chinese internet. The law also gives the government new options for quashing dissent.

In addition to prohibiting individuals from using the Internet to “endanger national security, advocate terrorism or extremism, [or] propagate ethnic hatred and discrimination,” article 12 of the second draft also prohibits them from “overthrowing the socialist system” and “fabricating or spreading false information to disturb economic order.” The third draft adds to this list, banning the use of the Internet “to incite separatism or damage national unity.”

The law does add in privacy protection requirements for service providers, but its unclear who they're supposed to benefit. Companies must safeguard user info and notify them of data breaches, but the government's logging requirements and "supervision" efforts make it clear it's never going to be locked out of accessing the information companies are supposed to be protecting from outsiders.

China may be a willing partner in the global economy but when it comes to it own citizens, it prefers them as isolated as possible. On one hand, it's more of China being China. On the other hand, these power grabs masquerading as national security upgrades aren't solely limited to governments with long histories of repression. As everyone gears up for the cyberwar, government entities who long for more control of pesky citizens will often find their expansion ideas humored, if not codified.

Filed Under: china, civil liberties, cybersecurity, dissent, surveillance

After Nine Years Of Censorship, Canada Finally Unmuzzles Its Scientists

from the justin-trudeau-strikes-again dept

Here's something we don't see enough of here on Techdirt: a long and dispiriting saga with a happy ending. Over the years, we've reported on how Canada's previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, tried to stifle dissenting voices among government scientists and librarians, all of whom were expected to self-censor, even outside their work. But as most people know by now, the new Canadian administration under Justin Trudeau has a rather different style, and fortunately that also applies to how it treats its scientists. As an article in Nature reports, things may be moving too slowly for some, but at least they are moving:

the [Canadian] government is loosening its grip on communications but the shift at some agencies has not been as swift and comprehensive as many had hoped. And with the newfound freedom to speak, the full impact of the former restrictions is finally becoming clear. Canadian scientists and government representatives are opening up about what it was like to work under the former policy and the kind of consequences it had. Some of the officials who imposed the rules are talking about how the restrictions affected the morale and careers of researchers.

As well as filling in the background to this welcome move, Nature explores some of the stories that are starting to emerge, like this one:

During the 1970s, [Ian Stirling, a prominent biologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada] had gone to meetings in Canada that were also attended by Soviet scientists. The visiting researchers would arrive, he says, "with a KGB guy, who would stand there with no smiles, a scowl on his face and arms crossed". Stirling still finds it unbelievable that the Canadian government used similar tactics at conferences. In 2012, for example, the Canadian news outlet CBC reported that media minders had shadowed scientists from Environment Canada at a meeting of the International Polar Year in Montreal.

It's important to remember that Canada is not alone in having these muzzling problems. The article notes that during the administration of President George W. Bush, US government scientists complained that inconvenient data was being altered or simply suppressed. More recently, the UK government unveiled plans to forbid its scientists from lobbying for changes in their own field. Although it has now introduced some exemptions from the controversial "gagging clause", these seem half-hearted and possibly temporary. It obviously needs to pay more attention to Justin.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: canada, dissent, free speech, justin trudeau, opinions, policy, scientists, stephen harper

Spanish Police Park In Handicapped Spot, Fine Person Who Caught Them For 'Impugning Their Honor'

from the the-perfect-law-for-those-who-would-be-a-law-unto-themselves dept

A question that is almost always ignored when crafting legislation is "How will this new law be abused?" In the case of Spain's horrific Gag Law (officially [and hilariously] known as the "Citizen Security Law"), the answer is, "As much as possible."

Just a couple of weeks away from a Spanish citizen being fined for calling his local police force "slackers," a Spanish woman has been fined for posting a picture of police car parked in a handicapped spot to her Facebook page.

A Spanish woman has been fined €800 (£570) under the country’s controversial new gagging law for posting a photograph of a police car parked illegally in a disabled bay.

The unnamed woman, a resident of Petrer in Alicante, south-east Spain, posted the photo on her Facebook page with the comment “Park where you bloody well please and you won’t even be fined”.

The police tracked her down within 48 hours and fined her.

If nothing else, the new law has reset law enforcement priorities. If law enforcement is insulted, the perpetrator needs to be tracked down before the trail goes cold.

According to the original report at Petreraldia.com, differing narratives have emerged. One version of the incident says the officer who parked in the handicapped spot approached the photographer and explained the situation, apparently hoping to prevent a disparaging upload. If so, it didn't take. Another version says the uploader called to apologize to the police, presumably to ward off a citation. If so, that didn't take. And yet another version says there was no interaction between police and the photographer until they showed up at her home to hand her a ticket.

What really happened isn't important, because there's the Official Police Narrative. The spokesman for the police informed Petreraldia that "in an emergency" police are allowed to park wherever they want, so as to expedite the apprehension of suspects.

The "emergency" behind this illegal parking job? An "incident of vandalism in a nearby park."

And, of course, the only other official remnant of this one-two punch of exemplary policework is the €800 ticket.

It seems the police -- if they felt so demeaned by the Facebook post (which was swiftly removed by the original poster) -- could have asked for an apology, rather than €800. Or the department could have offered its explanation of the situation (as it did!), rather than fine the citizen. But the law is the law, and as such, must be abused to the fullest extent allowable.

Filed Under: dissent, free speech, gag law, insult, police, social media, spain

Spain Government Goes Full Police State; Enacts Law Forbidding Dissent, 'Unauthorized' Photography Of Law Enforcement

from the shut-up-citizen-or-we'll-put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is dept

Well, Spain's officially a police state now. On July 1st, its much-protested "gag" law went into effect, instantly making criminals of those protesting the new law. Among the many new repressive stipulations is a €30,000-€600,000 fine for "unauthorized protests," which can be combined for maximum effect with a €600-€300,000 fine for "disrupting public events."

This horrible set of statutes has arisen from Spain's position as a flashpoint for anti-austerity protests, the European precursor to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Fines, fines and more fines await anyone who refuses to treat authority with the respect it's forcibly requiring citizens to show it.

The law also extends its anti-protest punishments to social media, where users can face similar fines for doing nothing more than encouraging or organizing a protest. Failing to present ID when commanded is another fine. And then there's this:

Showing a "lack of respect" to those in uniform or failing to assist security forces in the prevention of public disturbances could result in an individual fine of between €600 and €30,000.

Spain's legislators thought of everything. To ensure these crackdowns on protests go off with a minimum of public backlash, "respected" police officers are being given a blank check to use as much force as they feel necessary when breaking up "unauthorized protests." The law doesn't directly instruct police to behave badly, but it does provide a very helpful increase in opacity.

A clause in the wide-ranging legislation that critics have dubbed the "gag law" provides for fines of up to 30,000 euros ($33,000) for "unauthorized use" of images of working police that could identify them, endanger their security or hinder them from doing their jobs.

Somehow, the Spanish government has managed to find an expectation of privacy within its public spaces and applied it to its public servants. While the law does make some provision for the public's "right to know," it also defers to law enforcement's judgment when it comes to what is or isn't "authorized use" of photographs/video depicting police performing their public duties.

Obviously, this small nod towards the public's rights is completely insincere. The government wants to clamp down on protests and it obviously can't be embarrassed by award-winning photographs/video of its police officers beating civilians wholly uninvolved with the protests that so angried up the cops' blood.



Those defending the law (sort of) think the built-in "protections" will at least protect some favored members of the media.

Victora Lerena, president of Spain's association representing visual journalists, thinks the language about freedom of information will protect journalists, but predicts anyone who tries to take images of police at protests without media organization credentials could be at risk.

This is likely true, considering the "credentialed" press already blurs officers' faces when reporting. But the most damning images of police misconduct usually come from unofficial sources, and even the most aggressive of mainstream news outlets frequently defer to the government's judgment when reporting on alleged police abuse.

Spain has outlawed dissent and given the police extra protections and respect they haven't earned. That's as close to a police state as you can get without actually declaring martial law.

Filed Under: dissent, free speech, photographs, spain

Vietnam Abusing Facebook Reporting Tools To Stifle Dissent

from the and-here-comes-ms-streisand dept

It's funny how strong-arming governments, theoretically able to bypass the red-tape that makes republics and democracies so slow-moving, just can't produce that kind of nimble posture when walking back their attempts to thought-control the internet. Time and again, we find examples of governments taking Orwellian measures against their own people on internet sites and social media networks, finding them to be far less useful than they'd thought, and then merely inching away from those attempts rather than outright reversing them. Ukraine recently served as an example of this, when they attempted to track and creep-out protesters via text messages and police action, before then walking back the text message portion and then finally succumbing to regime-changing revolution.

Vietnam appears to be in the process of learning the same lesson. The country that likes to style themselves a free society apparently employs so-called "opinion shapers" in their government ranks. Those folks' job is to scour the 25 million Vietnamese Facebook users to find anyone critical of the government and then report their accounts to Facebook, which appears to be complying by shutting down the accounts. This, by the way, is the scaled back version of the government interference.

With 25 million Vietnamese users, Facebook is the social network in the country. Since Facebook took off in Vietnam in 2009, authorities have tried unsuccessfully to restrict its explosive growth and role as a medium for free expression. Early attempts by authorities to block Facebook did not succeed and only encouraged netizens to learn how to circumvent and became versed in civil disobedience.

Go figure. You try to clamp down citizens' use of the internet and all that does is make them really good at getting around your attempts to block them. That's the norm, not the exception. But rather than learn their lesson, the government just went with the heavy-handed account shutdown approach, apparently aided by a compliant Facebook. And just so we're clear, we're talking about normal grievances here, not terrorists.

In 2013, 30-year old Dinh Nhat Uy was the first Vietnamese activist known to be arrested for his activities on Facebook. He was convicted for “abusing democratic freedoms” through status updates calling for the release of his younger brother who also used social media to express dissent. Uy’s arrest sparked widespread attention but did not temper enthusiasm for using the social network for political discussion and organizing.

In other words, it still isn't working. Again, this kind of attempt to stifle public grievances with the government is only going to produce the kind of multiplier effect on dissent that we saw in Ukraine, in Egypt, in Tunisia, etcetera, etcetera, forever and ever, amen. That's how this works. I'm not prognosticator, but don't be surprised if you see protests in Vietnam spring up en masse as a result of this heavy-handed approach. And if the government plans on sticking around, a rather abrupt about-face on all this is severely warranted.

And, oh by the way, let's not leave Facebook out of this, either. It's about time the social media giant began taking a stance on this kind of obvious political silencing. They have to keep ideological stances pretty loose, assuming they want to continue operating world-wide, but there is such a thing as going a bridge too far and the Vietnamese government's actions certainly seem like the kind of thing that would be easy to stand against.

Either way, none of this will end up working. Expect gloating posts from us in the not-too-distant future.

Filed Under: dissent, free speech, social media, vietnam
Companies: facebook

Microsoft Backs Down: Will No Longer Help Russian Gov't Use Copyright To Suppress Dissent

from the only-three-years-later dept

Despite evidence this has been going on for years, it apparently took a NY Times article calling Microsoft out for the company to officially change its policies on assisting the Russian government in cases involving supposedly unauthorized copies of Microsoft software:

Microsoft announced on Monday that it would essentially prohibit its Russian division from taking part in software piracy cases against government opponents, responding to criticism that it was assisting the authorities in a crackdown on dissent.

Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, claimed that they "unequivocally abhor any attempt to leverage intellectual property rights to stifle political advocacy or pursue improper personal gain." Would have been nice if that had been made clear before it was revealed in the NY Times how eager Microsoft appeared to be to help the Russian government out.

Filed Under: copyright, dissent, russia
Companies: microsoft

Russian Officials Abusing Copyright Law -- With Microsoft's Help -- To Intimidate Gov't Critics

from the well,-look-at-that dept

Almost exactly three years ago, we wrote about how the Russian gov't (after years of diplomatic pressure from the US), was suddenly cracking down on organizations for using unauthorized software -- but, that such "anti-piracy raids" only seemed to target government critics. We've suggested in the past that the US should know better than to pressure countries like Russia and China to be more proactive when it comes to copyright issues, because those efforts will backfire when such tools are used solely to further the political ambitions of those in power, not the business prospects of American companies.

It looks like the Russian government's misuse of copyright law in this manner has continued, and the NY Times (who also had that original article three years ago, though they don't point back to it, like we do) is noting that Microsoft appears to be helping the Russian government suppress dissent in this manner, because even when organizations claim they legally licensed Microsoft products, Microsoft keeps its hardline "down with pirates" line and supports the Russian raids and prosecutions. Despite the fact that these sorts of stories have appeared for at least three years, and despite claims from the groups targeted that they've requested Microsoft's help in not being involved in frivolous attacks, Microsoft only seems to have taken notice of the issue once the NY Times came calling.

And, before people say that the best way to avoid these things is to either not use Microsoft software at all, or to properly license it, it should be made clear that there's evidence that Russian officials don't care:

But the review of these cases indicates that the security services often seize computers whether or not they contain illegal software. The police immediately filed reports saying they had discovered such programs, before even examining the computers in detail. The police claims have in numerous instances been successfully discredited by defendants when the cases go before judges.

Given the suspicions that these investigations are politically motivated, the police and prosecutors have turned to Microsoft to lend weight to their cases. In southwestern Russia, the Interior Ministry declared in an official document that its investigation of a human rights advocate for software piracy was begun "based on an application" from a lawyer for Microsoft.

In other cases, organizations that were raided had compliance stickers on the computers, and had all the receipts and documentation ready to show police. However, police refused to look at the documentation and removed the stickers that showed compliance.

Microsoft execs should be ashamed of how their ridiculous anti-piracy stance is being abused to put down political dissent. Shameful.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, censorship, copyright, dissent, russia
Companies: microsoft

Malaysia Wants To Filter The Internet, But Swears It Won't Be Used To Stop Political Dissent

from the yeah,-sure... dept

Malaysia's government has had something of a love-hate affair with citizens and opposing politicians using blogs and other social media to protest the government -- and has even sent opposition bloggers they don't like to jail. So, you can imagine the concern when the government announced plans to install widespread internet filters modeled on China's fault "Green Dam" software. Not surprisingly, the government officials back the plan insist it won't be used against political targets, but just obscene material. Opponents find that hard to believe. Even if (and it's a big "if") that's the intent of the government, having it be so easy to "accidentally" start blocking opposition sites is probably too tempting for many.

Filed Under: dissent, filtering, malaysia