On social media, Sri Lanka should consider aligning its actions with the Christchurch Call

Originally published in Daily FT

By Prof. Rohan Samarajiva

Since the tragic terrorist incidents and pogroms of April and May, concerns about social media have been reverberating throughout our society. We are under pressure to “do something,” even without fully understanding the problems we seek to solve and the viable solutions.

Understanding social media 

The term “social media” is not the most illuminating. Facebook differs from Twitter and both are very different from TikTok. All these are platforms (that allow for users and producers to connect) and all depend on user-generated content: content generated by millions of users with no chokepoints conducive to regulation (otherwise known as editors, producers and media owners). But beyond that, the affordances of each are very different. 

There were 2.4 billion active users on Facebook by 2019 Q2, but none of the millions of content producers can gain the attention of all 2.4 billion people. Attention is a finite, valuable resource and the design of the platform requires work to be done to gain attention. Some fail, while others reach audiences in the lakhs and millions. 

How does one attract attention? Humans are genetically programmed to pay attention to signs of danger and opportunities of procreation. So in general, those who seek to assemble large and engaged audiences tend to emphasise attention-gaining content that leverage violence and titillation. Those who seek to maximise audiences for political purposes tend to purvey polarising content based on fear. Mainstream media do this too, but the new platforms do it better, mobilising the ingenuity of the crowd and data.

Selling aggregated attention to advertisers is how platform companies dealing in content make money. So their algorithms and design are optimised for attention gaining and holding.

What bad guys do

Yuval Noah Harari likens terrorists to a fly that wishes to destroy a china shop. The fly cannot budge even a single cup. Instead it gets inside the ear of a nearby bull and starts buzzing. The bull goes wild with fear and anger and destroys the china shop. What role is played by media in the buzzing? 

After the coordinated bomb attacks on 21 April (the enraging of the bull), social media is seen as having played a role in the enraging of the bull which took the form of pogroms against Muslim citizens. Some have claimed that the three blockages of social media by the telecom regulator on orders of the President were necessary to prevent violence, which does not fully explain what happened in the North Western Province and the Gampaha District on 13 May and the resulting harm to our multi-ethnic society (the damage to the china shop). 

But first, terrorists (the fly) have to recruit and raise money. Zahran used YouTube to recruit, and Facebook to draw attention to the video clips. The terrorists used Threema, an encrypted messaging service, to coordinate their activities. It was also reported that important discussions occurred face-to-face, including at a wedding on the east coast attended by the Colombo murderers, and after Friday prayers in a BMW car belonging to the financiers.

Complaints had been made prior to the attack about the Facebook pages and YouTube videos. In some cases, the authorities had declined to takedown pages so they could continue to gather 

information.

What can we do? 

Would the events of 13 May have happened if not for social media? As shown by the Divaina newspaper in the case of Dr. Shafi Shihabdeen, mainstream media, though in decline, can still aggravate the rage of the bull and cause significant damage. When some Facebook groups are larger than the circulation of most newspapers, one cannot ignore the potential of social media to amplify violence-inciting messages.

Many who want something done about social media disregard the culpability of the old ways of transmitting hate. The enraging of the bull by the LTTE’s killing 13 soldiers in the north in 1983 caused immense and lasting damage to Sri Lanka. No social media or mobile phones existed at that time. 

So it is necessary to ensure that all laws criminalising incitement to violence are technology neutral. And even more importantly, that cases against those violating such laws are expeditiously concluded and that punishments are well publicised. Exemplary punishment is what will deter future hate speech, not the length of prison sentences in unenforced penal provisions.

Laws cannot solve all problems.

What is the objective: is it to punish miscreants or is it to prevent conflagration? If the latter, the solution must give priority to prompt takedown of the incendiary content. That means steering clear of state action under law.

In all law-governed countries, penal actions are preceded by some form of legal and quasi-judicial proceeding wherein the state presents an indictment; the affected party is given an opportunity to defend him or herself; and an “unbiased” authority makes a decision. As a result, state action resulting in a takedown or other punishment will necessarily take a few weeks at least. By that time, the damage will have been done.

Thus, the best way to avoid violence resulting from terror attacks is cooperation with non-state parties who can takedown offensive content promptly based on community standards that are part of the terms of service. This requires continuing dialogue between state authorities and platform companies, with the participation of civil society groups who can assist in shaping appropriate community standards that can be applied by platform companies.

Preventing the recurrence of attacks such as those on 21 April is even more complex. As Muslim organisations which complained against the hate speech of Zahran were told, investigators sometimes need the content to be kept up in order to identify potential terrorists and to unravel their networks. These trade-offs are best made by those engaged in investigating terrorism and extremism, rather than dealt with through legislation. Of course, actions such the takedown of violent videos by YouTube and the tweaking of its recommendation algorithms must be continued.

The Christchurch Call, an initiative led by the Governments of France and New Zealand, which has been joined by countries such as India and Indonesia as well as by the major platform companies such as Facebook and Google, presents a law-governed framework for acting on social media that preserves core democratic values including the freedom of speech. Sri Lanka should seriously consider aligning its actions with the Christchurch Call, rather than hurriedly “doing something” that could do more harm than good.

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Rohan Samarajiva is founding Chair of LIRNEasia, an ICT policy and regulation think tank active across emerging Asia and the Pacific. He was CEO from 2004 to 2012. He is also an advisor to the Advocata Institute.

The ban that did more harm than good

Originally appeared on Daily FT

By Aneetha Warusavitarana

In the immediate aftermath of the devastating Easter attacks, one of the first steps taken by the Government was to announce a social media ban. This ban was ostensibly to protect us; the rationale being that this would stop the spread of hate, stop the spread of misinformation and fake news, and prevent the inciting of violence. In the Government’s eyes, this ban was the all-encompassing panacea to these problems.

Was the social media ban effective?
Rumour is a powerful weapon at any given time. In the context of a nation that is wracked with grief and fear it was a veritable weapon of mass destruction. Fear is also one of the most effective drivers of hate. If the objective of a social media ban was to prevent further violence, then in retrospect, the first step the Government should have taken would be to speak to the country addressing the fear that would drive retaliatory violence. Instead, the main method of communication was banned, even before the President or Prime Minister of the country addressed the nation. Effectively, the Government followed the precedent of the CEB, and left the entire country in the dark – with no reassurance that anyone in a decision-making position had a grip on the situation.  

In practicality the social media ban was ineffective, as VPNs were immediately downloaded, and people were active on Facebook and WhatsApp. This meant that fear mongering, fake news and hate was prolific. The irony is that if this ban was not in place, the Government would have been able to better monitor and address the slew of fake news. 

Does the Government have the mandate to ban social media?
The right to freedom of expression can arguably be curtailed in instances of hate speech. However, if one group of students organise a rally in campus grounds, and this rally is used to spread hate and incite violence against a different group of students, the answer is obviously not to ban rallies on campus grounds. Banning rallies on campus grounds would first, punish a majority for a crime they did not commit, unfairly infringing on their freedom of expression. Secondly, it would not address the problem. Rallies that incite violence are not exclusive to campus grounds – it could simply be organised elsewhere.

This analogy stands for the ban on social media. Banning social media at such a crucial point meant that the Government officially shut down communication lines among individuals, and importantly cut people from an important source of information. 

This goes completely against the mandate of the Government. What would have been effective was if the Government maintained clear, open lines of communication with constant, timely updates from verified Government sources. As the ban was ineffective, social media was rife with fake news, and the only effective method to combat it proved to be the counter-sharing of verified news alerts or first-hand reports from credible journalists, which disproved the fake news. 

A small but effective group of individuals took up this task, and spent hours sharing verified information and addressing the fake news which incidentally ranged from ‘there’s a tsunami heading this way’ to ‘my neighbour’s aunt’s brother-in-law said that another bomb has gone off’. The Government failing its mandate, restricting the country’s right to expression, and limiting access to information just exacerbated an already volatile situation. 

Who deals with the consequences?
A dangerous precedent has now been set. Last year, during riots in Digana, the Government imposed a similar ban on social media. The Government’s first reaction to the Easter Sunday attacks was to re-introduce the ban. 

According to the OECD, when the Egyptian Government blocked internet for 5 days in 2011, it cost the national economy $90 million. As the internet was still running in Sri Lanka, we can hope that the economic fallout from this disastrous decision will be less in our case. However, this is important. According to Statista, $88 million was spent on social media advertising in 2018 alone. The social media ban negatively affected the plethora of businesses which use Facebook or Instagram as platforms to run on, of which it is safe to assume that small and medium enterprises would have been hit hard. While Government officials are clamouring to propose plans to revive our tourism, they are silent on this front. 

Moving beyond these immediate, short term losses, the long-term consequences are worrying. This ban sends a negative signal to the international community. The Government mismanaged the crisis, to say the least, and the social media ban was the cherry on the top. It is clear that the Government favours this ban in times of crisis, even after the first ban came under criticism and scrutiny. This disregard of individual rights in the face of crisis, the fact the Government clearly has no qualms in compromising these rights, even when they do not translate to increased security or safety is not a message a country wants to send to investors or donors. 

The attacks were a national tragedy, and as a country we need to grieve and recover from this. However, once we do, and once a semblance of normalcy returns, the impunity with which the Government blocked social media with complete disregard for individual freedoms is not something we can ignore or forget.