Africa: Freedom House Researcher Explains How Free Freedom Is On the Net

Washington — Global internet freedom has declined for the 14th straight year, according to Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2024 report. VOA’s Philip Alexiou spoke with Elizabeth Sutterlin, a researcher at the advocacy group, on October 21. Sutterlin outlined the various tactics used to crack down on online publishing, including imprisonment and violence. The interview centers on how these issues impact Africa. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Elizabeth Sutterlin: This continuing decline in global Internet freedom is largely driven by a worldwide assault on freedom of expression. We saw people face arrest for expressing themselves online in three-quarters of the countries that we cover in the project. And this year, we also saw a record high in people facing physical violence in retaliation for their online activity.

VOA’s Philip Alexiou: Does this sort of thing happen more during election season, or is it always ongoing?

Sutterlin: I think this is always an ongoing issue. But this year, our report really honed in on the rapid series of elections taking place around the world, including in Africa, in places like South Africa and Zimbabwe. And we really observed that these elections have been deepening this crisis. False and misleading claims have sought to undermine the integrity of elections themselves. And there have been efforts to de-legitimize independent fact checkers who are doing essential work to make sure that people who are voting have reliable information to make informed choices about their future.

VOA: What are these countries doing? You look at Zimbabwe, like you mentioned, South Africa. I know you studied a number of other countries in Africa. What are some of the tactics being used and how are people being targeted?

Sutterlin: We’ve seen really a range of tactics deployed to restrict people’s access to information online. Arrests and imprisonment is a really common one in all but one of the countries that we cover in Africa during this year. We saw people arrested or imprisoned for their online expression. One example of this, last October in Angola, an influencer was sentenced to two years in jail and handed a hefty fine for insulting the president in a TikTok video.

But increasingly, during the project, we’ve seen an uptick in the manipulation of the online information space through the use of pro-government commentators and others pushing online narratives. Zimbabwe’s a prominent example of this, as during their elections last August, state media really amplified narratives that discredited both domestic civil society election observers and international groups who reported on the conduct of the elections.

VOA: But there’s also been some improvement by some countries and Zambia, in Africa at least, was one of them. And when you look at that country or some other countries, what are they doing to actually make things better in cutting down on censorship and control?

Sutterlin: Zambia, as you said, saw one of the region’s largest improvements; actually the largest improvement globally this year. And this was really driven by space opening up for online activism. So, although there’s certainly a lot further to go, we continue to see some concerning arrests of people for insulting the president and for other concerning issues. Zambian civil society has really led the way in pushing back against repressive measures. They’ve advocated for the reform of problematic cybercrime laws and took the regulator to court recently after instituting new requirements to collect facial photos and SIM card registration. Civil society’s advocacy and mobilization online has really been a driver of these improvements.

VOA: And when it comes to generative AI, I know we spoke with Freedom House earlier, and the idea was that, at least in the United States, it really wasn’t a problem, even though people used it, it didn’t have much of an influence or much of an effect on people. But is that the case in other countries who try to use generative AI?

Sutterlin: It’s a really important question. In our research this year, we did see generative AI being used frequently to create false or misleading content around elections in particular. We had an example, examples, in South Africa of deepfake videos of celebrities endorsing particular political parties. But one really important caveat in talking about generative AI and its impact on elections is that we just don’t yet understand the technologies’ impact and whether it is making influence operations more persuasive. There’s still a major research gap in this area in how we can assess and study the effectiveness and social impact of these campaigns.

VOA: Is there any one group that tends to be in danger more than the other, or not?

Sutterlin: Yeah, I mean, I think journalists and activists and human rights defenders just doing their work, holding powerful people to account, can definitely put them at risk. But more and more, as countries are continuing to tighten controls on and restrict freedom of expression, we’re seeing this impact on ordinary users. In one example from this year, a teacher in Kenya who made a post in a Facebook group about just the quality of roads in his county was later abducted and beaten. And just really goes to show the brutal consequences that can come from these global trends and that really anyone is at risk.

This story originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.