A-Infos (en) Italy, Umanita Nova #24/25 - Censorship and Revolt on the Roof of the World. Protests in Nepal and Social Media (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

When the Nepalese government ordered the blocking of 26 (practically 
all...) social media sites in early September, justifying its decision 
because their managers had failed to respond to a request to "register" 
made at the end of August, the news barely reached the insiders. 
Although some local articles had noted that registration would entail 
supervision or control over published content, protests erupted in 
cities around the capital, culminating in full-blown urban riots. Around 
fifty people died, the Parliament building was set ablaze, large hotels 
and the homes of political figures were torched, and more than ten 
thousand inmates escaped from prison-all events often documented with 
photos and videos. Some might believe that it was all simply the 
expression of a generational revolt and that young Nepalese men and 
women were taking social media too seriously. In fact, as people better 
informed about the country's political and social situation have 
written, people also took to the streets to protest against the 
government, which they accuse of being in the hands of a corrupt elite. 
After a week of revolt, the ban on social media was lifted, the Prime 
Minister resigned, the government fell, and new elections were called.

Events like this confirm that the relationship between the Internet and 
politics operates according to well-known mechanisms and that the 
dispute between the two sides concerns control of electronic 
communication. When the companies that own the platforms, which are 
usually of enormous size and resources, resist government injunctions, 
they do so not because they are champions of freedom of communication, 
but primarily to prevent a decline in the flow of profits they collect 
daily from every post, image, comment, or video published on their 
sites. These are skirmishes, rather than wars, that have been going on 
practically forever: in fact, it's impossible to list all the cases over 
the years in which a government has blocked-for varying lengths of 
time-its citizens' access to one or more social media. Some countries 
have adopted the strategy of encouraging the creation of "national" 
platforms that often have a significant user base and are-in most 
cases-unknown or virtually unknown outside their borders. This is the 
case, for example, in Russia with VK-Vkontakte, a social network 
estimated to have around 500 million users. Or in China, where the 
Xiaohongshu (RED) and Douyin platforms predominate, which, together with 
others, are said to have over a billion users. Although, in the latter 
case, it should be remembered that the social media we know here in 
Europe are banned behind the Great Wall. Creating "autonomous" social 
communication systems has solved some of the problems faced by 
governments, which are thus freed from having to deal with companies 
with their capital and headquarters abroad, but more conveniently with 
entrepreneurs and companies subject to local laws.

The existing situation, briefly summarized above, has created a certain 
balance over the years, which, however, is sometimes disrupted, as in 
the case of Nepal. A further element of imbalance has been, in recent 
times, the exponential growth in the use of applications such as 
WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal (to name just the most well-known), which 
share many of the features of social media and are often used as such. 
This has, in part, altered the existing balance, introducing a series of 
new issues that pose a challenge to anyone aiming to continuously and 
completely monitor people's communications.

In this context of periodic skirmishes, ongoing legislative proposals 
are emerging. The European Community is among the most active 
institutions in this field, aiming to almost completely eliminate the 
possibility of maintaining a modicum of anonymity and therefore privacy 
when connecting and communicating online. Lacking the courage to impose 
any kind of generalized censorship, politicians across political parties 
and factions use every pretext to advance proposals that nevertheless 
point in that direction. One of the latest, in chronological order, is 
the ban on connecting to an "adult" website without providing certain 
proof of the requester's age. To this end, an application is being 
tested in Italy that would securely certify that anyone wishing to 
connect to a prohibited website is of legal age. Proposals like this 
are, among other things, concrete proof that previous solutions, even 
very recent ones-such as parental control over children's cell 
phones-have not worked.

Meanwhile, the first cell phone-free school year began in Italy a few 
days ago.

Pepsy

https://umanitanova.org/censura-e-rivolta-sul-tetto-del-mondo-proteste-in-nepal-e-social-media/
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