Censorious governments are abusing “fake news” laws

DURING HIS final days Mohamed Monir, an Egyptian journalist, was so short of breath he could barely speak. In a video recorded in July last year, as his final hours approached, he begged for oxygen. He died in a hospital isolation unit after contracting covid-19 in prison while awaiting trial. He had been arrested the previous month after, among other things, writing an article lambasting the Egyptian government’s response to the pandemic. He was charged with spreading false news, misusing social media and joining a terrorist group.

Covid-19 has indeed unleashed a flood of misinformation. But it has also given governments such as Egypt’s an excuse to crack down on their critics using the pretext of restricting the spread of fake news. Between March and October last year 17 countries passed new laws against “online misinformation” or “fake information”, according to the International Press Institute (see map). Among those leading this charge are such guardians of free speech as Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Rodrigo Duterte. Other authoritarians, such as Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, have followed since then. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, is keen to pass a law to stop the dissemination of fake news after the protests that roiled the city in 2019.

Governments have always regulated speech. And the spread of disinformation is indeed a serious and growing problem. If politicians are enacting laws against fake news to catch people spreading deliberate lies, “that’s one thing”, argues Marko Milanovic, an expert in international law at the University of Nottingham. If, however, they are putting in place broad, vague measures that are in fact intended to curb the freedom of the press and free speech more widely, “that’s a huge problem.”

Some governments have cited the pandemic as justification for new laws. Under legislation introduced in March 2020 in Russia, media outlets found guilty of deliberately spreading false information about matters of public safety, including covid-19, face fines of up to €117,000 ($140,000). Russia already imposed fines on people for spreading “false information” but the new regulations fall under the criminal code which means the punishments can also include time in jail. The editor of one website was fined 60,000 roubles ($810) for reporting that 1,000 graves had been dug for potential victims of covid-19. Tatyana Voltskaya, a freelance journalist, was fined 30,000 roubles in December for a radio report that included an interview with an anonymous health worker, who described the shortage of ventilators in Russian hospitals and other difficulties faced by doctors battling covid-19.

Other governments are reviving obsolete legislation, ostensibly to combat fake news related to covid-19. Their true aims, however, are to hamper independent journalism or “retaliate against those doing reporting that they don’t appreciate”, says Courtney Radsch of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based NGO. In March the Jordanian government used a “defence” law from 1992 that permits the declaration of a state of emergency in exceptional circumstances to do so as part of its efforts to stem the spread of covid-19. The law allows the government to monitor the content of newspapers and censor or shut down any outlet without giving any reason. On Christmas Eve Jamal Haddad, the Jordanian publisher of a news website, was detained after publishing an article asking why officials had received vaccinations against covid-19 when these were not yet available to ordinary citizens.

And some authorities are invoking laws that may not even exist. Hopewell Chin’ono, a journalist in Zimbabwe, was arrested in January for tweeting about police violence while enforcing lockdowns. The government says that “anyone who spreads false news will be charged in terms of Section 31 of the Criminal Code”, according to Doug Coltart, one of Mr Chin’ono’s lawyers. But the section of the law criminalising the dissemination of “falsehoods” had been struck down in 2014 by the Zimbabwean constitutional court.

Some of the new laws are temporary. But their creators appear in no hurry to lift them. Mr Orban imposed a state of emergency in Hungary in March last year. Among other measures it made the dissemination of “misinformation” punishable by up to five years in prison. The state of emergency ended in June, but Mr Orban’s government reimposed it in November as the country faced a second wave of covid-19 cases.

South Africa also introduced temporary legislation in March 2020, as part of a package of measures to limit the spread of covid-19. It stipulated that those publishing falsehoods about the disease could face fines or up to six months in prison. Only a handful of people have been arrested. Those who have been prosecuted were social-media users charged with promoting unscientific nonsense, such as a man who claimed that covid tests spread the disease. So far, journalists have been fairly relaxed about the restrictions, in part because the government listened to their concerns, reckons Izak Minnaar, a former broadcaster who works on disinformation issues as part of the country’s National Editors’ Forum. Fact-checking of contentious social-media posts is done by an independent body rather than one run by the government, for instance. But the law has set a precedent for tighter curbs on the press. “We cannot make it permanent,” says Siyavuya Mzantsi, editor of the Cape Times.

Even as free-speech campaigners in rich democracies offer support to those fighting censorship in poorer, less free places, their own governments are providing the would-be censors with cover, even inspiration. Germany’s Network Enforcement Law (NetzDG), passed in 2017, is meant to protect readers from fake news and hate speech by requiring social-media platforms to remove material deemed incendiary. More than a dozen countries, from Russia to Turkey, have copied this legislation as a way to suppress dissent online. Many of these countries expressly referred to the German law as justification for their repressive legislation. Turkey’s allows the government to remove online content and reduce the bandwidth of social-media sites so much that they become unusable. Jacob Mchangama and Joelle Fiss of Justitia, a Danish think-tank, have described the NetzDG as “the Digital Berlin Wall” because it has accidentally become a “prototype for global online censorship”.

None so zealous

Converts to the cause of tackling fake news are often guilty of peddling the stuff themselves. Brazilian politicians are in the process of passing a law against fake news. But the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has downplayed the dangers of covid-19 and touted ineffective pills. Though he was infected in July last year, he says his background as an athlete helped him shrug it off. He is cool on the law because he worries it will affect his supporters, some of whom are also quick to spread misinformation. Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, has prescribed saunas and hockey as cures for covid-19. In a survey of 1,406 journalists conducted by the International Centre for Journalists, a non-profit organisation in Washington, 46% said that elected officials were the source of misinformation relating to covid-19 that they had encountered. They also blamed government agencies and networks of trolls linked to various states.

These laws are making journalists’ jobs harder. In Hungary they have made reporting more arduous. Sources are less willing to talk. Atlatszo, an independent news site established in 2011, has three lawyers who do a legal check of articles to make sure that everything complies with the regulation. Mr Orban’s government has become more secretive. It is more reluctant to answer questions from independent media outlets. It has established a central “Operative Unit” to deal with journalists’ inquiries. As a result questions to local hospitals, schools and municipalities are now handled by national authorities. In Myanmar the “True News Information Team” exists largely to suppress reports about crimes committed by the army, which since February 1st has been in charge of the whole country.

In desperation some have gone into exile. Belarusian journalists have fled to Poland. Many Nicaraguan reporters have moved to Costa Rica. After Lucia Pineda, a Nicaraguan journalist, was arrested and held in prison for six months in 2019, she moved her news website, 100% Noticias, there. Gerall Chávez, another Nicaraguan hack, co-founded a website called Nicaragua Actual but works out of Costa Rica, too. He still worries that his work puts him in danger. Last summer he received death threats on Facebook, including a cartoon showing him being killed. His parents, who are still in Nicaragua, were sent the same animation on a USB stick.

Others are censoring themselves. In countries that have had such laws on the books for a while, this is already apparent. Bangladesh’s Digital Security Act, passed in 2018, imposes hefty fines on journalists or individuals found guilty of “cyberterrorism”. It has created a culture of fear, one journalist explains, which silences reporters. The government does not need new laws to do so. “Our legal system, our judiciary is so fragile that…if the government wants to harass someone, they don’t need any piece of legislation,” he says.

Such repression is changing how journalists publish and where people seek their news. Some media outlets are moving onto new platforms, such as Telegram, an online-messaging service. In Belarus the government responded to big protests over a contested election in August by shutting down the internet and arresting scores of journalists. Between mid-August and mid-November subscriptions to the Telegram channel for Tut.by, a news website, grew by 28%. In Hungary many publishers are controlled by the government. During the pandemic they have published nothing but articles praising the effectiveness of the state’s response, says Tamás Bodoky, the editor of Atlatszo. His site, by contrast, has reported on controversies concerning the government’s handling of the crisis. He reckons that explains the rise in its average monthly views from around 182,000 in 2019 to over 285,000 in 2020: “People were actively looking for articles about the pandemic which were not government propaganda.” No laws can stop them doing that. ■