Related papers: Censorship is Futile
Over the years, the Internet has democratized the flow of information. Unfortunately, in parallel, authoritarian regimes and other entities (such as ISPs) for their vested interests have curtailed this flow by partially or fully censoring…
State and geopolitical censorship on Twitter, now X, has been turning into a routine, raising concerns about the boundaries between criminal content and freedom of speech. One such censorship practice, withholding content in a particular…
Heightened interest from nation states to perform content censorship make it evermore critical to identify the impact of censorship efforts on the Internet. We undertake a study of Internet architecture, capturing the state of Internet…
Fake news is a growing problem in developing countries with potentially far-reaching consequences. We conduct a randomized experiment in urban Pakistan to evaluate the effectiveness of two educational interventions to counter misinformation…
Social media provides an extended space for collective action, as netizens leverage it as a tool for claim-making and for demanding the dividends of governance. However, political regimes often greet expanding use of social media with…
Censorship of the Internet is widespread around the world. As access to the web becomes increasingly ubiquitous, filtering of this resource becomes more pervasive. Transparency about specific content that citizens are denied access to is…
In the days immediately following the contested June 2009 Presidential election, Iranians attempting to reach news content and social media platforms were subject to unprecedented levels of the degradation, blocking and jamming of…
With the shift of public discourse to social media, we see simultaneously an expansion of civic engagement as the bar to enter the conversation is lowered, and the reaction by both state and non-state adversaries of free speech to silence…
This paper presents a study of the Internet infrastructure in India from the point of view of censorship. First, we show that the current state of affairs---where each ISP implements its own content filters (nominally as per a governmental…
Internet censorship is enforced by numerous governments worldwide, however, due to the lack of publicly available information, as well as the inherent risks of performing active measurements, it is often hard for the research community to…
The spread of propaganda, misinformation, and biased narratives from autocratic regimes, especially on social media, is a growing concern in many democracies. Can censorship be an effective tool to curb the spread of such slanted…
Expressions of dissent against authority are an important feature of most societies, and efforts to suppress such expressions are common. Modern digital communications, social media, and Internet surveillance and censorship technologies are…
Undoubtedly, the Internet has become one of the most important conduits to information for the general public. Nonetheless, Internet access can be and has been limited systematically or blocked completely during political events in numerous…
Censorship and the distribution of false information, tools used to manipulate what users see and believe, are seemingly at opposite ends of the information access spectrum. Most previous work has examined them in isolation and within…
Wikipedia has evolved beyond its original function as an online encyclopedia in an increasingly complex data-driven society. The social platform is met with a balancing act between collective intelligence and mass surveillance; processes…
Online platforms have completely transformed American social life. They have democratized publication, overthrown old gatekeepers, and given ordinary Americans a fresh voice in politics. But the system is beginning to falter. Control over…
The proliferation of misinformation on social media has concerning possible consequences, such as the degradation of democratic norms. While recent research on countering misinformation has largely focused on analyzing the effectiveness of…
Censorship, anti-censorship, and self-censorship in an authoritarian regime have been extensively studies, yet the relationship between these intertwined factors is not well understood. In this paper, we report results of a large-scale…
Social media platforms have diverse content moderation policies, with many prominent actors hesitant to impose strict regulations. A key reason for this reluctance could be the competitive advantage that comes with lax regulation. A popular…
The spread of disinformation on social platforms is harmful to society. This harm may manifest as a gradual degradation of public discourse; but it can also take the form of sudden dramatic events such as the 2021 insurrection on Capitol…