EFF calls on the Kuwaiti government to immediately release journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin. An award-winning journalist and television host who worked for Al Jazeera for many years, Shihab-Eldin—a dual American-Kuwaiti citizen—was arrested in Kuwait on March 3 while visiting family. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported yesterday that it is believed he has been charged with spreading false information, harming national security, and misusing his mobile phone.

According to the Guardian, Shihab-Eldin published footage of a U.S. Air Force F-15 E Strike Eagle crash, and posted to his Substack about the incident, noting that video circulating online showed local residents assisting the crash survivors. 

Kuwait is one of several countries that has recently cracked down on reporting amidst the ongoing war. Kuwait’s Ministry of Interior posted on X on March 3—the same day Shihab-Eldin was arrested—warning people in the country “not to photograph or publish any clips or information related to missiles or relevant locations.” Earlier this month, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) highlighted a new decree in Kuwait banning the circulation of reports that seek to “undermine the prestige of the military” or erode public trust in it. 

As reported by local media, the decree states that “those who intentionally publish statements or news or circulate false reports and rumors about military authorities resulting in weakening the trust in them and their morale, in addition to undermining their prestige, are punishable by three to 10 years in jail and a fine between KD 5,000 and 10,000.” The decree also imposes a penalty ranging from seven years to life imprisonment for “authorized people who cause financial loss or damage to the military authorities while carrying out a transaction, operation, project or case or obtaining any profit from such deals.”

In contrast to neighboring Gulf states, Kuwait has historically allowed the press to operate with relative freedom, and even introduced a law in 2020 protecting the right to access information. In practice, however, the government exercises considerable control over the media. Furthermore, there are several laws, including cybercrime legislation introduced in 2016, that restrict freedom of expression.

EFF is deeply concerned that Ahmed has not been seen nor heard from in nearly six weeks. We call on the government of Kuwait to immediately release Ahmed Shihab-Eldin. 

This is the fourth installment of a blog series reflecting on the global digital legacy of the 2011 Arab uprisings. You can read the rest of the series here.

Iran’s internet has been intermittently disrupted for months. After years of bombardment, Gaza’s telecommunications infrastructure remains fragile. In India, recurring shutdowns and throttling have become a routine response to protests and unrest, cutting millions off from news, work, and basic services. Across dozens of other countries, governments increasingly treat connectivity itself as something that can be weaponized—cut, slowed, or selectively restored to shape what people can see, say, and share. In 2024 alone, authorities imposed 304 internet shutdowns across 54 countries—the highest number ever recorded.

In 2011, when protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, and beyond used social media to broadcast their uprisings to the world, many observers heralded a new era of networked freedom. Governments, however, responded quickly by developing and refining systems of control that have only grown more sophisticated over time. Today’s landscape of regulation, blackouts, and degraded networks reflects that trajectory, as early experiments in censorship and disruption have hardened into a durable system of control—what began as an emergency measure has become a normalized infrastructure of control.

A Brief History of Internet Shutdowns

Egypt’s 2011 internet shutdown wasn’t the first. Although the government’s heavy-handed response after just two days of protests caught the world’s attention, Guinea, Nepal, Myanmar, and a handful of other countries had previously enacted shutdowns. But Egypt marked a turning point. In the years that followed, shutdowns increased sharply worldwide, suggesting that governments had taken note—adopting network disruptions as a tactic for suppressing dissent and limiting the flow of information within and beyond their borders.

On January 28, 2011, at 12:34 a.m. local time, five of Egypt’s internet service providers (ISPs) shut down their networks. At least one provider—Noor, which also hosted the Egyptian stock exchange—remained online, leaving only about 7% of the country connected. 

In the aftermath of President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, rights groups sought to understand how such a sweeping shutdown had been possible—and how future incidents might be prevented. There was no centralized “kill switch.” Instead, authorities leveraged the country’s highly consolidated telecommunications sector, which all operate by government license. With only a handful of ISPs, a small number of directives was enough to bring most of the network offline.

In the years following Egypt’s 2011 shutdown, telecommunications companies—many of which had been directly implicated in enabling state-ordered disruptions—began to organize around a shared set of human rights challenges. Beginning that same year, a group of operators and vendors quietly convened to examine how the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights applied to their sector, particularly in contexts where government demands could translate into sweeping restrictions on access. By 2013, this effort had formalized into the Telecommunications Industry Dialogue, bringing together major global firms to develop common principles on freedom of expression and privacy and, through a partnership with the Global Network Initiative, engage more directly with civil society. The initiative reflected a growing recognition that telecom companies—unlike platforms—operate at a critical chokepoint in the network. But it also underscored the limits of voluntary approaches: while the Dialogue helped establish shared norms, it did little to constrain the legal and political pressures that continue to drive shutdowns—or to prevent companies from complying with them.

From Emergency Measure to Legal Authority

If the early aughts were defined by improvised shutdowns, the years since have seen governments formalize their power to control networks. What was once exceptional is now often embedded in law.

In India, the 2017 Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services Rules—issued under the Telegraph Act—provided a clear legal pathway for cutting connectivity. The Telecommunications Act, 2023, further entrenched the government’s ability to enact shutdowns, granting the central and state governments, or “authorised officers” the power to suspend telecommunications services in the interest of public safety or sovereignty, or during emergencies. The government has used these measures repeatedly, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir. India’s Software Freedom Law Centre’s Shutdown Tracker shows India as instigating more than 900 shutdowns, 447 of which were in Jammu and Kashmir.

In Kazakhstan, shutdowns have also become common. Over the years, the government has passed legislation that allows state agencies to shut down the internet. The 2012 law on national security enabled the government to disrupt communications channels during anti-terrorist operations and to contain riots. In 2014 and 2016, laws were further amended to expand the number of actors able to shut down the internet without a court decision, and a government decree in 2018 enabled shutdowns in the event of a “social emergency.” 

Elsewhere, governments have built or expanded legal and technical frameworks that enable similar control over information flows. Ethiopia’s state-dominated telecom sector has facilitated sweeping shutdowns during periods of conflict, including the war in Tigray, where the internet was disconnected for more than two years. In Iran, authorities have developed regulatory and infrastructural capacity to isolate domestic networks from the global internet, allowing them to restrict external visibility while maintaining limited internal connectivity. This year alone, Iranians have spent one third of the year offline. And amidst the ongoing war, Iranian officials have made it clear that the internet is a privilege for those who toe the government’s official line.

Even where laws do not explicitly authorize shutdowns, broadly worded provisions around national security or public order are routinely used to justify them. The result is a growing legal architecture that treats network disruptions not as extraordinary measures, but as standard tools for managing populations.

When that authority is exercised over a population beyond a state’s own citizens, the consequences can be even more severe. Israel’s Ministry of Communications controls the flow of communications in and out of Palestine and has used that power to shut down internet access during periods of conflict. Over the past two and a half years, Gaza has experienced repeated outages, and experts now estimate that roughly 75% of its telecommunications infrastructure has been damaged—leaving essential services severely disrupted.

Elections and the Expansion of Control

Historically, most blackouts have occurred during moments of intense political tension. But authorities are increasingly using them as a tool to preempt dissent.

In 2024, as more than half the world’s population headed to the polls, shutdowns followed. That year alone, authorities imposed 304 internet shutdowns across 54 countries—the highest number ever recorded, surpassing the previous record set just a year earlier. The geographic spread also widened significantly, with shutdowns affecting more countries than ever before. The Comoros imposed a shutdown for the first time, while other countries, such as Mauritius, instituted broad bans on social media platforms during elections.

At least 24 countries holding elections in 2024 had a prior history of shutdowns, putting billions of people at risk of disruptions during critical democratic moments.

What stands out is not just the scale, but the normalization. Notably, the number of shutdowns in 2025 broke the record set the year prior. Whereas network disruptions were once a rare occurrence, they are now a routine measure, increasingly treated by authorities as a standard response to periods of heightened political sensitivity. 

Civil Society Fights Back

Governments use all sorts of justifications—national security, curbing the spread of disinformation, and even preventing students from cheating on exams—for internet shutdowns. But civil society is watching, and documenting, network disruptions and their impact on citizens.

In 2016, as shutdowns became an increasingly common tool of state control, Access Now launched the #KeepItOn campaign to coordinate global advocacy against network disruptions. The campaign includes a coalition composed of 345 advocacy groups (including EFF), research centers, detection networks, and others who work together to report on, and fight back against, internet shutdowns. Anyone can get involved by signing on to campaign action alerts, sharing their story, or reporting a shutdown in their jurisdiction.

Ending this harmful practice remains the goal. In 2016, the UN passed a landmark resolution supporting human rights online and condemning internet shutdowns, and UN agencies have continued to warn against the practice. But the fight to change government practices remains an uphill battle, leading civil society—and even companies—to get creative. 

During repeated shutdowns in Gaza, grassroots efforts mobilised to distribute eSIMs so Palestinians could stay connected. In 2024, EFF recognized Connecting Humanity, a Cairo-based non-profit providing eSIM access in Gaza, with its annual award for its vital work. Satellite internet such as Starlink has been supplied to people in Ukraine and Iran, though it, too, is not immune to state control. Alongside these efforts, civil society continues to share practical guidance on circumventing shutdowns and maintaining access to information.

EFF’s mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world—and we’ll continue to fight back against internet shutdowns wherever they occur.

This is the fourth installment of a blog series reflecting on the global digital legacy of the 2011 Arab uprisings. Read the rest of the series here.

In September 2024, Amandla Thomas-Johnson was a Ph.D. candidate studying in the U.S. on a student visa when he briefly attended a pro-Palestinian protest. In April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting his data. The next month, Google gave Thomas-Johnson's information to ICE without giving him the chance to challenge the subpoena, breaking a nearly decade-long promise to notify users before handing their data to law enforcement. 

Google names a handful of exceptions to this promise (such as if Google receives a gag order from a court) that do not apply to Thomas-Johnson's case. While ICE “requested” that Google not notify Thomas-Johnson, the request was not enforceable or mandated by a court. Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation sent complaints to the California and New York Attorneys General asking them to investigate Google for deceptive trade practices for breaking that promise. You can read about the complaints here. Below is Thomas-Johnson's account of his ordeal. 

Out of touch but not out of reach 

I thought my ordeal with U.S. immigration authorities was over a year ago, when I left the country, crossing into Canada at Niagara Falls.  

By that point, the Trump administration had effectively turned federal power against international students like me. After I attended a pro-Palestine protest at Cornell University—for all of five minutes—the administration’s rhetoric about cracking down on students protesting what we saw as genocide forced me into hiding for three months. Federal agents came to my home looking for me. A friend was detained at an airport in Tampa and interrogated about my whereabouts. 

I’m currently a Ph.D. student. Before that, I was a reporter. I’m a dual British and Trinadad and Tobago citizen. I have not been accused of any crime. 

I believed that once I left U.S. territory, I had also left the reach of its authorities. I was wrong. 

The email

Weeks later, in Geneva, Switzerland, I received what looked like a routine email from Google. It informed me that the company had already handed over my account data to the Department of Homeland Security. 

At first, I wasn’t alarmed. I had seen something similar before. An associate of mine, Momodou Taal, had received advance notice from Google and Facebook that his data had been requested. He was given advanced notice of the subpoenas, and law enforcement eventually withdrew them before the companies turned over his data. 

Google had already disclosed my data without telling me.

I assumed I would be given the same opportunity. But the language in my email was different. It was final: “Google has received and responded to legal process from a law enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.” 

Google had already disclosed my data without telling me. There was no opportunity to contest it. 

Google’s broken promise

To be clear, this should not have happened this way. Google promises that it will notify users before their data is handed over in response to legal processes, including administrative subpoenas. That notice is meant to provide a chance to challenge the request. In my case, that safeguard was bypassed. My data was handed over without warning—at the request of an administration targeting students engaged in protected political speech. 

Months later, my lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained the subpoena itself. On paper, the request focused largely on subscriber information: IP addresses, physical address, other identifiers, and session times and durations. 

But taken together, these fragments form something far more powerful—a detailed surveillance profile. IP logs can be used to approximate location. Physical addresses show where you sleep. Session times would show when you were communicating with friends or family. Even without message content, the picture that emerges is intimate and invasive.  

State power meets private data

What this experience has made clear is that anyone can be targeted by law enforcement. And with their massive stores of data, technology companies can facilitate those arbitrary investigations. Together, they can combine state power, corporate data, and algorithmic inference in ways that are difficult to see—and even harder to challenge. 

The consequences of what happened to me are not abstract. I left the United States. But I do not feel that I have left its reach. Being investigated by the federal government is intimidating. Questions run through your head. Am I now a marked individual? Will I face heightened scrutiny if I continue my reporting? Can I travel safely to see family in the Caribbean? 

Who, exactly, can I hold accountable?

Update: This post has been updated to include more information about Google's exceptions to their notification policy, none of which applied to the subpoena targeting Thomas-Johnson.

War does not only reshape borders. It also reshapes what can be seen, said, and remembered. 

When governments invoke “misinformation” during wartime, they often mean something simpler: speech they do not control. Since the escalation of conflict between the United States, Israel, Iran, and related spillover attacks in the Gulf, several governments have intensified efforts to silence dissent and restrict the flow of information.

Journalism under pressure

For journalists, the space to operate—already constrained in much of the Gulf—is narrowing further. Across the region, several countries (including the UAE, Qatar, and Jordan) have restricted access to conflict areas, warned of legal consequences for publishing footage, and drawn red lines around wartime reporting. These measures weaken independent coverage, elevate official narratives, and make it harder for the public to get an accurate account of events on the ground.

Reporters Without Borders has documented an intensifying crackdown on journalists across Gulf countries and Jordan, including restrictions on reporting, legal threats, and heightened risks for those who deviate from official narratives. This aligns with the broader warning from the UN that repression of civic space and freedom of expression has significantly deepened across the region during the war.

Criminalizing speech, one post at a time

For ordinary internet users, the restrictions are just as severe. Since February, hundreds of people have reportedly been arrested across the region for social media activity linked to the war. In many Gulf states, the legal infrastructure enabling this is already well-established: expansive cybercrime and media laws criminalize vaguely defined offenses such as “spreading rumors,” “undermining public order,” or “insulting the state”. In wartime, these provisions become catch-all tools: flexible enough to apply to nearly any form of dissent.

In Bahrain, authorities have reportedly cracked down on people who protested or shared footage of the conflict online. The Gulf Centre for Human Rights has reported 168 arrests in the country tied to protests and online expression, with defendants potentially facing serious prison terms if convicted.

In the UAE, authorities have arrested nearly 400 people for recording events related to the conflict and for circulating information they described as misleading or fabricated. Police have claimed this material could stir public anxiety and spread rumors, and state-linked reporting has described the crackdown as part of a broader effort to defend the country from digital misinformation.

Saudi Arabia has also intensified restrictions, issuing a statement on March 2 banning the sharing of rumors or videos of unknown origin, and issuing a campaign discouraging residents from taking or posting photos. The campaign included a hashtag that reads “photography serves the enemy.” Journalists have been prevented from documenting the aftermath of airstrikes on the country. Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan have adopted similar restrictions on wartime imagery and reporting.

Qatar’s Interior Ministry has arrested more than 300 people for filming, circulating, or publishing what the ministry deemed to be misleading information. Taken together, these measures show how quickly wartime speech is being folded into existing legal systems designed to punish dissent.

The regional playbook

What’s striking is how consistent these measures are across different countries. As we recently wrote, governments across the broader region have enacted sweeping cybercrime and media laws over the past fifteen years, which they are now putting to use. Across different countries, the same tools are being used: existing laws, fresh bans on sharing wartime imagery, and tighter restrictions on journalists and reporting. The vocabulary changes slightly from place to place, but the logic is the same: national security, public order, rumors, and social stability are justifications for control.

This is not just a series of isolated incidents. It is a regional playbook for silencing critics and narrowing the public record. Gulf states have long relied on censorship and surveillance; the war has simply made those methods easier to justify and harder to challenge.

From “digital hopes” to digital control

As we’ve documented in our ongoing blog series, digital platforms were once seen—at least in part—as spaces that could expand public discourse in the region. But as we’ve also argued, those early “digital hopes” have given way to systems of regulation and control. 

The current crackdown is a continuation of that trajectory, not a temporary departure from it. States are not just reacting to the war; they are leveraging it to consolidate long-standing ambitions to dominate the digital public sphere.

It may be tempting to see these measures as temporary, but emergency powers—like the one enacted in Egypt following the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat that lasted for more than three decades—have a way of sticking around. Legal precedents that are set during wartime often become normalized—or reinvoked during times of crisis, as occurred in 2015, when France brought back a 1955 law related to the Algerian War of Independence amidst the Paris attacks.

And the stakes are high. As we’ve seen in Syria and Ukraine, regulations and platform policies can cause wartime human rights documentation to disappear. When journalists are constrained and eyewitness footage is criminalized, accountability is weakened. And when arrests become widespread, people learn to self-censor.

Protecting freedom of expression in times of conflict is a requirement for accountability, not a concession to disorder. When people can document, report, and share information freely, it becomes harder for abuses to be hidden behind official narratives. Even in wartime, the public interest is best served by defending the space to tell the truth, not by silencing speech.

Legal intern Raj Gambhir was the principal author of this post.

Update: On April 15, 2026 the FAA rescinded the TFR (FDC 6/4375) and instead issued an advisory (FDC 6/2824), which states: 

[Drone] operators are advised to avoid flying in proximity to: Department of War (DOW), Department of Energy (Doe), Department of Justice (DOJ), and Department of Homeland security (DHS) covered mobile assets as defined in 10 U.S.C. 130i [DOW/DOD], 10 U.S.C. 6227 [DOE], and 6 U.S.C. 124n [DHS], including ground vehicle convoys and their associated escorts. [Drone] operators who fly within this airspace are warned that [the agencies] may take action that results in the interference, disruption, seizure, damaging, or destruction of unmanned [aircraft] deemed to pose a credible safety or security threat to covered mobile assets. [Drone] operators should therefore exercise caution when flying in proximity of all DOW, DOE, DOJ and DHS mobile assets."

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) plans to continue with its lawsuit (Levine v. FAA).

Original post:

The Trump administration has restricted the First Amendment right to record law enforcement by issuing an unprecedented nationwide flight restriction preventing private drone operators, including professional and citizen journalists, from flying drones within half a mile of any ICE or CBP vehicle.

In January, EFF and media organizations including The New York Times and The Washington Post responded to this blatant infringement of the First Amendment by demanding that the FAA lift this flight restriction. Over two months later, we’re still waiting for the FAA to respond to our letter.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to record law enforcement. As we have seen with the extrajudicial killings of George Floyd, Renée Good, and Alex Pretti, capturing law enforcement on camera can drive accountability and raise awareness of police misconduct.

A 21-Month Long “Temporary” Flight Restriction?

The FAA regularly issues temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) to prevent people from flying into designated airspace. TFRs are usually issued during natural disasters, or to protect major sporting events and government officials like the president, and in most cases last mere hours.

Not so with the restriction numbered FDC 6/4375, which started on January 16, 2026. This TFR lasts for 21 months—until October 29, 2027—and covers the entire nation. It prevents any person from flying any unmanned aircraft (i.e., a drone) within 3000 feet, measured horizontally, of any of the “facilities and mobile assets,” including “ground vehicle convoys and their associated escorts,” of the Departments of Defense, Energy, Justice, and Homeland Security. Violators can be subject to criminal and civil penalties, and risk having their drones seized or destroyed.

In practical terms, this TFR means that anyone flying their drone within a half mile of an ICE or CBP agent’s car (a DHS “mobile asset”) is liable to face criminal charges and have their drone shot down. The practical unfairness of this TFR is underscored by the fact that immigration agents often use unmarked rental cars, use cars without license plates, or switch the license plates of their cars to carry out their operations. Nor do they provide prior warning of those operations.

The TFR is an Unconstitutional Infringement of Free Speech

While the FAA asserts that the TFR is grounded in its lawful authority, the flight restriction not only violates multiple constitutional rights, but also the agency’s own regulations.

First Amendment violation. As we highlighted in the letter, nearly every federal appeals court has recognized the First Amendment right of Americans to record law enforcement officers performing their official duties. By subjecting drone operators to criminal and civil penalties, along with the potential destruction or seizure of their drone, the TFR punishes—without the required justifications—lawful recording of law enforcement officers, including immigration agents.  

Fifth Amendment violation. The Fifth Amendment guarantees the right to due process, which includes being given fair notice before being deprived of liberty or property by the government. Under the flight restriction, advanced notice isn’t even possible. As discussed above, drone operators can’t know whether they are within 3000 horizontal feet of unmarked DHS vehicles. Yet the TFR allows the government to capture or even shoot down a drone if it flies within the TFR radius, and to impose criminal and civil penalties on the operator.

Violations of FAA regulations. In issuing a TFR, the FAA’s own regulations require the agency to “specify[] the hazard or condition requiring” the restriction. Furthermore, the FAA must provide accredited news representatives with a point of contact to obtain permission to fly drones within the restricted area. The FAA has satisfied neither of these requirements in issuing its nationwide ban on drones getting near government vehicles.

EFF Demands Rescission of the TFR

We don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the TFR was put in place in January 2026, at the height of the Minneapolis anti-ICE protests, shortly after the killing of Renée Good and shortly before the shooting of Alex Pretti. After both of those tragedies, civilian recordings played a vital role in contradicting the government’s false account of the events.

By punishing civilians for recording federal law enforcement officers, the TFR helps to shield ICE and other immigration agents from scrutiny and accountability. It also discourages the exercise of a key First Amendment right. EFF has long advocated for the right to record the police, and exercising that right today is more important than ever.

Finally, while recording law enforcement is protected by the First Amendment, be aware that officers may retaliate against you for exercising this right. Please refer to our guidance on safely recording law enforcement activities.

Recently, a California Superior Court jury found that Meta and YouTube harmed a user through some of the features they offered. And a New Mexico jury concluded that Meta deceived young users into thinking its platforms were safe from predation. 

It’s clear that many people are frustrated by big tech companies and perhaps Meta in particular. We, too, have been highly critical of them and have pushed for years to end their harmful corporate surveillance. So it’s not surprising that a jury felt like Mark Zuckerberg and his company, along with YouTube, needed to be held accountable. 

While it would be easy to claim that these cases set a legal precedent that should make social media companies fearful, that’s not exactly true. And that’s actually a good thing for the internet and its users. 

These jury trials were just an early step in a long road through the court system. These cases will now go up on appeal, where the courts’ rulings about the First Amendment and immunity under Section 230 will likely get reconsidered. 

As we have argued many times before, the First Amendment protects both user speech and the choices platforms make on how to deliver that speech (in the same way it protects newspapers' right to curate their editorial pages as they see fit). Features on social media sites that are designed to connect users cannot be separated from the users’ speech, which is why courts have repeatedly held that these features are indeed protected. 

So while it may be tempting to celebrate these juries’ decisions as a "win" against big tech, in fact the ramifications of lowering First Amendment and immunity standards on other speakers—ones that members of the public actually like, and do not want to punish—are bad. We can’t create less protective speech rules for Meta and Google alone just because we want them held accountable for something else.

As we have often said, much of the anger against these companies arises from people rightfully feeling that these companies harvest and exploit their data, and monetize their lives for crass economic reasons. We therefore continue to urge Congress to pass a comprehensive national privacy law with a private right of action to address these core concerns.

Governments around the world are adopting new laws and policies aimed at addressing online harms, including laws intended to curb cybercrime and disinformation, and ostensibly protect user safety. While these efforts are often framed as necessary responses to legitimate concerns, they are increasingly being used in ways that restrict fundamental rights.

In a recent submission to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, we highlighted how these evolving regulatory approaches are affecting human rights defenders (HRDs) and the broader digital environment in which they operate.

Threats to Human Rights Defenders

Across multiple regions, cybercrime and national security laws are being applied to prosecute lawful expression, restrict access to information, and expand state surveillance. In some cases, these measures are implemented without adequate judicial oversight or clear safeguards, raising concerns about their compatibility with international human rights standards.

Regulatory developments in one jurisdiction are also influencing approaches elsewhere. The UK’s Online Safety Act, for example, has contributed to the global diffusion of “duty of care” frameworks. In other contexts, similar models have been adopted with fewer protections, including provisions that criminalize broadly defined categories of speech or require user identification, increasing risks for those engaged in the defense of human rights.

At the same time, disruptions to internet access—including shutdowns, throttling, and geo-blocking—continue to affect the ability of HRDs to communicate, document abuses, and access support networks. These measures can have significant implications not only for freedom of expression, but also for personal safety, particularly in situations of conflict or political unrest.

The expanded use of digital surveillance technologies further compounds these risks. Spyware and biometric monitoring systems have been deployed against activists and journalists, in some cases across national borders. These practices result in intimidation, detention, and other forms of retaliation.

The practices of social media platforms can also put human rights defenders—and their speech—at risk. Content moderation systems that rely on broadly defined policies, automated enforcement, and limited transparency can result in the removal or suppression of speech, including documentation of human rights violations. Inconsistent enforcement across languages and regions, as well as insufficient avenues for redress, disproportionately affects HRDs and marginalized communities.

Putting Human Rights First

These trends underscore the importance of ensuring that regulatory and corporate responses to online harms are grounded in human rights principles. This includes adopting clear and narrowly tailored legal frameworks, ensuring independent oversight, and providing effective safeguards for privacy, expression, and association.

It also requires meaningful engagement with civil society. Human rights defenders bring essential expertise on the local and contextual impacts of digital policies, and their participation is critical to developing effective and rights-respecting approaches.

As digital technologies continue to shape civic space, protecting the individuals and communities who rely on them to advance human rights remains an urgent priority.

You can read our full submission here.

This is the second installment of a blog series reflecting on the global digital legacy of the 2011 Arab uprisings. You can read the first post here.

From Russia—where wartime censorship and more stringent platform controls have choked dissenting voices—to Nigeria, with its aggressive takedown orders turning social media into political battlegrounds, and to Turkey, where sweeping “disinformation” laws have made platforms heavily policed spaces, freedom of expression online is under attack. Per Freedom House’s 2023 Freedom on the Net Report, 66% of internet users live where political or social sites are blocked, and 78% are in countries where people have been arrested for online posts. New social media regulations have emerged in dozens of countries in the past year alone.

The online landscape looks markedly different than it did fifteen years ago. Back then, social media was still new and largely free from legal restrictions: platforms moderated content in response to user reports, governments rarely targeted them directly, and blocks (when they happened) were temporary, with censorship mostly focused on whole websites that VPNs or proxies could easily bypass. The internet was far from free, but governments’ crude tactics left space for circumvention.

Those early restrictions, as crude as they were, marked the start of a rapid evolution in online censorship. Governments like Thailand, which blocked thousands of YouTube videos in 2007 over critical content, and Turkey, which demanded takedowns from YouTube before blocking the site entirely, tested legal and technical pressures to mute dissent and force platforms’ compliance. By 2011, governments weren't just reacting—they had learned to pressure platforms into becoming instruments of state censorship, shifting their playbooks from blunt blocks to sophisticated systems of control that simple VPNs could no longer reliably bypass. Governments across the region were watching closely, and by the time the 2011 uprisings began, they were prepared to respond.

Looking Back

After learning that a Facebook page—We Are All Khaled Said, honoring a young man killed by police brutality—sparked Egypt’s street protests, Western media hailed online platforms as engines of democracy. Revolution co-creator Wael Ghonim told a journalist: “This revolution started on Facebook.” That claim was debated and contested for years; critically, Facebook had suspended the page two months earlier over pseudonyms violating its real-name policy, restoring it only after advocates intervened. 

Once the protests moved to the streets, Egypt’s government—alert to social media’s power—quickly blocked Facebook and Twitter, then enacted a near-total shutdown (more on that in part 4 of this series). As history shows, the measures didn’t stop the revolution, and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down. For a brief moment, freedom appeared to be on the horizon. Unfortunately, that moment was short-lived.

Egypt’s Digital Dystopia

Just as the Egyptian military government quashed revolution in the streets, they also shut down  online civic space. Today, Egypt’s internet ranks low on markers of internet freedom. The military government that has ruled Egypt since 2013 has imprisoned human rights defenders and enacted laws—including 2015’s Counter-terrorism Law and 2018’s Cybercrime Law—that grant the state broad authority to suppress speech and prosecute offenders.

The 2018 law demonstrates the ease with which cybercrime laws can be abused. Article 7 of the law allows for websites that constitute “a threat to national security” or to the “national economy” to be blocked. The Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) has criticized the loose definition of “national security” contained within the law, as “everything related to the independence, stability, security, unity and territorial integrity of the homeland.” Notably, individuals can also be penalized—and sentenced to up to six months imprisonment—for accessing banned websites.

Articles 25, which prohibits the use of technology to “infringe on any family principles or values in Egyptian society,” and 26, which prohibits the dissemination of material that “violates public morals,” have been used in recent years to prosecute young people who use social media in ways in which the government disapproves. Many of those prosecuted have been young women; for instance, belly dancer Sama Al Masry was sentenced to three years in prison and fined 300,000 Egyptian pounds under Article 26.

Beyond Egypt: Regional Trends

Egypt’s trajectory reflects a wider regional and global pattern. In the years following the uprisings, governments moved quickly to formalize legal authority over digital space, often under the banner of combating cybercrime, terrorism, or “false information.” These laws often contain vaguely worded provisions criminalizing “misuse of social media” or “harming national unity,” giving authorities wide discretion to prosecute speech.

In Qatar and Bahrain, a social media post can result in up to five years in jail. In 2018, prominent Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab was convicted of “spreading false rumours in time of war”, “insulting public authorities”, and “insulting a foreign country” for tweets he posted about the killing of civilians in Yemen and sentenced to five years imprisonment. 

Two years later, Qatar amended its penal code by setting criminal penalties for spreading “fake news.” Article 136 (bis) sets criminal penalties for broadcasting, publishing, or republishing “rumors or statements or false or malicious news or sensational propaganda, inside or outside the state, whenever it is intended to harm national interests or incite public opinion or disturb the social or public order of the state” and sets a punishment of a maximum of five years in prison, and/or 100,000 Qatari riyals. The penalty is doubled if the crime is committed in wartime.

Now, as war has once again reached the region, these laws are being put to the test. Bahraini authorities have arrested at least 100 people in relation to protests or expression related to the war, while Qatar has arrested more than 300 people on charges of spreading “misleading information.”

And in the UAE, at least 35 people—most or all of whom are foreign nationals—have been arrested and “accused of spreading misleading and fabricated content online that could harm national defence efforts and fuel public panic,” according to the Times of India. The arrests fall under the UAE’s 2022 Federal Decree Law No. 34 on Combating Rumours and Cybercrimes which—says Human Rights Watch—is, along with the country’s Penal Code, “used to silence dissidents, journalists, activists, and anyone the authorities perceived to be critical of the government, its policies, or its representatives.”

From Regional Practice to Global Pattern

Today roughly four out of five countries worldwide have enacted cybercrime legislation, a dramatic expansion over the past decade, with many governments adopting or revising such laws in the years following the Arab uprisings. 

Outside the region, other nations have repurposed these laws to police speech. In Nigeria, journalists have been detained under the Cybercrime Act, with dozens of prosecutions documented since 2015. Bangladesh’s Digital Security Act has been used in thousands of cases—including hundreds against journalists—while in Uganda, authorities have prosecuted political critics under computer misuse laws for social media posts. 

Cybercrime laws are only one piece of a broader toolkit that governments now deploy to control digital spaces. Over the past decade, authorities have introduced sweeping “disinformation” laws, platform liability rules, age verification laws, and data localization requirements that force companies to store data domestically or appoint legal representatives within national jurisdictions. These measures give governments leverage over global technology firms, enabling them to demand faster content removals, obtain user data, or threaten steep fines and throttling if platforms fail to comply. Rather than relying solely on blunt instruments like blocking entire websites, states increasingly govern speech through layered regulatory systems that pressure platforms to police users on the state’s behalf.

The platforms too have changed. The same social media companies that were once championed as tools of democratic mobilization now operate in more constrained environments—and often act as willing participants in repressing speech. Facing financial penalties and the prospect of being blocked entirely, many companies expanded compliance with takedown requests after 2011, as can be seen in the companies’ own transparency reports. They later invested heavily in automated technologies that remove vast quantities of content before it is ever publicly available.

Rights groups around the world, including EFF, have warned that these dynamics disproportionately impact historically marginalized and vulnerable groups, as well as journalists and other human rights defenders. Research by the Palestinian digital rights organization 7amleh and reporting by Human Rights Watch have documented how content moderation policies, government pressure, and opaque enforcement mechanisms increasingly converge—leaving activists, journalists, and human rights defenders caught between state censorship and platform governance.

The New Architecture of Repression

Looking back now, it’s clear that, fifteen years ago, governments were caught off guard. They crudely blocked platforms, shut down networks, and scrambled to contain movements they did not fully understand. But in the years since, states have systematically adapted, transforming what were once reactive measures into durable systems of control.

Today’s controls are embedded in law, outsourced to platforms, and justified through the language of security, safety, and order. Cybercrime statutes, disinformation frameworks, and platform regulations form a layered architecture that allows states to shape online expression at scale while maintaining a veneer of legality. In this system, repression is often procedural, bureaucratic, and continuous.

The question is no longer whether the internet can enable dissent, but whether it can still sustain it under these conditions.

This is the second installment of a blog series reflecting on the global digital legacy of the 2011 Arab uprisings. Read the rest of the series here.

The UK is moving forward with its efforts to ban social media for young people. Ahead of this week’s House of Lords debate on the topic, we’re getting you situated with a primer on what’s been happening and what it all means.

What was the last vote about? 

On 9 March, the House of Commons discussed amendments tabled by the House of Lords in the government’s flagship legislation, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. 

The House of Lords previously tabled an amendment to “prevent children under the age of 16 from becoming or being users” of “all regulated user-to-user services,” to be implemented by “highly-effective age assurance measures,” which effectively banned under-16s from social media. When this proposal came before the House of Commons, MPs defeated it by 307 votes to 173. 

Instead, the Commons proposed its own amendment: enabling the Secretary of State to introduce provisions “requiring providers of specified internet services” to prevent access by children, under age 18 rather than 16, to specified internet services or to specified features; and to restrict access by children to specified internet services which ministers provide. 

Who does this give powers to?

The Commons proposal redirects power from the UK Parliament and the UK’s independent telecom regulator Ofcom to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, currently Liz Kendall, who will be able to restrict internet access for young people and determine what content is considered harmful…just because she can. The amendment also empowers the Secretary of State to limit VPN use for under 18s, as well as restrict access to addictive features and change the age of digital consent in the country; for example, preventing under-18s from playing games online after a certain time.  

Why is this a problem? 

This process is devoid of checks or accountability mechanisms as ministers will not be required to demonstrate specific harms to young people, which essentially unravels years-long efforts by Ofcom to assess online services according to their risks. And given the moment the UK is currently in, such as refusing to protect trans and LGBTQ+ communities and flaming hostile and racist discourses, it is not unlikely that we’ll see ministers start restricting content that they ideologically or morally feel opposed to, rather than because the content is harmful based, as established by evidence and assessed pursuant to established human rights principles. 

We know from other jurisdictions like the United States that legislation seeking to protect young people typically sweeps up a slew of broadly-defined topics. Some block access to websites that contain some “sexual material harmful to minors,” which has historically meant explicit sexual content. But some states are now defining the term more broadly so that “sexual material harmful to minors” could encompass anything like sex education; others simply list a variety of vaguely-defined harms. In either instance, this bill would enable ministers to target LGBTQ+ content online by pushing this behind an under-18s age gate, and this risk is especially clear given what we already know about platform content policies. 

How will this impact young people? 

The internet is an essential resource for young people (and adults) to access information, explore community, and find themselves. Beyond being spaces where people can share funny videos and engage with enjoyable content, social media enables young people to engage with the world in a way that transcends their in-person realm, as well as find information they may not feel safe to access offline, such as about family abuse or their sexuality. In severing this connection to people and information by banning social media, politicians are forcing millions of young people into a dark and censored world. 

How did each party vote? 

The initial push to ban under-16s from social media came from the Conservative Party, who have since accused the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer of “dither and delay” for not committing to the ban. The Liberal Democrats have also called this “not good enough.” The Labour Party itself is split, with 107 Labour Party MPs abstaining in the vote on the House of Lords amendment. 

But we know that the issue of young people’s online safety is a polarizing topic that politicians have—and will continue to—weaponize for public support, regardless of their actual intentions. This is why we will continue to urge policymakers and regulators to protect people’s rights and freedoms online at all moments, and not just take the easy route for a quick boost in the polls.

How does this bill connect to the Online Safety Act?

The draft Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that came from the Lords provided that any regulation pertaining to the well-being of young people on social media “must be treated as an enforceable requirement” with the Online Safety Act. The Commons amendment, however, starts out by inserting a new clause that amends the Online Safety Act. 

For more than six years, we’ve been calling on the UK government to pass better legislation around regulating the internet, and when the Online Safety Act passed we continued to advocate for the rights of people on the internet—including young people—as Ofcom implemented the legislation. This has been a protracted effort by civil society groups, technologists, tech companies, and others participating in Ofcom's consultation process and urging the regulator to protect internet users in the UK.

The MPs amendment essentially rips this up. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall recently said that ministers intended to go further than the existing Online Safety Act because it was “never meant to be the end point, and we know parents still have serious concerns. That is why I am prepared to take further action.” But when this further action is empowering herself to make arbitrary decisions on content and access, and banning under-18s from social media, this causes much more harm than it solves. 

Is the UK alone in pushing legislation like this? 

Sadly, no. Calls to ban social media access for young people have gained traction since Australia became the first country in the world to enforce one back in December. On 5 March, Indonesia announced a ban on social media and other “high-risk” online platforms for users under 16. A few days later, new measures came into effect in Brazil that restricts social media access for under-16s, who must now have their accounts linked to a legal guardian. Other countries like Spain and the Philippines have this year announced plans to ban social media for under-16s, with legislation currently pending to implement this.

What are the next steps?

The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill returns to the House of Lords on 25 March for consideration of the new Commons amendments. The bill will only become law if both Houses agree to the final draft. 

We will continue to stand up against these proposals—not only to young people’ free expression rights, but also to safeguard the free flow of information that is vital to a democratic society. The issue of online safety is not solved through technology alone, especially not through a ban, and young people deserve a more intentional approach to protecting their safety and privacy online, not this lazy strategy that causes more harm than it solves. 

We encourage politicians in the UK to look into what is best, not what is easy, and explore less invasive approaches to protect all people from online harms. 

This is the first installment of a blog series reflecting on the global digital legacy of the 2011 Arab uprisings.

A new generation of protesters, raised on social media and often fluent in the tools of digital dissent, has taken to the streets in recent months and years. In Bangladesh, Iran, Togo, France, Uganda, Nepal, and more than a dozen other countries, young people have harnessed digital tools to mobilize at scale, shape political narratives, and sustain movements that might once have been easier to ignore or suppress.

The tools at their disposal are vast, allowing them to coordinate quickly and turn local grievances into visible, transnational moments of dissent. But each new tactic is met in turn: governments now implement draconian regulations and deploy sophisticated surveillance systems, content manipulation, and automated censorship to pre-empt, predict, and punish collective action. 

This cycle of digital empowerment and repression is not new. In many ways, its roots can be traced to the 2011 uprisings that rippled across the Middle East and North Africa. Often referred to as the “Arab Spring,” these movements didn’t just reshape politics…they transformed how we talk about the internet, and how governments respond in times of protest, crisis, and conflict. Fifteen years later, the legacy of that moment still defines the terms of resistance and control in the digital age.

At the time, we were sold the comforting narrative that the internet would help bring about democracy, that connectivity itself was revolutionary, and that Silicon Valley’s products—particularly social media platforms—were aligned with the people. It was a narrative that tech executives were sometimes happy to amplify and certain Western governments were happy to believe. 

But the same networks that helped protesters to organize and broadcast their demands beyond their own borders laid the groundwork for new forms of repression. Over the years, the same tools that were once celebrated as tools of dissent have become instruments for tracking, harassing, and prosecuting dissenters.

This series examines the digital legacy of the 2011 uprisings that shook the region: how governments refined censorship and surveillance after 2011, how platforms alternately resisted and enabled those efforts, and how a new generation of civil society has pushed back.

"Over the years, the same tools that were once celebrated as tools of dissent have become instruments for tracking, harassing, and prosecuting dissenters."

When Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on December 17, 2010, after repeated harassment by local officials, he could not have known the chain reaction his act would spark. After nearly twenty-three years in power, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali faced a public fed up with repression. Protests spread across Tunisia, ultimately forcing him to flee.

In his final speech, Ben Ali promised reforms: a freer press and fewer internet restrictions. He left before either materialized. For Tunisians, who had lived for years under normalized censorship both online and off, the promises rang hollow.

At the time, Tunisia’s internet controls were among the most restrictive in the world. Reporting by the exiled outlet Nawaat documented a sophisticated filtering regime: DNS tampering, URL blocking, IP filtering, keyword censorship. Yet despite that machinery, Tunisians built a resilient blogging culture, often relying on circumvention tools to push information beyond their borders. When protests began—and before international media caught up—they were ready.

Eleven days after Ben Ali fled, Egyptians took to the streets. International headlines rushed to label it a “Twitter revolution,” mistaking a tool for a movement. Egypt’s government drew a similar conclusion. On January 26, authorities blocked Twitter and Facebook. The next day, they shut down the internet almost entirely, a foreshadowing of what we’d see fifteen years later in Iran.

As Egyptians fought to free their country from President Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic rule, protests swept across the region to Bahrain, where demonstrators gathered at the Pearl Roundabout before facing a brutal crackdown; to Syria, where early calls for reform spiraled into one of the most devastating conflicts of the century; to Morocco, where the February 20 Movement pushed for constitutional change. Outside of the region, movements took shape in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Iceland, the United States, and beyond.

In each context, digital platforms helped circulate images, testimonies, and tactics across borders. They created visibility—and, in turn, inspired a playbook. Governments watched not only their own populations but one another, quickly learning how to disrupt networks, identify organizers, and seize back control of the narrative.

Cause and Effect

To be clear, the internet didn’t create these movements. Decades of repression, corruption, labor organizing, and grassroots activism did. Later research confirmed what many in the region already understood: digital tools helped people share information and coordinate action, but they were neither the spark nor the engine of revolt.

But regardless, the myth of the “Twitter revolution” had consequences. The breathless coverage, and rapid policy reactions that followed shaped state strategy around the world. Governments across the region and well beyond invested heavily in surveillance technologies, developed new legal mechanisms, increased their own social media presence, and found ways to influence platforms. Internet blackouts, once rare, became a normalized tool of crisis response. And companies were forced into increasingly public decisions about whether to resist state pressure or comply.

When it comes to the internet, the legacy of the 2011 uprisings that swept the region and beyond is a story about power: how states moved to consolidate control online, how platforms—often under pressure—have narrowed the space for dissent, and how civil society has been forced to evolve to defend it.

This five-part series will take a deeper look at how the internet as a space for dissent and for hope has changed over the past fifteen years throughout the region and well beyond.