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Steven Feldstein
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The Rise of Digital Repression
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The Rise of Digital Repression
How Technology Is Reshaping Power, Politics,
and Resistance
STEVEN FELDSTEIN
1
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is the product of over three years of research, writing, and discussion.
Many people played crucial roles in making this book possible. To start, I want
to thank Tom Carothers for his encouragement and support, particularly for the
candid feedback he provided at the outset of the project, which forced me to think
critically about the scope and purpose of the book. I cannot thank him enough
for the generosity of his time. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
served as a second home to me in this period. I am exceedingly grateful for the
friendship and ideas I cultivated from such a dedicated community of scholars.
The backbone of this book is the field research I conducted in Thailand, the
Philippines, Ethiopia, and Hong Kong. There are numerous people I’d like to
thank who provided contacts, advice, and support for my trips to these places.
In Thailand, Janjira Sombatpoonsiri offered ideas about people I should speak
to and provided substantive feedback for my chapter. She also introduced me
to Benjamin Siritantitham, who served as my eyes and ears on the ground, dil-
igently running down meetings and adeptly guiding me through the conges-
tion of Bangkok’s streets. In the Philippines, Karol Ilagan helped me organize
a jam-packed schedule that transported me across vast swaths of metro Manila.
In Ethiopia, Brooke Abdu served as my right hand, setting aside his regular
responsibilities to set up meetings in Addis Ababa and even accompany me
north to Mekele. None of these case studies would have been possible without
the generosity of the contacts I reached out to—many of whom chose to remain
anonymous—who imparted precious insights on this topic.
I’d like to thank the following individuals who generously participated in my
book workshop and provided valuable feedback on my manuscript: Sarah Bush,
Shanthi Kalathil, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, Steve Livingston, Adrian Shahbaz,
and Jon Bateman. In addition, Yoseph Badwaza, David Timberman, Irene
Poetranto, Michael Nelson, Brian Wampler, Isaac Castellano, Nisha Bellinger,
Michael Allen, Steve Utych, and Ross Burkhart generously took time to review
ix
x Acknowledgments
and offer comments on select chapters. I’m exceptionally grateful for their
suggestions and advice.
Many of the ideas in the book developed out of an article I published in the
Journal of Democracy examining the impact of artificial intelligence technology
on political repression. I am grateful to Marc F. Plattner and Larry Diamond for
their comments and advice.
The bulk of this book was written while I served as the Frank Church Chair
of Public Affairs at Boise State University. I never would have found the time or
space to develop my ideas for this project without the support of the university
community. I am especially grateful to Garry Wenske, Chase Johnson, Corey
Cook, Bob Kustra, and the members of the Frank Church Institute board, for
bringing me to Boise and for serving as my esteemed colleagues. Special thanks
go to Brian Wampler, with whom I was able to hash out vexing problems and
obstacles while single-tracking through the Boise foothills.
This book would not have been possible without the generous support of
several institutions and foundations. Kizito Byenkya from the Open Society
Foundation saw the promise of the book early on and helped shepherd crit-
ical resources to support my field research. Boise State University and the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace provided additional financial sup-
port, allowing me to organize workshops and to attend key conferences in the
discipline.
Thanks to Oxford University Press and Dave McBride for supporting this
project through all phases of publication.
A note of thanks to Ida Rothschild, whose diligent editing immeasurably
improved the clarity and readability of the manuscript.
And a final enormous thanks to my family:
To my parents, whose commitment to opening my eyes to the wider world
sowed the seeds of my interest in international relations, which indubitably led
me down the path to writing this book.
To my brother, who has been my intellectual sparring partner for most of my
life and has influenced how I think and see the world.
To my wife Elizabeth, for her belief in the book and her steadfast support
throughout the writing process. I cannot thank her enough for the innumerable
sacrifices she made to allow me ample time to research and write this manuscript.
To my children, Caleb and Louisa, who bring me hope every day and reaf-
firm my belief that we have an obligation to keep trying to make the world a
better place.
1
Einführung
In 2017, I began to think seriously about digital repression. I had just completed
a three-year stint at the US State Department overseeing democracy and human
rights issues for Africa. After my departure, I suddenly had much more time to
reflect on emergent trends and over-the-horizon issues. I began to hear about
a new form of repression taking place in Xinjiang, China. Chinese authorities
were systematically harnessing digital technology to persecute millions of citi-
zens in ways I had never encountered before. I started digging into the matter
further. What I uncovered was chilling.
Under the leadership of a regional party secretary named Chen Quanguo,
who had gained a reputation in his prior post by pioneering brutal grid-policing
tactics in Tibet, Chinese security forces had instituted a police state of Orwellian
proportions. Authorities, I learned, were collecting mandatory DNA samples in
order to build a genetic database for the region’s entire ethnic Uighur population.
The police were monitoring all electronic communications: text messages, social
media posts, phone calls, and visited websites. Checkpoints had been established
at every border crossing to track who was coming and going in the province,
and to record specific information, including SIM card numbers, license plate
registrations, and passports. In public squares, ubiquitous cameras equipped
with facial recognition capabilities and powered by advanced algorithms kept
watch over Xinjiang’s towns and cities.1
The developments in Xinjiang were shocking. They also raised a slew of
questions. Did such digital monitoring represent the new face of repression?
Were Chinese authorities exporting these technologies and tactics to other
governments to enable them to persecute their citizens? How did Xinjiang’s sur-
veillance and censorship repression strategy relate to other digital strategies such
as Internet shutdowns or online disinformation campaigns against domestic
opponents? I started to grasp that what was happening in Xinjiang fit a broader
pattern of repression taking place around the world. China was not an exception
The Rise of Digital Repression. Steven Feldstein, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190057497.003.0001
2 The R ise of Digital R epr e ssion
but part of a larger trend, where autocrats increasingly turn to digital technology
to augment and sharpen their programs of repression.
These insights became the rationale for the book—to investigate and make
sense of a new model of repression that is profoundly shifting the coercion
paradigm.
This book is first and foremost about how governments repress—how auto-
cratically inclined leaders are deploying new digital methods to reinforce their
power, shape political narratives, counter dissent, and push back against mass
protests. My purpose is to contribute to the current understanding of the goals,
motivations, uses, and drivers of digital repression strategies. I do not wish to
leave the mistaken impression that technologically advanced tools have fully
upended the balance between citizen and government. Rather, I believe that the
political landscape is marked by an ongoing struggle between multiple sets of
actors (including private companies), and that many factors contribute to deter-
mining whether protest movements or opposition challengers will gain power
or whether repressive leaders will prevail. This aligns with Ronald Deibert and
Rafal Rohozinski’s “access contested” construct for cyberspace, in which they
describe an “increasing struggle for superiority and the competition for power,
influence, and control.”2 While this book focuses on the digital repression side
of the equation, there are many innovative tools, ideas, and strategies that civil
society groups and opposition movements are successfully implementing to
counter autocracies. The news is not completely gloomy even if it is frequently
discouraging. I will discuss countervailing strategies in the final chapter of
the book.
I chose to focus on state-led digital repression because it represents a swiftly
evolving area that remains understudied. There is still a significant amount we
do not understand about these trends. Quantitative data remains scarce, and rig-
orous case-study research is also limited. Yet significant developments are rap-
idly occurring, many of which bring major policy repercussions. Governments
like China’s are deploying digital strategies that signify elemental shifts in how
states wield power. Gaining a better understanding of the logic and trade-offs
behind these tactics and methods is imperative. We should also recognize that
governments are no longer on their heels when it comes to confronting civic
movements online. They have adapted and are using new tools to strengthen
their hold on power. Shedding light on the costs and benefits of these tools will
provide an important contribution to our understanding of authoritarianism.
The broader political landscape in which digital repression is unfolding is
worrisome. Democracies worldwide are undergoing a troubling period of re-
trenchment. There is a growing consensus that the world is experiencing a “third
wave of autocratization.”3 For the first time in nearly 20 years, autocracies out-
strip democracies: 92 countries or 54 percent of the world’s population currently
Int roduc tion 3
live under authoritarian rule.4 Researchers from V-Dem estimate that 2.6 billion
people, or 35 percent of the world’s population, are living through autocratization,
a process inverse to democratization in which political rights and freedoms are
increasingly limited. Such countries include liberal democracies like the United
States, flawed democracies and hybrid regimes such as Brazil, India, and Turkey,
and autocratic states like Thailand and Venezuela.5 In their book on political po-
larization, Thomas Carothers and Andrew O’Donohue describe how “new and
old democracies alike are confronting a daunting array of internal and external
challenges, from the crumbling of public support for long-established political
parties and the swelling popularity of illiberal politicians to the growing asser-
tiveness and influence of authoritarian powers and ideas across borders.”6
As I was completing this book, the world was in the full grasp of the coro-
navirus pandemic. While it is too early to predict the long-term political effects
of the virus, current indicators are troubling. Governments around the world
have turned to digital tools to fight the virus’s spread. While many governments
have legitimate reasons for deploying contact-tracing apps or using location-
monitoring technology to track infections, there are increasing reports of privacy
violations and human rights abuses.7 As states expand their use of digital tools,
there has not been a concurrent dialogue to delimit protections, safeguards, and
standards of use. Many states have categorically refused to set limits regarding
how long they intend to use these tools or for what exact purpose. It is conceiv-
able that for governments in places such as Russia, China, Thailand, or Turkey,
heightened surveillance measures are here to stay.
Before I delve into the book’s key arguments, it is useful to describe how the
digital ecosystem operates, as well as discuss why leaders choose to repress in the
first place. The following two sections elaborate on these ideas.
How the Digital Ecosystem Operates

One major change wrought by the Internet is an increase in the “pervasive-
ness of information.”8 The scale and availability of data that is instantly avail-
able to users is unparalleled. When political crises erupt—such as mass protests
in Egypt or violent crackdowns in Venezuela—real-time videos, tweets, and
posts about these events are not only rapidly disseminated internally, but also
promptly transmitted around the world, helping to shape public opinion almost
instantaneously. Users have broadcasted Facebook live streams of police bru-
tality in Chicago, uploaded geotagged recordings to YouTube of barrel bombings
in Syria, and generated global reactions to election protests against President
Evo Morales in Bolivia or street battles between university students and the po-
lice in Hong Kong.
These social and political changes are, in part, due to changing global net-
work structures. Past information systems relied upon broadcast networks
(information disseminated from a central node to multiple receivers, such as
televisions or radios) or peer-to-peer networks (phone conversations with a
limited number of participants). Both network forms are highly susceptible to
government interference and control. But in addition to proliferating two-way
broadcasts and expanding peer-to-peer communication, the Internet opened
up hybrid channels of communication via social media. This development has
fragmented the state’s ability to monitor and regulate citizen communication
and was responsible for the initial outpouring of optimism regarding liberation
technology’s potential to counteract autocratic regimes.9
History has recorded many prior instances of communications
breakthroughs that have generated social change and political upheaval. The
invention of the printing press, telegraph, and radio broadened our access to
information and expanded our ability to reach mass audiences; paradoxically,
these inventions also “facilitated the rise of the centralized state and prompted
the movement toward censorship.”10 Internet technologies are currently pro-
voking an intense period of disruption. Citizen activists were the first to
recognize and exploit the potential of information and communications tech-
nology (ICT) to foster rapid political change. But governments have caught
up; at this point, activists’ first-mover advantages have largely dissipated.
Repressive regimes have been hard at work devising counterstrategies to blunt
the democratizing impact of Twitter revolutions and Facebook movements,
reinforcing Melvin Kranzberg’s observation that “technology is neither good
nor bad, nor is it neutral.”11 Kranzberg’s point is that just as civil society actors
shape technology to suit their needs, governments (or private companies for
that matter) make design decisions that preference certain objectives over
others. We see this clearly in the divergent design choices of companies like
Wikipedia (openness and collective control), Facebook (monetization of
user data tied to profit incentives), or WeChat (monetization of user data
plus embedded censorship).
The initial breakthroughs provided by digital technology were to increase
the pervasiveness of information, to empower ordinary citizens to become both
content receivers and producers, and to usher in new forms of multiway com-
munication. Autocratic leaders reacted to these developments with hostility.
Their efforts to manipulate and control how citizens use these tools—and their
attempts to exploit this technology to their political advantage—lie at the heart
of this book.
In order to understand specific conditions that facilitate state use of dig-
ital repression, it is helpful to sketch a basic outline of the digital ecosystem.
While each country possesses a unique constellation of interconnected actors,
Int roduc tion 5
I generally focus on three groups: states, civil society and opposition actors, and
the private sector.
For the state, laws and regulations provide the framework to harness ICT’s
potential and enact digitally repressive policies. A major gap in the liberation
technology argument was its failure to recognize the central role of states, par-
ticularly in authoritarian contexts, in establishing and expanding Internet infra-
structure. This role enabled states to exploit ICT in support of their priorities,
even as digital technology also permitted challenges to government authority.12
Specific measures can take the form of intelligence laws, which grant state se-
curity agencies wide-ranging surveillance powers; censorship directives, which
provide legal authority for the state to suppress dissent; or ICT regulations,
which authorize government control over key infrastructure (e.g., telecom
ownership, Internet exchange points). Many governments have set up national
ICT policy institutions to oversee digital technology issues, such as Thailand’s
Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, the Philippines’ Department of
Information and Communications Technology, or Ethiopia’s Ministry of
Innovation and Technology. These institutions are broadly responsible for
safeguarding cybersecurity, implementing national broadband plans, setting
standards for cloud computing, ensuring data privacy, authorizing necessary
ICT procurement, and implementing relevant ICT laws and policies (although
regulations vary by country). Underlying these technocratic goals is a more fun-
damental objective: monitoring, regulating, and controlling how individuals in
their respective countries use Internet technologies.
National ICT policy institutions work closely with law enforcement and
security agencies to implement policies. Police departments have created cy-
bercrime units with sophisticated surveillance capabilities to monitor social
media chatter and hold transgressors accountable. Prosecutors who work with
ministries of justice charge individuals with crimes based on directives from the
leadership group. In the Philippines, for example, prosecutors have filed eleven
cases in fourteen months against online journalist Maria Ressa, one of Duterte’s
notable critics. Regimes often deploy intelligence and national security agencies
to spy on opponents and carry out operations against political rivals. For in-
stance, in Ethiopia, intelligence services frequently arrested online bloggers and
independent journalists, authorized under the country’s 2009 Anti-Terrorism
Proclamation.13
A more recent development is the rise of state-sponsored social manipulation
and disinformation strategies. Deibert and his colleagues describe the emergence
of “third generation controls,” with governments moving beyond censoring or
filtering content to advancing propaganda and counterinformation strategies
(in addition to employing surveillance) in order to discredit and delegitimize
opponents.14 Government involvement, often through a national information
agency or even the office of the president, ranges from directly implementing so-
cial manipulation actions (state executed) or coordinating with external actors
to propagate attacks (state sponsored), to instigating attacks while maintaining
an “arm’s-length distance” (state incited), to signaling their endorsement of anti-
opposition trolling narratives to like-minded supporters while refraining from
directly engaging (state endorsed).15
The second stakeholder group I consider are political opposition figures, civil
society actors, and ordinary citizens who may be persuaded to join them. Such
groups promote a range of objectives befitting their heterogeneity. Some organ-
izations are narrowly focused on challenging the ruling regime and competing
for political power. Others focus more broadly on advocating for political
liberties and human rights. Scholars Nils Weidmann and Espen Rød emphasize
two significant types of actors: activists and potential dissenters: “Activists are
individuals who advocate for a political cause, usually against the government.
To pursue this cause, these activists attempt to mobilize potential dissenters in the
population.”16 Weidmann and Rød argue that governments focus on preempting
core political activists while also attempting to deter a larger group of potential
dissenters from joining those activists.
In addition to these two groups, governments also attempt to control infor-
mation producers (journalists, bloggers) who can influence support in favor of
a particular side. Even in the Web 2.0 era, professional journalists still matter.
People look to journalists to assess the credibility of new information and to pro-
vide signaling about the regime’s legitimacy. This role helps explain why trend
lines are escalating when it comes to state violence against journalists. Reporters
Without Borders’ 2020 world press freedom index warns about “growing hos-
tility and even hatred towards journalists” resulting in “more serious and frequent
acts of physical violence.”17 If journalists were no longer politically relevant, state
authorities wouldn’t waste time trying to silence them.
The third stakeholder group is comprised of private sector actors. These
companies run social media platforms, supply sophisticated surveillance tech-
nology, and provision censorship filtering equipment. In many countries,
private telecoms oversee broadband and mobile networks. Some firms are
wholly private enterprises that operate separately from government control.
Other companies, such as China’s Huawei, have opaque ownership structures
that potentially include controlling interests from government authorities.18
In countries like Thailand and Myanmar, which feature aggressive censor-
ship and surveillance efforts by state agencies, US social media platforms have
offshored decision-making responsibilities to their California headquarters,
thus insulating local employees from foreign government pressure campaigns.
International companies that run national mobile networks face trickier
situations. Norway’s Telenor, for example, owns mobile networks in Malaysia,
Int roduc tion 7
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Thailand.19 Telenor is obligated to respond

when Pakistan demands an Internet shutdown, Bangladesh requests user data,
or Thailand seeks to implant network interception devices. But acceding to gov-
ernment demands likely results in Telenor violating Norwegian regulations and
also contravenes international law.
Other companies have fewer problems cooperating with repressive
governments. Chinese technology companies have a particularly poor rep-
utation in this regard. Researchers from the Citizen Lab have documented,
for example, how Chinese social media platforms WeChat and Weibo have
installed pervasive censorship and surveillance controls in order to “comply
with government regulations on content controls.”20 This has resulted in the
tracking, storing, and filtering of millions of user messages and posts both
within and outside of China. Chinese companies that fail to implement
such controls face heavy fines or even government suspensions. As a ge-
neral rule, tech companies based in democracies tend to implement higher
ethical standards and push back more assertively against repressive policies.
Companies based in autocracies, whether national telecoms, Chinese firms, or
Russian cybersecurity outfits, operate with few constraints when it comes to
cooperating with human rights-v iolating regimes. But exceptions abound. In
September 2020, US technology company Sandvine found itself in the news
for providing deep packet inspection technology to Belarusian authorities so
they could block websites and messaging apps to suppress election protests. In
response, Sandvine’s chief technology officer declared, “We don’t want to play
world police. We believe that each sovereign country should be allowed to set
their own policy on what is allowed and what is not allowed in that country.”21
These are precisely the type of “cyber sovereignty” arguments China, Russia,
and Iran consistently make.22
A valid question might be whether the “corporate surveillance” business
model employed by many tech companies bears responsibility for enabling the
mass exploitation of personal data, expanding states’ ability to undertake sur-
veillance, and promulgating a global epidemic of disinformation.23 There is little
doubt that algorithms from Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube have contributed to
the poisoning of informational discourse worldwide. In countries such as the
Philippines, many argue that Facebook is culpable for abetting Duterte’s popu-
list campaign to suppress critics and spread falsehoods about his rule. In addi-
tion, some critics argue that the deliberate constriction of informational choices
by algorithms designed to provide a running list of like-curated items has led
to the creation of filter bubbles, if not “mass propaganda” facilitated by tech
platforms.24 These concerns are troubling and point to substantial supply-side
defects that companies must tackle and for which regulators must hold them
accountable (more on these concerns in Chapter 8).
But the spread of online disinformation is equally dependent on individuals

who are expressly interested in circulating bad information, sowing discord,
and promoting their political agendas—in other words, disinformation is also
a demand-side problem. As technologist Samuel Woolley has observed: “To
address the problem of computational propaganda we need to zero in on the
people behind the tools. Yes, ever-evolving technology can automate the spread
of disinformation and trolling. It can let perpetrators operate anonymously and
without fear of discovery. But this suite of tools as a mode of political commu-
nication is ultimately focused on achieving the human aim of control.”25 As this
book will argue, digital repression is an adjunct of political repression. And po-
litical repression remains a distinctly human enterprise.
Why Do Leaders Repress?

What particular benefits do leaders get from adding digital repression tools to
their arsenal—beyond the advantages they already accrue from conventional re-
pressive tools? To answer this question, it’s helpful to review why leaders repress
in the first place.26
Autocracies use a range of strategies to maintain power. As a first-order tactic,
autocratic leaders rely heavily on coercion to maintain political order, keep in-
ternal and external rivals at bay, and ensure political survival. Rulers must
cultivate security forces that will tamp down popular challenges while simulta-
neously ensuring loyalty that is sufficiently coercive to preempt internal threats.
As a result, violence becomes an inherent part of the authoritarian political land-
scape. As scholar Milan Svolik argues, “The lack of popular consent—inherent
in any political system where a few govern over the many—is the ‘original sin’ of
dictatorships”27
But coercion alone is insufficient to keep most regimes in power. A second
important characteristic of most autocracies is the use of co-optation, which
involves inducing opponents to join your side or convincing allies to stay in your
camp through the provision of specific benefits. Party loyalty has proven to be
an especially strong mechanism for maintaining an autocracy because it leads
to incentives that “encourage sunk political investment by their members.”28
Authoritarian parties successfully exploit “opportunism and career aspirations”
among their members in order to create a stake in the continuation of the re-
gime.29 While co-optation strategies can be deeply effective, there are limits to
their utility. For one, co-optation becomes increasingly expensive to sustain rel-
ative to repression. Even if an autocrat can successfully co-opt relevant elites,
the majority of the population will still be left outside the tent without access to
equivalent benefits or opportunities.
Int roduc tion 9
Thus, a third “pillar” of autocratic regimes comprises strategies of legitima-

tion. Many autocracies persist not only by threatening or buying off would-be
challengers, but by cultivating popular consent for, and societal approval of,
their application of power. Scholars such as Johannes Gerschewski contend
that coercion and co-optation strategies are insufficient without also seeking
to “guarantee active consent, compliance with the rules, passive obedience, or
mere toleration within the population.”30 Legitimation can be rooted in socioec-
onomic factors (e.g., sustained economic growth used by the CCP to validate its
authority) or can stem from ideological foundations.
Finally, scholars have also documented the emergence of “hybrid regimes,”
or “competitive authoritarianism.”31 These states occupy a nebulous zone between
fully autocratic and partially democratic. In these regimes, “Formal democratic
institutions are widely viewed as the principal means of obtaining and exercising
political authority. Incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent,
however, that the regime fails to meet conventional minimum standards for de-
mocracy.”32 In such “diminished” authoritarian contexts, autocratic leaders ex-
ploit the trappings of democracy in order to perpetuate their rule.33 While they
might hold elections, they rig them significantly against challengers by denying
media coverage, stealing votes, and using ruling party machinery to mobilize
supporters. They frequently harass and intimidate journalists and government
critics to diminish opposition support. Such regimes face a crucial dilemma: “On
the one hand, repressing them [opposition groups] is costly, largely because the
challenges tend to be both formally legal and widely perceived (domestically
and internationally) as legitimate. On the other hand, incumbents could lose
power if they let democratic challenges run their course.”34 Thus, in addition to
offering limited political competition, these regimes also deploy a mix of coer-
cion, co-optation, and legitimation to stay in power.
No matter how successfully autocrats implement co-option strategies, limit
political competition, or seek to bolster their legitimacy, they still must rely on
political repression (and, by extension, violence) to stay in power.
But the type of threat a regime faces also matters. As Svolik has established,
autocrats confront a fundamental problem: how to manage the majority of cit-
izens excluded from power while also tamping down challenges from within
the ruling coalition.35 During the Cold War, military coups were the most
common means for autocrats to leave office, comprising 48.6 percent of author-
itarian exits. But in the post–Cold War era (1989–2017), trends have changed;
the most common causes of leadership exit are now electoral losses or pop-
ular revolts. Exits through coups currently make up only 12.9 percent of total
departures.36 This change indicates that the most serious threats today, at least
when it comes to autocratic survival, stem from public discontent—manifested
through demonstrations on the streets or rejections at the ballot box.37 Thus, for
most autocrats, building coercive apparatuses to guard against external threats—

rather than deterring potential coups—is in their best interest.
Coercive institutions designed to preempt external threats look very different
from those intended to block insider challenges. As scholar Sheena Greitens has
posited, leaders concerned with insider threats create “fragmented and exclu-
sive organizations,” while those preoccupied with popular challenges establish
“unitary and inclusive ones.”38 What is the difference? Fragmented and exclusive
organizations are designed to maximize loyalty and are built with less regard for
intelligence collection or analysis. Such organizations are also inclined to carry
out higher levels of violence. Conversely, unitary and inclusive institutions em-
phasize “preemptive, discriminate, and targeted forms of repression.”39 They fea-
ture enhanced intelligence capacity and incentives that diminish the likelihood
of using violence. They are, therefore, natural institutions for adopting digital
repression techniques.
Can leaders design institutions to address both types of threats? Generally,
no—given that the very traits that make one type of organization uniquely ef-
fective against insider coups are the same attributes that make it vulnerable to
popular revolts.40 The choice of institution—based on a leader’s perception of
threat—goes a long way toward determining how they will govern and what
methods of repression they will choose.
Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have offered a similar perspective when
describing two essential forms of coercive state capacity: high-intensity and
low-intensity coercion. High-intensity coercion entails visible acts of violence
against known figures or large groups—such as the mass killings of protestors,
violent suppression of democratic institutions, and assassinations of opposition
leaders and critics.
Low-intensity coercion involves less visible but systematic actions to monitor
and repress opposition activity. Such actions include “extensive surveillance of
opposition, short-term detainment by police, harassment of opposition and its
financial backers by tax and other regulatory agencies, crippling libel and other
suits against opposition leaders and media, beatings of opposition activists by
informal thugs tied to the incumbent, and restriction of employment and other
career opportunities for those with known oppositionist views.”41 Not surpris-
ingly, techniques of digital repression fall squarely in the low-intensity category.42
Levitsky and Way also contend that a state’s ability to carry out low-intensity
coercion is reliant on “scope and cohesion.” Scope refers to the state’s effective
reach across its territory and into society, while cohesion refers to the level of
“compliance” within the state bureaucracy. They note that scope is particularly
critical for carrying out low-intensity coercion, observing that “systematic sur-
veillance, harassment, and intimidation of opponents require an infrastructure
capable of directing, coordinating, and supplying agents across the national
Int roduc tion 11
territory.”43 Without sufficient scope, carrying out digital repression is a hard—if

not impossible—task.
If we bring together Svolik’s problem of autocratic control (insider threats
vs. popular challenges), Greitens’s theory of coercive institutions (fragmented/
exclusive vs. unitary/inclusive), and Levitsky and Way’s theory of coercive
state capacity (high-intensity vs. low-intensity coercion), we can conclude the
following:
• Autocrats face two main threats: insider challenges and popular protests.
• In the post–Cold War era, popular protests are greater threats to autocratic
survival than coups.
• Preempting popular protests requires creating unitary and inclusive coercive
institutions with strong intelligence capabilities that can deter protestors and
opposition activists.
• Such governmental systems rely on low- intensity coercive tactics—
surveillance, opposition harassment, legal persecution, and short- term
detentions—to maintain power.
• Digital repression techniques directly align with low-intensity coercion, pro-
viding a significant advantage to autocratic regimes.
Accordingly, digital repression strategies provide unparalleled capabilities to

monitor personal communications, disrupt political organizing, and manipulate
public conversations. They are also far less obtrusive than conventional, more
violent tactics. As a result, regimes that pursue digital strategies run a lower risk
of undermining their legitimacy (e.g., inciting public backlash by using violent
tactics) while still accomplishing their political control objectives.
It’s important to emphasize that repression is not limited to autocracies.
Democracies, particularly illiberal regimes, also carry out repressive policies. But
across the board, autocracies repress more frequently and with more severity
than democracies. Even in illiberal democracies and hybrid regimes (which lack
the same liberal political traditions as advanced democracies), repression is still
costlier for leaders to pursue; coercion threatens to create a presumption of ille-
gitimacy, raising the likelihood that citizens will vote the incumbent out of of-
fice.44 When it comes to the application of digital techniques, the same logic
holds: autocracies are more likely than democracies to use digital tools to rein-
force regime survival. But as I explore later, this rule applies more strongly for
certain digital tactics than others.
While digital repression enhances the state’s capacity to quash external
challenges, it doesn’t always succeed in preempting popular protest or
promoting stability. The reason is that many of these techniques are dual use.
As much as digital tools assist governments in monitoring opponents, censoring
communications, or manipulating political narratives, such tools can also

help civil society and opposition actors lower barriers to collective action by
facilitating leaderless coordination, pushing back against government narratives,
and exposing state brutality in real time (as witnessed in Sudan and Iran in
2019).45
Main Arguments
I approached writing this book with two basic questions in mind: What is dig-
ital repression: how do you define it? And how frequently are states employing
these tools? Determining what constitutes digital repression and how the dif-
ferent categories of digital technology relate to one another was challenging. Are
these mostly surveillance and censorship tools? Are other techniques, such as
disinformation, also relevant?
To answer these questions, I reviewed leading scholarship and interviewed
numerous experts to test different propositions. I scrutinized material from
digital rights groups and research outfits like Freedom on the Net, Privacy
International, the Citizen Lab, Oxford Internet Institute, Access Now, Data &
Society, Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Article 19, and many others.
I empirically tracked state deployment of digital tactics through media reports
and news articles, and I organized them into databases. I subsequently devel-
oped a taxonomy of digital repression comprising five broad areas: surveillance,
censorship, social manipulation and disinformation, Internet shutdowns, and
persecutions against online users for political content.
I then turned to the second question: how frequently are states using
these tools? I found that a wide range of governments are deploying digital
tactics on a regular basis, and that government usage of these techniques is
rapidly increasing. For example, one of the sources I initially examined re-
garding global patterns of disinformation was Samantha Bradshaw and
Philip Howard’s inventory of social media manipulation. They revealed that
the number of countries featuring information-manipulating campaigns has
soared—from twenty-eight countries in 2017 to seventy countries worldwide
by 2019.46 Similarly, Freedom on the Net’s 2018 report, subtitled “The Rise of
Digital Authoritarianism,” cautioned that a combination of online disinforma-
tion, state propaganda, expanding censorship, and automated surveillance had
resulted in eight consecutive years of declining Internet freedom. Particularly
worrisome, the report underscored that of sixty-five surveyed countries
(representing 87 percent of global Internet users), eighteen governments had
adopted Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition technologies
Int roduc tion 13
to confront political threats.47 The sheer number of countries adopting this

technology and integrating it into government repression strategies came as
a surprise.
A critical question then arose: Do these digital techniques represent some-
thing fundamentally new and distinct in the arsenal of repression? Or is it more
accurate to consider them extensions of traditional repression?
The more I looked into this issue, the less I was convinced that digital methods
represented a paradigm shift in how governments enact their repressive agendas.
Instead, I saw clear overlaps between traditional coercive strategies—detentions,
torture, beatings, extrajudicial killings—and digital variants. One of the first is-
sues I investigated was whether a relationship existed between digital repres-
sion and political systems of government. It seemed obvious that authoritarian
systems would naturally be disposed to adopt digital repression strategies, but
I wasn’t sure whether state capacity or a country’s technological development
would be determinative. I anticipated that the most likely candidates for high
levels of digital repression would be authoritarian countries with substantially
developed technological infrastructures—such as Saudi Arabia or China. It
turns out I was only partially correct. Both Saudi Arabia and China rank among
the most digitally repressive countries in the world. But they are joined by states
such as Turkmenistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Venezuela, and Syria. While some of
these governments feature high levels of technological capacity, others have
weak economies and underdeveloped digital infrastructures. One aspect they all
have in common, however, is a high level of authoritarian governance. No dem-
ocratic state ranks near the top of the digital repression list—not even illiberal
democracies. Put simply, the more authoritarian a government, the higher the
likelihood it is relying on digital repression techniques to reinforce its political
control.
But while all authoritarian countries digitally repress, my research showed
that they digitally repress in distinctive ways. Some countries rely primarily on
tactics that require little technical expertise, such as Internet shutdowns or arrests
of online users posting unfavorable political content. Unsurprisingly, many such
countries exhibit lower levels of technological capacity. Other countries have
invested significant resources in surveillance systems or sophisticated censor-
ship filtering techniques. These governments have expended considerable re-
sources purchasing facial recognition cameras, predictive analytic packages, and
intrusive malware programs. In other words, digital repression strategies in au-
tocratic states are not monolithic. While an advanced society like China has the
capabilities and resources to institute an elaborate Orwellian system in Xinjiang,
few other countries can replicate these actions. Instead, they opt for alternative
digital strategies that reinforce their repressive agendas but reflect capacity and
resource constraints.
Digital strategies offer many advantages over more coercive alternatives. They
are less likely to produce a public outcry than violent crackdowns. And they are
less prone to generate international condemnation or pressure to cease their
deployment. But they also come with a cost. One constraint I began to notice
was a phenomenon experts term the “dictator’s digital dilemma.”48 Regimes that
choose to repress using digital tools face a trade-off between deriving gains from
political control versus sacrificing economic benefits that come from allowing
citizens to make full use of digital technologies. For instance, when Iraq cut off
Internet access nationwide for eleven days in 2019 to quell escalating political
protests, this action came at a steep cost. Analysts estimate that the economy
suffered over $2.3 billion in losses due to the shutdown.49 Therefore, regimes
must carefully weigh the pros and cons of pursuing a particular digital strategy—
none of them are cost free in terms of the resulting spillover effects. Thus, these
considerations become another factor that shapes how and when a regime
chooses to use its digital repression tools.
While autocracies predominate in their use of digital repression, democracies
sometimes engage in it as well. Particularly in illiberal democracies—such as the
Philippines, India, Kenya, Hungary, or Brazil—states are quick to deploy online
disinformation and manipulation tactics against their political opponents. In fact,
several democracies (Colombia and Brazil, for instance) rank among the highest
users globally of social manipulation and disinformation tools. This observation
points to another insight: relatively open political systems are not antidotes to
digital repression. Instead, those countries might substitute one type of repres-
sive technique (disinformation) over others (Internet censorship, obtrusive sur-
veillance). The exceptions to this rule are liberal democracies, which have higher
rule-of-law standards and more accountable governance institutions. In those
countries, digital repression remains a rarity.
I then turned to questions of diffusion. Which countries and what companies
are supplying these technologies? What role are Chinese companies playing in
proliferating advanced repressive tools to autocratic and illiberal regimes across
the world? I landed on two insights.
First, while there is little dispute that Chinese firms are a significant supplier
of digital tools used for repression, I uncovered scant evidence that regimes that
are not otherwise inclined to employ these tactics have begun doing so at China’s
behest. Instead, other factors appear more relevant in determining whether a
particular government is engaging in digital repression, such as political environ-
ment, intelligence and security capacity, and levels of social media penetration
(and corresponding online dissent).
Second, I found that companies based in democracies were just as active
as Chinese firms in selling repressive technology to illiberal and authoritarian
regimes. In Ethiopia, for example (detailed at length in Chapter 6), analysts have
Int roduc tion 15
documented how Israeli, Italian, German, and US firms provided spyware to

the Ethiopian government to assist its repression program.50 During a research
trip to the country, I met with Tekleberhan Woldearegay, the former director
of Ethiopia’s Information Network Security Agency (INSA), which is respon-
sible for most of the state’s digital repression activities. When I asked him about
the level of Chinese influence during his tenure at INSA, he smiled and said,
“Always the Americans think we’re working behind the door with the Chinese.
Never. That’s a completely false perception.” Instead, he explained that Ethiopia
“bought technology from Israel, from Italy, even from Germany, including from
America. Also from China. Always to protect our country to create a secure
environment. We were searching the best technologies from every part of the
world.”51 I received similar responses from security and intelligence officials in
Thailand and the Philippines.
Finally, I returned to a foundational question: given governments’ rapid
adoption of repressive digital tools, are these techniques fundamentally tilting
the playing field in favor of authoritarian leaders against their civic and political
opponents? I found that the answer is mixed. In states that feature extensive re-
pression supported by high-capacity institutions (and where civil society and
government oversight are comparatively weak), digital technology can have a
transformative effect on a regime’s ability to achieve its political agenda. In other
cases, where governments either have insufficient capacity to take advantage of
digital tools—or in democracies, which have built-in safeguards to mitigate the
impact of digital strategies—the effect of these techniques is more limited. More
precisely, in high-capacity coercive countries, digital repression tools not only
reinforce existing repression, they can potentially transform the state’s ability
to track political opponents, monitor dissent, quash protest movements, and
consolidate political control. But in lower-capacity countries, acquiring digital
tools does not bring the same transformative effect. These tools require specific
elements: disciplined security forces that coordinate and communicate across
units, a coherent command-and-control structure that enforces adherence to or-
ganizational objectives, and highly trained personnel able to analyze, interpret,
and act on relevant information. Where regimes lack these ingredients, the im-
pact of digital tools noticeably diminishes.
What can we conclude from these insights?
Digital repression is a growing trend and represents a serious threat to civil
society groups and opposition figures around the world. Policymakers must
take it seriously. Digital repression is also more nuanced and complex than it
might appear at first glance, encompassing a range of tactics and tools wielded
differently by regimes depending on the circumstances. While authoritarians
rely far more heavily on digital repression techniques than democracies, demo-
cratic leaders are also prone to exploiting these tools, sometimes at higher levels
than their authoritarian counterparts. China plays a critical role as a model for
how state deployment of digital repression can effectively control its citizens.
China is a major proliferator of repressive technology, but pinpointing China
as a primary driver of digital repression in individual countries overstates the
case. Finally, I maintain that in certain countries, digital technology is having a
transformative effect on repression; this impact, however, is highly dependent
on state capacity and regime type.
Plan of the Book

The research design of my book incorporates a multimethod approach.52 In an
emerging field like digital repression, where basic concepts are still being de-
veloped and data collection methods are nascent, I have chosen to supplement
quantitative analysis with qualitative fieldwork.
In Chapter 2, I begin by laying out a conceptual framework for digital repres-
sion and identify five principal digital repression techniques. I then examine
how leaders confront the “dictator’s digital dilemma,” and to what degree dig-
ital technology is transforming the balance between governments and their
opponents. I also assess China’s responsibility for driving the global spread of
digital repression.
In Chapter 3, I present pooled, cross-national, time-series data, drawn from
the Digital Society Project, to provide insights into trends associated with digital
repression.53 This approach allows comparisons across a number of variables,
including countries, regions, regime types, political liberties, private liberties,
physical violence, and digital repression capacity. It also allows me to probe key
questions raised in the book: Which countries are deploying digital repression
techniques and how prevalent is their use? What is the relationship between
regime type and digital repression? How does the deployment of individual
components of digital repression differ in democracies versus autocracies?
In the following three chapters, I present country case studies for Thailand,
the Philippines, and Ethiopia. Chapter 4 examines how Thailand deploys digital
repression techniques to advance its political agenda. Thailand’s situation offers
insights into how an autocratic state with a history of censorship and political
suppression has adapted to the new digital environment. The Thai government
adeptly pairs information controls with traditional repressive methods, giving
the state potent capabilities to control dissent. Thailand also demonstrates how
digital repression is born from and develops out of internal factors—external ac-
tors only have limited influence in shaping the state’s digital strategies. Chapter 5
focuses on the Philippines, particularly examining how Duterte has implemented
a unique strategy of social manipulation and disinformation to advance his
Int roduc tion 17
political objectives. This chapter discusses democratic backsliding in the

Philippines, explores the meaning of Duterte’s political ascent, and investigates
three principal drivers of digital repression in the country. Chapter 6 turns its
focus to Ethiopia, discussing the meaning of political change in the country and
the impact of Abiy’s reforms in the context of digital repression. It examines the
government’s Internet shutdown strategy, rising levels of social manipulation
and disinformation, as well as ongoing surveillance and censorship concerns.
Finally, the chapter looks at China’s influence in Ethiopia and considers whether
Chinese actions have enabled repression in Ethiopia.
I selected the book’s three country case studies based on representativeness
and dimensions of interest. First, I looked for regime diversity. According to V-
Dem’s regime rankings, Thailand ranks as a closed autocracy, the Philippines
stands between an electoral autocracy and an illiberal democracy, and Ethiopia
is considered an electoral autocracy.54 Moreover, each has a distinctive political
trajectory. Under the leadership of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines
is in the midst of severe democratic backsliding. Ethiopia is undergoing a pre-
carious political transition under President Abiy Ahmed. As for Thailand, while
it held elections in 2019 to transition out of military junta rule, the electoral
process was deeply flawed, indicating a continuation of Thailand’s autocratic
status quo.
Each country also displays a notable intersection between repressive po-
litical strategies and digital technology. For the Philippines, Duterte has
navigated a delicate balance, aggressively manipulating the country’s informa-
tion ecosystem while refraining from pursuing censorship or surveillance tac-
tics that would run afoul of the country’s political traditions. In Thailand, the
regime has pursued a sophisticated censorship-and-surveillance strategy that
has kept authorities firmly in control while maintaining economic growth and
technological development. Ethiopia’s government is undergoing an unsteady
transition from years of political repression. It has discarded some elements
of its digital repression program (surveillance), has continued to rely on other
techniques (Internet shutdowns), and is witnessing the emergence of new tac-
tics (information manipulation and disinformation). Finally, I sought regional
diversity in the case studies, intending to represent at least two distinct areas
of the globe.
I offer the case studies in chronological order based on the timing of my re-
search visits. I traveled to Thailand and the Philippines during the spring of 2019.
I visited Ethiopia almost a year later, during the winter of 2020. Each case study
features multiple sets of interviews from a broad array of stakeholders: gov-
ernment officials, civil society actors, academics, researchers, private sector
companies, technologists, and journalists. These interviews include individuals
directly responsible for implementing digital repression strategies, persons who
have supplied advanced technology to repressive regimes, and those who have
suffered the consequences of these tactics.
The book’s final two chapters touch on broader issues. In Chapter 7, I in-
vestigate a specific set of technologies—AI and big data—and their relation
to repression. I provide a working understanding of how states deploy these
instruments and why they have become a boon for autocratic leaders. I also pre-
sent a global index of AI and big-data surveillance, measuring the deployment
of this technology in 179 countries. In Chapter 8, I present ideas and solutions
for how civil society and democracies can fight back against digital repression
trends, discussing strategies civil society groups can use to raise the costs of re-
pression associated with the dictator’s digital dilemma. I also examine roles and
responsibilities of companies in relation to digital repression. Finally, I review
strategies that civil society groups can adopt to counter the proliferation of dig-
ital repression tools provided by authoritarian states like China and Russia, and
I discuss policy implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Notes
1. Steven Feldstein, “How Artificial Intelligence Is Reshaping Repression,” Journal of Democracy
30, no. 1 (2019): 40–52.
2. Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, “Contesting Cyberspace and the Coming Crisis of
Authority,” in Ronald Deibert et al., eds., Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in
Asian Cyberspace (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011), 21.
3. Anna Lührmann and Staffan I. Lindberg, “A Third Wave of Autocratization Is Here: What Is
New about It?,” Democratization 26, no. 7 (October 3, 2019): 1095–113, https://doi.org/
10.1080/13510347.2019.1582029.
4. Anna Lührmann et al., “Autocratization Surges—Resistance Grows: Democracy Report
2020,” Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), University of Gothenburg, 2020, 9.
5. The full list of twenty-six autocratizing countries identified by the V-Dem researchers includes
the United States, Czech Republic, Hungary, Burundi, Bulgaria, Venezuela, Yemen, Benin,
Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Serbia, India, Bolivia, Brazil, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Romania, Zambia,
Turkey, Nicaragua, Croatia, Thailand, Poland, Mali, Paraguay, and Comoros. Lührmann et al.,
“Autocratization Surges—Resistance Grows,” 12.
6. Thomas Carothers and Andrew O’Donohue, eds., Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge
of Political Polarization (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2019), 1.
7. Several researchers and rights groups have compiled useful trackers to provide a global
snapshot of digital measures countries are taking in response to COVID-19. See, for ex-
ample, Samuel Woodhams, “COVID-19 Digital Rights Tracker,” Top10VPN, May 7, 2020,
https://www.top10vpn.com/news/surveillance/covid-19-digital-rights-tracker/; “Tracking
the Global Response to COVID-19,” Privacy International, April 26, 2020, https://www.
privacyinternational.org/examples/tracking-global-response-covid-19.
8. Nils B. Weidmann and Espen Gellmuyden Rød, The Internet and Political Protest in Autocracies
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 16–18.
9. Weidmann and Rød, Internet and Political Protest, 17–18.
10. Larry Diamond, “Liberation Technology,” Journal of Democracy 21, no. 3 (2010), 71.
11. Melvin Kranzberg, “The Information Age: Evolution or Revolution?,” in Bruce R. Guile, ed.,
Information Technologies and Social Transformation (Washington, DC: National Academy
Press, 1985), 50.
Int roduc tion 19
12. Michael L. Miller and Cristian Vaccari, “Digital Threats to Democracy: Comparative Lessons
and Possible Remedies,” International Journal of Press/Politics 25, no. 3 (2020): 8.
13. “Ethiopia Country Profile,” Freedom House, 2015, https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/
917171/download.
14. Deibert et al., Access Contested; Ron Deibert et al., eds., Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power,
Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010); Ron Deibert et al., eds., Access
Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008).
15. Carly Nyst and Nick Monaco, “State-Sponsored Trolling: How Governments Are Developing
Disinformation as Part of Broader Digital Harassment Campaigns,” Institute for the Future,
2018, http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/images/DigIntel/IFTF_State_sponsored_
trolling_report.pdf.
16. Nils B. Weidmann and Espen Geelmuyden Rød, “The Internet and Political Protest in
Autocracies,” Oxford Scholarship Online, September 2019, https://www.oxfordscholarship.
com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190918309.001.0001/oso-9780190918309.
17. “2020 World Press Freedom Index,” Reporters Without Borders, 2020, https://rsf.org/
en/2020-world-press-freedom-index-entering-decisive-decade-journalism-exacerbated-
coronavirus.
18. Christopher Balding and Donald C. Clarke, “Who Owns Huawei?,” SSRN, April 17, 2019,
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669.
19. “Dtac, Thailand,” Telnor Group, 2018, https://www.telenor.com/about-us/global-presence/
thailand/.
20. Jeffrey Knockel et al., “We Chat, They Watch: How International Users Unwittingly Build Up
WeChat’s Chinese Censorship Apparatus,” Citizen Lab, May 7, 2020, https://citizenlab.ca/
2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/#part-1---background.
21. Ryan Gallagher, “U.S. Company Faces Backlash after Belarus Uses Its Tech to Block Internet,”
Bloomberg, September 11, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-11/
sandvine-use-to-block-belarus-internet-rankles-staff-lawmakers?sref=QmOxnLFz.
22. For example, in a joint letter to the UN General Assembly in 2015 regarding an international
code of conduct for information security, China and Russia declared that the “policy au-
thority for Internet-related public issues is the sovereign right of States, which have rights
and responsibilities for international Internet-related public policy issues.” Letter from the
Permanent Representatives of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation,
Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to the United Nations General Assembly, “Developments in the
Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security,” A/
69/723, January 13, 2015, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/786846?ln=en.
23. There is a growing literature that apportions substantial blame to Big Tech for advancing a
business model heavily reliant on behavioral manipulation and data exploitation in order to
generate exorbitant streams of revenue. See, for example, Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants: The
Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads (New York: Vintage Books, 2016); Ronald J. Deibert,
“The Road to Digital Unfreedom: Three Painful Truths about Social Media,” Journal of
Democracy 30, no. 1 (2019): 25–39; Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The
Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (New York: Profile Books, 2019); David
A. Kaye, Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet (New York: Columbia Global
Reports, 2019); Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation,
and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2018); Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017); Siva Vaidhyanathan, Antisocial Media: How
Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press,
2018); Peter Pomerantsev, This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War against Reality (Ne
w York: PublicAffairs, 2019).
24. Danagal G. Young and Shannon C. McGregor, “Mass Propaganda Used to Be Difficult, but
Facebook Made It Easy,” Washington Post, February 14, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.
com/outlook/2020/02/14/mass-propaganda-used-be-difficult-facebook-made-it-easy/.
25. Samuel Woolley, “We’re Fighting Fake News AI Bots by Using More AI. That’s a Mistake,”
MIT Technology Review, January 8, 2020, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614810/
were-fighting-fake-news-ai-bots-by-using-more-ai-thats-a-mistake/.
26. Research on nondemocratic regimes has gone through several different waves of inquiry to
answer how autocratic regimes maintain power. Initially, scholars focused on totalitarian sys-
tems, a governing structure characterized by a “monistic” center of power and an exclusive
and elaborate ideology used as a basis for legitimation. This wave of research lasted from the
1930s to the 1960s. As empirical incidents of totalitarian regimes began to wane, a second
research wave sprung up that focused on authoritarianism (distinct from totalitarianism).
Scholars heavily emphasized socioeconomic bases for autocratic regimes and developed
the concept of bureaucratic authoritarianism. Their core argument was that as certain coun-
tries, such as Argentina and Brazil, hit limits in their import substitution strategies, military
and business elites became increasingly frustrated with political and economic stagnation.
In response, they formed a coalition that established an authoritarian regime based on “eco-
nomic progress and state order.” As opposed to totalitarian explanations, this research wave
posited that autocrats needed to rely on factors beyond terror or ideology (namely the pro-
vision of economic and social benefits) in order to ensure regime survival. In the 1990s, a
new wave of autocracy research, led by Barbara Geddes, revealed that autocratic regimes do
not rely exclusively on coercion, but must also incorporate co-optation strategies to manage
the difficulties of sharing power with other elites while ruling over the broader population.
See Johannes Gerschewski, “The Three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, Repression, and
Co-optation in Autocratic Regimes,” Democratization 20, no. 1 (2013): 14; Juan J. Linz,
Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 70; Barbara
Geddes, “What Do We Know about Democratization after Twenty Years?,” Annual Review of
Political Science 2, no. 1 (1999): 138; Jennifer Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
27. Milan W. Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2012), 10.
28. Svolik, Politics of Authoritarian Rule, 163.
30. Gerschewski, “Three Pillars of Stability,” 18.
31. See Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after
the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Thomas Carothers, “The End
of the Transition Paradigm,” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1 (2002): 5–21; Larry Diamond,
“Elections without Democracy: Thinking about Hybrid Regimes,” Journal of Democracy 13,
no. 2 (2002): 21–35.
32. Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, “Elections without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive
Authoritarianism,” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (2002): 52.
33. Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 34.
34. Levitsky and Way, “Elections without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive
Authoritarianism,” 59.
36. The statistics and classification system used to make these determinations are based on data for
1946 to 2010 from Barbara Geddes, Joseph Wright, and Erica Frantz, “Autocratic Breakdown
and Regime Transitions: A New Data Set,” Perspectives on Politics 12 ( June 2014): 313–31.
Data for the period 2010–2017 has been updated by the author with assistance from Erica
Frantz.
37. For an excellent analysis about the ways in which autocrats have evolved new tactics to fix
elections in their favor, see Nicholas Cheeseman and Brian Paul Klaas, How to Rig an Election
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018).
38. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Dictators and Their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State
Violence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 12.
39. Greitens, Dictators, 12.
40. Greitens, Dictators, 32.
41. Lucan A. Way and Steven Levitsky, “The Dynamics of Autocratic Coercion after the Cold
War,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 39, no. 3 (2016): 388.
42. Erica Frantz and Andrea Kendall- Taylor offer a similar breakdown of repression, di-
viding tactics into two categories: empowerment rights repression, such as censorship
and freedom-of-association limitations, and physical integrity rights repression, including
Int roduc tion 21
torture, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and imprisonment. Erica Frantz and Andrea
Kendall-Taylor, “A Dictator’s Toolkit: Understanding How Co-optation Affects Repression in
Autocracies,” Journal of Peace Research 51, no. 3 (2014): 332–46.
43. Way and Levitsky, “Dynamics of Autocratic Coercion,” 388.
44. Jacqueline H. R. DeMeritt, “The Strategic Use of State Repression and Political Violence,”
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2016, http://politics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/
acrefore/9780190228637.001.
45. See, for example, Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without
Organizations (New York: Penguin, 2008).
46. Samantha Bradshaw and Philip N. Howard, “The Global Disinformation Disorder: 2019
Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation,” Working Paper 2019.2,
Oxford: Project on Computational Propaganda, 2019.
47. Adrian Shahbaz, “Freedom on the Net 2018: The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism,”
Freedom House, 2018, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2018/rise-digital-
authoritarianism.
48. See Philip N. Howard, Sheetal D. Agarwal, and Muzammil M. Hussain, “The Dictators’ Digital
Dilemma: When Do States Disconnect Their Digital Networks?,” Brookings, 2011, https://
www.brookings.edu/w p-content/uploads/2016/06/10_dictators_digital_network.pdf.
49. Samuel Woodhams and Simon Migliano, “The Global Cost of Internet Shutdowns in 2019,”
Top10VPN, January 7, 2020, https://www.top10vpn.com/cost-of-Internet-shutdowns/.
50. See Bill Marczak et al., “Champing at the Cyberbit: Ethiopian Dissidents Targeted with
New Commercial Spyware,” Citizen Lab, December 6, 2017, https://citizenlab.ca/2017/
12/champing-cyberbit-ethiopian-dissidents-targeted-commercial-spyware/; Bill Marczak,
John Scott-R ailton, and Sarah McKune, “Hacking Team Reloaded? US-Based Ethiopian
Journalists Again Targeted with Spyware,” Citizen Lab, March 9, 2015, https://citizenlab.
ca/2015/03/hacking-team-reloaded-us-based-ethiopian-journalists-targeted-spyware/
; Bill Marczak et al., “Hacking Team and the Targeting of Ethiopian Journalists,” Citizen
Lab, February 12, 2014, https://citizenlab.ca/2014/02/hacking-team-targeting-ethiopian-
journalists/; and Morgan Marquis-Boire et al., “You Only Click Twice: FinFisher’s Global
Proliferation,” Citizen Lab, March 13, 2013, https://citizenlab.ca/2013/03/you-only-click-
twice-finfishers-global-proliferation-2/.
51. Tekleberhan Woldearegay (former director of INSA), interview with the author, February
19, 2020. Tekleberhan’s reference to the purchase of German, Italian, and Israeli surveillance
technology aligns with independent reporting from the Citizen Lab documenting exten-
sive spyware contracts between Ethiopian intelligence and those same firms. See Marczak
et al., “Champing at the Cyberbit”; Marczak, Scott-R ailton, and McKune, “Hacking Team
Reloaded”; Marczak et al., “Hacking Team and Targeting”; and Marquis-Boire et al., “You
Only Click Twice.”
52. For a deeper discussion of the advantages of pursuing a multimethod analytic approach,
see Gary Goertz and James Mahoney, A Tale of Two Cultures: Qualitative and Quantitative
Research in the Social Sciences (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 144. See
also Barbara Geddes, Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in
Comparative Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003).
53. Valeriya Mechkova, Daniel Pemstein, Brigitte Seim, and Steven Wilson, Digital Society
Project Dataset v2, 2020. There is growing interest in analyzing quantifiable data to substan-
tiate key theories and assertions regarding digital repression. Researchers such as Weidmann
and Rød (Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database), Rebecca MacKinnon (Ranking
Digital Rights), Samantha Bradshaw and Philip Howard (annual global inventories of so-
cial media manipulation), and Freedom on the Net are providing invaluable contributions
through their respective data collection and analytic efforts. See Weidmann and Rød, Internet
and Political Protest, chap. 4; Ranking Digital Rights, https:// rankingdigitalrights.org/
index2019/; Freedom on the Net, https://freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-net.
54. Michael Coppedge et al., “V-Dem Dataset v10,” V-Dem Project, 2020, https://doi.org/
10.23696/vdemds20.
2
Motivations and Incentives

for Digital Repression
In 2019, Sudan and Iran faced escalating protests that threatened to topple their
governments. Both regimes employed similar strategies to try to quell mass
protests in the streets. In Sudan, demonstrators had congregated in major cities
for six months. Initially, protests were instigated by economic frustrations: rising
prices, commodity shortages, and a cash crunch. Gradually, they evolved into
calls for greater freedoms and political liberties. In Iran, demonstrators had also
taken to the streets in reaction to abrupt increases in the cost of fuel. Again,
protests transformed into broader political demonstrations, this time against the
Islamic Republic and Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In desperation,
both regimes implemented what has become a standard two-part strategy: cut
off Internet communication to sap the protests’ momentum and prevent citi-
zens from virtual organizing for actual activism on the streets, and then use the
ensuing information blackout to commit atrocities to end the uprisings.1
Thus, on June 3, 2019, the Sudanese regime instituted a near-total
Internet blackout that lasted for thirty-six days and resulting in economic
losses exceeding $1.8 billion.2 In that month-long period, the regime
unleashed the notorious Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary force
to terrorize Khartoum residents and slaughter those who dared to con-
tinue demonstrating. During one infamous massacre, troops opened fire on
a peaceful sit-in outside military headquarters, killing at least 128 people;
hundreds more went missing.3
Likewise, after three days of swelling protests in Iran, on November 15, 2019,
jittery authorities shut down the Internet for eight days. Iranian security forces
then exploited this communications blackout to commit serious atrocities.
Human rights groups estimate that at least 450 people may have been killed.4 In
one gruesome episode in the southwest city of Mahshahr, Islamic Revolutionary
Guards chased a mass of demonstrators to a marsh. After surrounding the
The Rise of Digital Repression. Steven Feldstein, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190057497.003.0002
Motivations and Incentive s for D ig i tal R e p re s s i on 23
protesters, the guards opened fire with machine guns, killing between forty and
one hundred people.5
After Internet access was restored in both countries, video footage detailing
government atrocities began to surface. The BBC stitched together a live-
stream video that documented, minute by minute, a massacre of protesters in
Khartoum. Taking video footage from more than three hundred smartphones—
individuals kept filming even while soldiers were shooting—they spliced it into
one contiguous scene.6 In Iran, citizens similarly kept their phones recording to
document mass shootings by Iranian forces. Hundreds of videos made their way
to YouTube, as well as to news outlets and groups like Amnesty International.7
In Sudan’s case, the Internet shutdown and subsequent massacre represented the
final death knell of the regime. The country is now in the midst of a delicate po-
litical transition to a more representative government. In Iran, massacres carried
out during the Internet shutdown seem to have quelled the uprising—at least
for now.
Both situations exemplify the way that states have adapted traditional repres-
sive strategies in order to keep up with digital changes that have shifted the way
citizens communicate, organize, and protest against the state. Even with new
digital variants, repression often remains a distinctly violent enterprise.
Naturally, however, repression takes many forms beyond the heavy use of force
combined with Internet blackouts that some governments employ in response
to protests. Often it involves quieter methods of surveilling and persecuting po-
litical dissidents or opponents. Here too, new digital methods are enhancing
the toolbox of repression. For example, in 2016, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
authorities contracted with former National Security Agency operatives to hack
into smartphones in order to access “phone numbers, emails, passwords, and
even track the location of the phones’ users.”8 They called the operation Project
Raven.9 While it ostensibly intended to keep tabs on ISIS terrorists, its true sur-
veillance capabilities were trained on political opponents, civil society activists,
and independent journalists.
Prominent Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor became a particular focus of
the program. Mansoor was a public critic of the UAE’s history of human rights
violations and had gone on record criticizing the government’s involvement in
the Yemen conflict and its persecution of regime opponents (in 2015, Amnesty
International recognized his efforts by presenting him with the Martin Ennals
Award for Human Rights Defenders).10 As Citizen Lab researchers documented,
he was previously the target of UAE-sponsored spyware attacks from FinFisher
in 2011, Hacking Team in 2012, and NSO Group in 2016—representing a stun-
ning outlay of resources targeted against an individual.11 Project Raven operators
used a new surveillance tool known as “Karma” to access Mansoor’s personal
information—everything from email and text messages, to personal photos,

contacts, and phone numbers. Karma was especially sinister because it didn’t re-
quire that a target click on a link to activate its malware. Instead, Karma granted
remote access “simply by uploading phone numbers or email accounts into an
automated targeting system.”12 Following a secret 2017 trial, UAE authorities
sentenced him to ten years in prison.13
The arrival of various digital technologies is bringing new tools, techniques,
and dimensions to political repression. At its core, the expanding digital di-
mension of repressive regimes reflects a fairly simple motivation: states are
seeking and finding new ways to control, manipulate, surveil, or disrupt real
or perceived internal threats. As case studies for Thailand, the Philippines,
and Ethiopia will show, the degree to which governments make use of new
digital tools for repressive purposes depends on a range of factors: ongoing
levels of repression, leadership, state capacity, and technological capabilities.
But their overall reliance on digital repression is premised on a basic political
motive: to find an optimal combination of tactics that will preserve and sus-
tain political incumbency.
This chapter explores two principal questions: What is digital repression?
And how significant is digital repression—is digital technology changing the
balance between governments and civil society?
In addition, I also inquire: How do governments manage trade-offs between
advancing digital innovation while maintaining political control? Why do cer-
tain states employ digital repression but not others? And finally, what is the role
of China in spreading digital repression globally?
I begin by defining digital repression and laying out its five principal
components. Next, I discuss how leaders confront the “dictator’s dig-
ital dilemma” (balancing innovation while maintaining political control).
I then address whether digital technology is changing the balance between
governments and civil society. I argue that in certain countries, where re-
pression is already ongoing and supported by high-capacity institutions,
digital technology can have a transformative effect on political repression.
Subsequently, I examine why certain states but not others employ dig-
ital repression and offer two arguments: First, governments that rely on
repression as a core governing tool are more likely to employ digital re-
pression techniques. Second, both autocracies and flawed democracies de-
ploy digital repression, but they employ distinctive combinations of these
techniques. Finally, I explore China’s responsibility for globally spreading
digital repression and contend that while it has enabled the proliferation
of repressive technologies, domestic factors are more important drivers of
these tactics.
What Is Digital Repression?

Political repression involves the actual or threatened use of force within the
territorial jurisdiction of the state, against an individual or organization. As
scholar Christian Davenport notes, such force is intended to impose a “cost on
the target as well as deterring specific activities and/or beliefs perceived to be
challenging to government personnel, practices or institutions.”14 Such tactics
involve applications of state power that “violate First Amendment–type rights,
due process in the enforcement and adjudication of law, and personal integrity
or security.”15
Digital repression enhances states’ abilities to carry out more traditional
forms of repression. I define digital repression as the use of information and commu-
nications technology to surveil, coerce, or manipulate individuals or groups in order to
deter specific activities or beliefs that challenge the state.16
Experts have used terms such as “digital authoritarianism,” “algorithmic re-
pression,” and “authoritarian tech” almost interchangeably to describe what I am
designating as digital repression.17 I believe digital repression is a more accurate
description. Unlike digital authoritarianism or authoritarian tech, this designa-
tion does not imply a bias toward a particular form of government. Democracies
deploy digital repression techniques for a host of reasons without necessarily
intending to transform their political systems into authoritarian models. As for
algorithmic repression, this term refers to tools that incorporate artificial intel-
ligence, whereas the trends described in this book incorporate a broader set of
technologies.18
Disaggregating digital repression into its constituent parts offers further
insights. I divide digital repression into five categories: surveillance, cen-
sorship, social manipulation and disinformation, Internet shutdowns, and
targeted persecution of online users. These five techniques are not mutually
exclusive; in many instances they overlap. Internet shutdowns are both an
instrument of information censorship and a broader method of state con-
trol. But as I detail later, each technique draws from a unique set of tools to
perform its objectives—w hich is why I have separated them into distinct
categories.
In addition, many techniques rely on specific uses of technology that work
in parallel with legal, policy, or regulatory actions. For example, censorship may
involve technical filtering of certain social media applications or websites. Yet
censorship strategies can also include government enforcement of legal content
restrictions, such as with cyber libel laws in the Philippines or with lèse-majesté
regulations in Thailand. Table 2.1 presents a taxonomy of digital repression
techniques.
Table 2.1
Surveillance Online Censorship Social Manipulation and Internet Shutdowns Targeted Persecution of
Disinformation Online Users
Technologies, systems, or legal directives Laws, regulations, or actions undertaken Strategies deployed by state Intentional restrictions Online users persecuted
that enable control through identification, by state authorities to restrict content or state-sponsored actors or disruptions of ICT by state authorities as
tracking, monitoring, or analysis of & limit access to information to shape narratives & networks or electronic a reprisal for posted
individual data or systems Content blocking and filtering beliefs and to mislead & communications political or social
Passive surveillance: Internet monitoring, Social media/ICT apps blocked manipulate users rendering them effectively activity
mobile phone tapping, SIM registration, Takedown requests; content removal Disinformation unusable for a specific Online users charged,
location monitoring, deep packet Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Trolling, doxing, harassment period of time arrested, imprisoned, or
inspection, network interception, cable attacks Flooding Total Internet shutdowns in prolonged detention
tapping, telecom surveillance Infrastructure restrictions (Internet Automated methods –bots, Partial shutdowns (restricted Online users physically
Targeted surveillance: intrusion operations firewalls; closed ICT infrastructure – algorithms websites, blocked social attacked or killed
which manipulate software, data, e.g., Great Firewall, Halal Net) Vandalism and defacement media access
computer systems, or networks in Censorship laws & directives: religion/ Throttling, blackouts,
order to gain unauthorized access to blasphemy, cybercrime, false news/ slowdowns
user information & devices (spyware/ fake news, political/hate speech,
malware) lèse-majesté, security/terrorism,
AI & big data surveillance: facial recognition, copyright infringement, defamation/
intelligent video, smart policing, smart libel/sedition, indecency/anti-LGBT,
cities/safe cities, social media monitoring financial targeting of groups
Surveillance laws: supports digital
surveillance actions through the provision
of intelligence & national security laws,
data disclosure, data retention, and data
localization directives
Surveillance
Definitionally, surveillance entails the gathering of information through the
identification, tracking, monitoring, and analysis of individuals, data, organi-
zations, or systems.19 Surveillance can be used for legitimate purposes as well
as for coercive purposes. But at its core, surveillance is premised on concepts
of power and control. The use of surveillance by governments for political
purposes is not new; security services in both democracies and autocracies have
traditionally relied on close observation, physical trailing, phone tapping, and
house searches. In recent years, state deployment of surveillance has become
more pronounced, particularly in the post-9/11 era, leading to the ascendance
of what Gary Marx terms “the new surveillance.”20 The new surveillance relies
on technical processes to extract or create personal data and is a direct result
of the availability of individual transactional data or metadata from new digital
technologies that facilitate communication, commercial transactions, political
participation, and entertainment.21
Government surveillance is not inherently illegitimate. States have legitimate
reasons for tracking individuals who may represent different types of security
risks. The accepted international standards for lawful surveillance are based
on principles of necessity, proportionality, and legitimacy.22 Is the surveillance
measure strictly and demonstrably necessary to achieve a legitimate aim? Does
the surveillance restriction represent a proportionate response to that aim? In
addition, domestic law should authorize circumstances in which surveillance is
appropriate, and these legal regulations should be formulated with “sufficient
precision to enable an individual to regulate his or her conduct accordingly
and it must be made accessible to the public.”23 Finally, the interests justifying
the surveillance action should also be legitimate. Here, there is significant dis-
agreement: while many governments use national security or public order
rationales to justify surveillance programs, the line separating legitimate surveil-
lance from abuses of power is purposefully blurry. The UN’s Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warns that such laws are often un-
acceptably vague or overly broad, and that lawful surveillance requires states to
“demonstrate the risk that specific expression poses to a definite interest in na-
tional security or public order.”24 To guard against abuse, independent oversight
should be put in place that empowers judiciaries to authorize relevant surveil-
lance measures and provide remedies when required.
I identify four broad surveillance strategies commonly used by
governments: passive surveillance, targeted surveillance, AI and big- data
approaches, and surveillance laws and directives.
Passive surveillance represents the first category. Such communications sur-
veillance is made up of hundreds of instruments that directly monitor, collect,
intercept, and retain data that has been “communicated, relayed or generated
over communications networks to a group of recipients by a third party.”25
This category encompasses everything from mobile phone tapping and lo-
cation monitoring to network interception and deep packet inspection.26 The
onset of the coronavirus has generated heightened government interest in these
techniques. By October 2020, seventy-one countries had deployed contact-
tracing apps, thirty-eight countries had introduced digital tracking measures
linked to Covid-19, and twenty-seven countries had adopted advanced physical
surveillance technologies in response to the pandemic.27 While it should come
as no surprise that authoritarian governments in China and Russia are relying on
facial recognition, social media surveillance, mobile phone location monitoring,
and QR code systems to confront the virus, many democracies have also em-
ployed digital tools to confront the crisis. In India, for example, authorities in
Rajasthan publicly disclosed the personal details of those under quarantine. In
Karnataka, officials directed all persons under quarantine to send geotagged
selfies every hour throughout the day. In major cities like Delhi, officials put
up posters on the homes of quarantined patients, revealing their names. The
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology introduced a national
contact-tracing mobile app, Aarogya Setu, to monitor users’ whereabouts.28
The second category consists of targeted surveillance—intrusion operations
that manipulate software, data, computer systems, or networks in order to gain
unauthorized access to user information and devices. Unlike passive surveil-
lance, which targets a wider range of individuals or groups in an undifferentiated
manner, targeted strategies involve specific deployments of malware or spyware
to collect information.
The Citizen Lab classifies intrusion operations into three distinct models: na-
tional in-house operations or advanced persistent threat (APT), repurposed
crimeware, and commercial spyware.29 The first category involves high-capacity
state actors, such as the NSA or Chinese actors, who use customized malware
and who have a long track record of carrying out campaigns. The second cat-
egory, repurposed crimeware, is well illustrated by parties involved in Syria’s
civil war: “These attacks primarily rely on basic Remote Access Trojans (RATs)
that are circulated among hobbyists and criminals, but which we have found
are deployed for political reasons and—in the case of Syria—in the context of
armed conflict.”30 The third category of commercial spyware relies on the acqui-
sition of “commercial lawful intercept products and services that provide actors
with turnkey surveillance solutions.”31 Firms such as NSO Group, FinFisher, and
Hacking Team are major players in this sector. They provide sophisticated spy-
ware (at high cost) to government clients designed to infiltrate another user’s
device in order to obtain confidential data or to continuously monitor com-
munications without the information holder’s permission. The implantation
of spyware relies on a variety of methods, including social engineering (psycho-

logical manipulation to trick users into revealing information in order to com-
promise their devices or online accounts) and spear phishing (malicious files or
links, frequently delivered by email, intended to bait targets into installing spy-
ware that will compromise their devices or accounts). Many tactics have evolved
to the point where attackers are able to access a user’s smartphone simply by
uploading phone numbers or email addresses. As Patrick Howell O’Neill notes,
they are “designed to silently infect and invisibly surveil even ‘paranoid targets’
who might have a high level of digital security awareness.”32
Experts have documented patterns of official abuse related to intrusion op-
erations in many countries—even in democracies. In Mexico, an investigative
collaboration between the Citizen Lab, Article 19, R3d, and SocialTic identified
twenty-five infection attempts connected to the government carried out against
journalists, lawyers, opposition politicians, and anticorruption activists. At
least nine of these incidents have been linked to the NSO Group’s Pegasus soft-
ware.33 Globally, the Citizen Lab has identified at least forty-five countries where
Pegasus operators are carrying out surveillance operations.34 This includes
countries such as Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the
UAE, which have prior linkages to spyware abuses against civil society organ-
izations. A primary justification for state use of these technologies is that the
software is assisting legitimate criminal cases. But as the Citizen Lab notes, “We
have found indications of possible political themes within targeting materials
in several countries,” signifying that the real motivation for their deployment is
to track and target political opponents.35 My own data reveals that at least sixty-
one countries worldwide are deploying commercial spyware in support of their
objectives.36
Harms stemming from these attacks have become so concerning that so-
cial media companies have started filing lawsuits against private surveillance
companies responsible for proliferating malware. In October 2019, WhatsApp
sued NSO Group in US federal court, alleging that the company’s spy technology
enabled repeated hacking of human rights activists and journalists, leading to ir-
reparable damage.37
The third category is comprised of AI and big-data surveillance—automated
technologies that classify and store data and compare captured information to
other data for pattern recognition and prediction purposes. These techniques are
used in public facial recognition systems (biometric technology that matches
stored or live footage of individuals with images from a database; this technology
can also include systems designed to assess aggregate demographic trends via fa-
cial recognition and crowd scanning), smart cities or safe cities (networks made
up of thousands of sensors that transmit real-time data to manage cities and fa-
cilitate public safety), smart policing techniques (data-driven methods used for
police response, investigations, and crime predictions), and social media surveil-
lance (machine-driven programs designed to automatically monitor millions of
communications for specific keywords or to detect more generalized patterns).
Chapter 7 expressly discusses how states are incorporating artificial intelligence
and big-data techniques for repressive purposes.
The final category includes surveillance laws and directives that provide
governments with expanded authority to carry out the blanket collection of
metadata or communications content, to monitor or intercept private com-
munications, or to surveil citizens using physical devices (e.g., wiretaps and
stingrays). Frequently, such laws mandate that cloud servers or social media
platforms store data locally (to expedite local law enforcement access), or they
may grant security agencies authorization to access personal data or communi-
cations under particular circumstances—often justified on national security or
public order bases.
The advent of new ICT surveillance tools has brought further complications.
There is more communications data available for government perusal than ever
before. The Internet has dramatically expanded the level of transactional data or
metadata available about individuals—including websites people have visited,
emails and chat messages they have sent, data about social media they have used,
and location-tracking and web-tracking information from apps or browsers they
have accessed.38
Online Censorship
Censorship is another widely used tool by repressive governments. The digital
information space has opened up a new domain for censorship, paving the way
for the deployment of uniquely invasive techniques. Online censorship involves
laws, regulations, or actions undertaken by state authorities to restrict Internet
content and circumscribe access to information. Blocking social media sites or
ICT applications, forcing the removal of content, and using laws or directives
that “punish legitimate online activity” are key indicators of censorship.39
Scholar Margaret Roberts has identified three censorship techniques that
governments frequently deploy: fear, friction, and flooding.40 Fear tactics in-
volve “deterring” individuals or the media from distributing, collecting, or
creating certain content through the provision of punitive measures—threats,
arrests, fines, and closures. Many countries have instituted highly structured
legal provisions designed to facilitate content suppression. Such measures range
from lèse-majesté provisions in Thailand to defamation laws in Azerbaijan and
sedition provisions in Pakistan.
Friction techniques, on the other hand, “act like a tax on information.” They
raise the costs of consuming information enough to deter large numbers of
people from accessing prohibited content. For example, many countries put
Internet restrictions in place that block certain websites. An easy circumvention
solution is to use virtual private network (VPN) technology, which is commonly
available. Yet taking time to download a VPN application, figuring out how to
activate it, and then searching for unfiltered sources of information represents
enough “friction” to sufficiently deter large majorities of citizens.
For purposes of this book, I categorize flooding in the social manipulation
and disinformation category. While flooding provides a censorship function by
deliberately drowning out legitimate sources of information, its first-order use is
to manipulate existing content.
Another frequently used censorship tactic is distributed denial of service
(DDOS) attacks, which intentionally render computer networks or websites
inoperative by flooding them with data simultaneously sent from multiple
computers. One of the most prominent examples of state use of DDOS is China’s
Great Cannon. As the Citizen Lab relates, the Cannon hijacks Internet traffic to
or from individual IP addresses, “silently programming their browsers to create
a massive DDoS attack.” The result is a “significant escalation in state-level in-
formation control,” serving to normalize the widespread use of attack tools to
enforce censorship.41
A final censorship strategy is to implement infrastructure restrictions, such
as setting up closed national Internet networks where government monitors
have free reign to restrict content. China’s “great firewall” and Iran’s National
Information Network or “halal net” represent two flagrant examples of alterna-
tive, government-controlled systems. Russia has also conducted tests to develop
a national network, known as RuNet, featuring a restricted number of access
points to the global Internet. It conducted a multiday test of this new system in
December 2019.42
The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated information controls globally and
empowered leaders to arrest, prosecute, and suppress dissent under the aegis
of fighting the outbreak. In Myanmar, authorities blocked access to hundreds of
news websites, claiming they carried “fake news.”43 In neighboring Cambodia,
the government arrested dozens of social media users simply for sharing pan-
demic information (coincidentally four of them were aligned with the oppo-
sition Cambodia National Rescue Party).44 In Turkey, authorities detained
numerous people for sharing “unfounded and provocative” posts on social media
relating to the outbreak.45 The government also used the crisis as an opportunity
to push new measures to throttle the bandwidth of social media companies that
refused to appoint in-country representatives and adhere to Turkey’s politically
restrictive content guidelines.46 Finally in China, authorities used a mixture of
censorship (giving specific instructions to websites and social platforms about
what news they were allowed to communicate about the virus) and information
manipulation (activating fake online commentators to flood platforms with mis-

leading chatter) to reclaim control of the pandemic narrative.47
Social Manipulation and Disinformation

While repressive governments have relied on propaganda and disinformation
techniques for hundreds of years, new digital technologies are enhancing state
capacity to manipulate information and weaponize communication. I use the
term “social manipulation and disinformation” to describe state-sponsored
tactics intended to shape narratives and beliefs and to mislead and manipulate
users. This category contains a number of overlapping terms: misinformation,
disinformation, fake news, strategic communications, computational propa-
ganda, information operations, political warfare, and active measures.48 For our
purposes, I identify five tactics that are key components to social manipulation
and disinformation: disinformation, trolling and harassment, flooding, auto-
mated methods (the use of bots and algorithms), and vandalism. These tactics
share a common set of objectives: suppress legitimate information, discredit
opponents, and delegitimize public institutions, leading to a loss of faith in po-
litical systems.
Disinformation is the intentional dissemination of “false, inaccurate, or mis-
leading information” in ways that “cause demonstrable and significant public
harm.”49 A typical example of disinformation occurred during the 2018 Brazilian
election. In the lead-up to the October runoff between far-right candidate Jair
Bolsanaro and leftist Fernando Haddad, a deluge of images started circulating on
WhatsApp (a messaging platform used by 120 million Brazilians). The images
showed the name of a purported presidential candidate, former president Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva, next to the number 17. In the Brazilian system, citizens
press a number in the voting machine that corresponds to a particular candidate
or party. The problem with this recommendation was that Lula was not actu-
ally running—he had been disqualified by the courts. The number 17 actually
corresponded to Bolsonaro’s ticket (Bolsonaro ultimately won the vote count
and was elected president). This situation represented only “one of millions of
photos containing disinformation believed to have reached Brazilians” prior to
voting.50
The onset of the coronavirus crisis has led to a rash of disinformation. Many
sources are linked to state actors, particularly governments in China, Russia,
Turkey, and Iran.51 Other sources of bad information stem from conspiracy
websites or individuals seeking to manipulate the crisis for political advantage.
Tech companies have mounted an aggressive response. In one eye-opening ac-
tion, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube simultaneously removed posts published
by Bolsonaro for including coronavirus-related misinformation in violation of

platform rules.52
Trolling and harassment involve deliberately posting offensive content on-
line in order to provoke or disrupt conversations.53 Chinese authorities have
relied heavily on trolling techniques to counter protests in Hong Kong. The
Facebook pages of two Hong Kong organizations identified with the 2019
demonstrations—Civil Human Rights Front and the Hong Kong National
Front— were repeatedly hit with images showing violent protestors and
insinuating foreign influence. Thousands of comments were posted linking the
CIA to the protest movement and falsely accusing individuals of committing
brutal acts.54 In Cambodia, the New York Times reported, authorities posted fake
videos on Facebook smearing a prominent government critic, the monk Luon
Sovath, for having sexual relations with three sisters and their mother. A state-
controlled religious council “defrocked the monk” for violating his vows of cel-
ibacy. Fearing arrest, Luon Sovath fled the country, resigning himself to a life in
exile.55
Doxing is a subcomponent of trolling that involves the public release of per-
sonal information in order to compromise individual safety and intimidate
people to prevent them from engaging in certain actions. Doxing is a technique
used by both protestors and state agents. In Hong Kong, protestors routinely
doxed unbadged police officers and posted their personal information online. In
one notorious instance, demonstrators tried to derail a police officer’s upcoming
wedding by disclosing detailed information about the event.56 Likewise, state
authorities also set up an anonymous website, HK Leaks, that targeted approx-
imately two hundred Hong Kong pro-democracy figures, including activists,
journalists, and even lawmakers. The site listed their personal details—email
addresses, phone numbers—resulting in a deluge of hostile phone calls.57
Flooding in the social manipulation context is similar to flooding strategies
employed for censorship purposes. This strategy involves promoting competing
or distracting information that overwhelms legitimate information sources.
Regimes in countries that have advanced disinformation capabilities—like
Russia, the Philippines, and Turkey—are adept at flooding strategies. As
monitors become aware of critical news stories related to the government,
operatives will begin peddling prepackaged counternarratives to state news
outlets and social media channels to sew confusion and disarm government
critiques. Frequently, this method of manipulation entails co-opting trending
hashtags. During the 2011 Syria uprising, state operators tried to flood the
hashtags #Syria, #Daraa, and #Mar15—which protesters were using to doc-
ument the regime’s crackdown—with misleading links to scenic photos and
sports statistics.58 More recently, “electronic flies” have become a routine hazard
for pro-democracy organizers in Algeria. These “flies” are pro-regime individuals
who amplify propaganda, spread false information, or send multiple false reports
to social media platforms to deactivate legitimate accounts that belong to oppo-
sition activists.59
Automated repressive methods that incorporate bots and algorithms are made
up of social media accounts that are “operated entirely by computer programs.”
Such bots are designed to create spikes in engagement for specific messages—
whether to promote pro-regime narratives or to spread toxic falsehoods about
particular opposition figures.60 In addition to amplification, bots are also
designed to create the impression that a campaign is more “organic” or wide-
spread than it actually is. These bots are now widely used in both democracies
and autocracies (in Mexico, for instance, political bots deployed by former pres-
ident Peña Nieto became so ubiquitous that people began to refer to them as
“Peñabots”).61
Vandalism or defacement involves unauthorized acts such as modifying a web-
site or social media account. State agents carry out this activity to obscure legiti-
mate information on a targeted website or account, as well as for the purpose of
harassment or intimidation.
Internet Shutdowns
There is some murkiness when it comes to delineating what exactly constitutes
an Internet shutdown versus an associated network restriction like censor-
ship filtering. I use the following definition for Internet shutdowns: activities
undertaken by states to intentionally restrict, constrain, or disrupt Internet or
electronic communications within a given geographic area or affecting a specific
population in order to exert control over the spread of information.62 A critical
component of shutdowns is their time-bound nature. Unlike ongoing filtering
activities, shutdowns include fixed beginning and endpoints. Shutdowns are
therefore characterized by their alteration of an existing operating state of
the Internet. Experts identify six categories of Internet disruption related to
scope: national Internet shutdowns, subnational Internet shutdowns, national
mobile shutdowns, subnational mobile shutdowns, national shutdowns of
apps/service, and subnational shutdowns of app/service (including VoIP like
Skype).63 National shutdowns occur most frequently, followed by subnational
mobile disruptions and national app/service disruptions. However, there are
prominent examples that buck this trend. India, for instance, leads the world in
Internet shutdowns, but the majority of its disruptions are confined to a single
city or state (in 2018, India had only one shutdown incident that encompassed
more than one state).
Shutdowns also vary by type. Certain shutdowns do not completely block
Internet access, but instead employ bandwidth throttling—the intentional
slowing of Internet service or Internet traffic by an Internet service provider in

order to disrupt communications and regular online access. During bandwidth
throttling, mobile Internet connections, for example, may be downgraded to 2G,
effectively making it “almost impossible to upload pictures, stream live, and share
information quickly.”64 Access Now reports at least fourteen cases of throttling in
2019, including in Jordan, Ecuador, Zimbabwe, India, Benin, China, Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan, and Bangladesh.65 Other shutdowns incorporate Internet blackouts,
which are extreme measures that cut off access to the Internet entirely (national
or subnationally), meaning all broadband and mobile Internet connections are
severed. In such situations, mobile phone and texting connections are frequently
disrupted as well. Finally, shutdown strategies may focus on blocking specific apps
and services, such as social media platforms or messaging services. In 2019, this
practice proliferated with governments blocking Facebook (thirty-eight global
incidents), Twitter (thirty-three global incidents), WhatsApp (twenty-three
global incidents), Instagram (twenty-nine global incidents), and Telegram
(seven global incidents).66
The impact of shutdowns varies. Connectivity disruptions sometimes lead
to perverse effects, revealing an embattled regime’s fragility and precipitating its
downfall. As mass protests swept through the Middle East in 2011, for example,
President Hosni Mubarak ordered telecom companies to cut off Internet access
in Egypt in order to thwart escalating protests. The cutoff, however, served to in-
flame public sentiment and paradoxically “pushed more people on to the streets”
to find out what was transpiring.67 The shutdown also blinded the regime to the
protesters’ developing plans and intended gatherings. Thus, the shutdown not
only failed to contain protestor momentum, but likely accelerated Mubarak’s
demise.
Despite growing research about the limitations of Internet shutdowns as a
tool of repression, leaders regularly deploy this tactic during crises. In 2019, at
least 213 shutdowns occurred in more than thirty-three countries, leading to a
cumulative economic cost of approximately $8 billion.68
Targeted Persecution against Online Users

The final category of digital repression encompasses targeted arrests, physical
attacks, legal charges, prolonged detention, and violence directed against on-
line users—actions described by Freedom House that are intended as a “reprisal
for digital expression.”69 Journalists and human rights activists are particularly
common government targets.
In 2016, I traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on a diplo-
matic mission for the US State Department. Under President Joseph Kabila,
who had ruled the Congo since 2001, the country was fast lurching toward a
constitutional crisis. The facts of the matter were simple: Kabila was constitu-
tionally barred from seeking another term in office. This didn’t sit well with him,
and he was trying every means at his disposal to remain in power. Kabila had
settled on a strategy commonly referred to as glissement, or “sliding.” Congo’s
constitutional court had ruled that if an election could not take place on time,
then the incumbent would remain in office for an indefinite period. Kabila and
his allies were frantically using the levers of bureaucracy to delay the election.
Civil society activists grew increasingly frustrated and were planning a mass
action they deemed ville morte, or “dead city.” The idea was to close down the
Congo’s urban centers—for workers to call in sick, for markets and shops to shut
down, and for people to stay at home—in order to show their frustration with
Kabila’s maneuverings.
The night before ville morte, I had dinner with two activists, Bienvenu Matumo
and Marc Héritier Kapitene, who were members of an online civic group named
Lutte Pour Le Changement (LUCHA). The group was mostly student advocates,
and it didn’t have a large membership. Yet its activities struck a nerve with gov-
ernment authorities. LUCHA advocated over social media for Kabila to stop
flouting electoral laws and to respect presidential term limits. Its members fre-
quently called out government officials for corruption or human rights abuses.
Along with other civil society organizations and opposition parties, LUCHA
strongly backed ville morte. Some hours later, after our dinner had broken up,
Congolese police arrested Matumo and Kapitene and whisked them to an un-
disclosed location. The only clue to their whereabouts was a text message one
of the activists sent to a friend at 5:40 a.m. saying “arrested.”70 I learned about
their detentions later that morning. It became apparent that security forces had
made the arrests in order to send a threatening signal to online activists, as well
as to undercut ville morte. It would take months of behind-the-scenes diplomatic
pressure coupled with public criticism before the Congolese government finally
freed Matumo and Kapitene in August 2016.71
After watching Arab Spring protests topple one government after another
in 2011, autocratic leaders vowed they would not fall for the same tactics.
Consequently, by 2016, security forces had retooled their strategies. One of
their favored techniques—particularly for governments that lacked more so-
phisticated capabilities—was to persecute individuals who advocated online for
political change. While LUCHA didn’t necessarily represent a political threat
to Kabila in a traditional sense—it was not running parliamentary candidates
or supporting electoral challengers against him—its youthful composition and
ability to mobilize scores of student protestors through social media made it a
major state target.
Government arrests and detentions are not limited to online journalists or
well-known political bloggers. Ordinary citizens are routinely ensnared by state
authorities as well, often as a warning to other citizens. In Thailand, for example,

the courts sentenced a tour operator and a twenty-nine-year old hotel worker to
multiyear prison terms for ill-advised social media postings that violated lèse-
majesté provisions.72
The Dictator’s Digital Dilemma

Digital technology has exacerbated the dictator’s dilemma: how can those in
power benefit from the economic gains and political advantages (e.g., increased
information about public sentiment) that come from a digital society without
sacrificing political control?73 Censorship, for example, allows leaders to regulate
information flows and blunt the effect of political opponents, but it can also lead
to negative spillover effects. Censorship may signal to citizens that the govern-
ment has something to hide, thereby reducing its legitimacy. Yet censorship can
also motivate citizens to specifically seek out information that has been banned
by the regime. Further, censorship may also limit the state’s ability to collect
“precious information” about citizen preferences—a vital means for states to
keep tabs on their citizens. Because governments possess limited means to know
how citizens feel about their performance, reducing information could obscure
“fixable political problems” and prevent governments from solving them “before
they become too significant to overcome.”74 Such potential costs also extend to
economic considerations. Governments that constrain digital communications
and thereby hamper technological innovation may suffer economic harm as a
result, prompting investors to flee to alternative markets.
Governments have devised creative ways to solve this dilemma. No other
country has had more success, at present, in confronting this problem than China.
Its underlying bargain entails sacrificing personal liberties in exchange for steady
economic growth. As long as the economy stays strong, citizens will tolerate di-
minished political freedoms. Thus, alongside China’s economic boom—which
has enlarged its middle class by millions of people—the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) has instituted a digital repression agenda incorporating mass web
filtering, an expansive surveillance network anchored by facial recognition tech-
nology, mass Internet and social media monitoring, and even a mammoth DNA
collection program. But China’s repression strategy also retains flexibility; it is
much more than a monolithic regime of control. Instead, it has pursued what
Rebecca MacKinnon terms “networked authoritarianism,” where the CCP
maintains top-level control but also permits a “wide range of conversations about
the country’s problems” on social media and websites.75 This accomplishes three
objectives: citizens have an outlet to express grievances (providing a greater
sense of freedom), the government can periodically respond to highlighted
concerns (demonstrating its responsiveness to public concerns and making cit-

izens feel that their voices are heard), and its authorities gain an effective means
to monitor emerging problems and track dissent.
China is an outlier. It can get away with actions that other countries cannot.
For example, when the CCP faced resistance from companies like Google,
which were reluctant to institute mass censorship controls, it nurtured national
alternatives—Baidu, Weibo, WeChat, Alibaba—that would abide by its rules.
This led to the creation of a parallel Chinese Internet that not only has flourished
in the intervening years, but whose model now poses a direct threat to the orig-
inal concept. China’s market size and sophisticated tech sector have given it the
means to solve its digital dilemma. Most other countries lack these options.
Instead, they have been forced to pursue alternative strategies to address their
digital dilemmas.
One strategy is to rely on carefully calibrated methods of digital control.
This could entail retaining state ownership over telecom companies responsible
for providing Internet access—as in Ethiopia—and throttling or limiting ac-
cess when politically necessary. Another tactic is to vary digital investments or
shutdowns by region based on political loyalty. In Cameroon, for example, long-
time dictator Paul Biya has enacted full-scale shutdowns in the country’s restive
anglophone region, while maintaining Internet access in the rest of the country,
ensuring he retains his base of support.76 In Thailand, the government pursues
an array of Internet controls but is keenly aware of what measures the public
will tolerate (and what may go too far). As I discuss in Chapter 4, the Thai state
readily blocks websites and uses lèse-majesté or cyber libel laws to suppress dis-
sent, but it stops short of shutting down the Internet; the threat to its digitally re-
liant economy would be too great and would risk alienating its middle-class base.
A second strategy, one that I will explore in detail in Chapter 5 (Philippines
case study), is to forgo information control for social manipulation and disinfor-
mation tactics. In other words, keep the information environment fairly open in
order not to scare off investment, but use social media channels to relentlessly
troll the opposition and flood out criticism of the government. As scholars Nils
Weidmann and Espen Rød observe, these approaches operate from a common
premise: government control over the Internet is “highly asymmetrical” in rela-
tion to opposition activists, providing state authorities with crucial advantages
when carrying out their strategies.77 These examples illustrate how much
governments have adapted their digital strategies in the intervening years since
the Color Revolutions and Arab Spring protests.
Nonetheless, states do not always succeed in accomplishing their digital
repression objectives. While their strategies reduce the odds for successful re-
gime challenges, online protest movements sometimes prevail, as recent cases
in Armenia, Sudan, and Gambia attest. How have these movements managed
to withstand a generally dismal environment for digital activism? In part, their

survival may be due to the discrepancy between short and long-term strategies
of digital control. The bulk of the tactics described in this book—except for
Internet shutdowns—represent longer-term approaches. Such strategies are
designed to establish, over time, systematic state control over key information
pathways and communications networks in order to suppress dissent. But this
approach does not mean that regimes won’t make miscalculations along the way
that provide unexpected openings for their opponents. And once protests begin,
they are difficult to contain: “Much research points to the importance of the
speed with which digital communication travels during ongoing protests.”78 As
a result, the best long-term digital strategies can fall by the wayside when luck,
opportunity, and momentum come together for protesters.
Even if demonstrators are able to exploit short-term vulnerabilities to accel-
erate actions against incumbent regimes, overall trends still favor governments.
This trajectory represents a considerable shift from earlier pronouncements that
liberation technology would be an inexorable force for change. Less than ten
years ago, Larry Diamond made the convincing argument that ICT would en-
able profound democratic connections between citizens and their governments,
and would “expand the horizons of freedom.”79 By 2019, Diamond had signifi-
cantly changed his tune: “Once hailed as a great force for human empowerment
and liberation, social media—and the various related digital tools that enable
people to search for, access, accumulate, and process information—have rap-
idly come to be regarded as a major threat to democratic stability and human
freedom.” He further warned that digital threats today have become much more
menacing and powerful: “Democrats worldwide are in a race against time to pre-
vent cyberspace from becoming an arena of surveillance, control, and manipu-
lation so all-encompassing that only a modern-day fusion of George Orwell’s
Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World could adequately
capture it.”80 With that warning in mind, this brings us to a core question: does
digital technology provide decisive advantages to states carrying out repression?
Is Digital Technology Changing the Balance

between Governments and Civil Society?
The questions at the heart of this book are these: How much does digital repres-
sion matter? Are digital technologies fundamentally tilting the playing field in
favor of authoritarian power holders against their civic and political opponents?
I find that the answers vary. In states that feature extensive repression
supported by high-capacity institutions (and where civil society and government
oversight are comparatively weak), digital technology can have a transformative
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
If the analysis of the relation of the individual to society is correct,
we are justified in claiming that any adequate statement of the aim of
education must point unmistakably to the idea of the common good.
Education aims so to adjust the individual to the group that the
welfare of society as a whole may be advanced. This adjustment can
be brought about only through participation in social activities, and
thus the aim is constantly realized in the process.
In our democratic society, which makes possible free education for
all of its members, there can be no question of the right of society to
demand that education aim to develop men and women who work
for the common good. It is necessary, then, to analyze this aim of
social efficiency in terms of our society. The equality of opportunity
which we profess to offer is to be thought of in terms of possible
service which may be rendered.
In any community the contribution to the general welfare which
may be made by any one of its members is conditioned by the
interests which the individual has in the general good. The unsocial
individual, the one who seldom responds to the needs of the group,
is out of sympathy with social problems, and contributes little to
social welfare.
But it is not enough that the individual be interested in the common
welfare. Interest may lead him to do that which is harmful rather than
helpful, or it may be that his interest may have no result except to
give him certain pleasurable emotions. There must be added to
sympathy, knowledge. Interest or sympathy in the welfare of society
may furnish the propelling force, but knowledge is necessary for
effective action. The world is full of men and women with the best
intentions who hinder rather than advance the common good.
Since each is responsible not only for his own conduct, but also for
the welfare of the whole group, it is necessary that our education
provide opportunity for growth in intelligence. Our schools have
always emphasized this element in education. We have often
defined the aim of education in terms of the development of
citizenship. Usually the chief qualification of the citizen has been
interpreted to be that knowledge which would enable him to exercise
the right of suffrage with intelligence. We do well, however, to
remember that intelligence must be exercised in all of the activities of
life. Our education must strive constantly to develop men and
women who will be rational at all times. But we may not forget that
our schools have been so much concerned with the intellectual side
of education that they have tended to neglect other elements which
are equally significant from the standpoint of social welfare.
There is still another element which must be added, the habit of
acting on behalf of the group. We all know people who know just
what is demanded in a given social situation; they profess to be
interested in the welfare of the group; but they never act. When their
own private interests are involved they are quick to seize the
opportunity for improving their condition; but in social matters they
are inactive. It is in this particular, rather than in any other, that our
schools fall short. We do much to arouse the sympathy of children in
the general welfare; we give them the knowledge by which their
action may be guided; but we give them little opportunity to form the
habit of social service. This is due to the fact that we so often think of
adult social activities as the only ones that are worth while, forgetting
that for the child the important thing is social activity now and in his
society, that the only way to prepare for adult social effectiveness is
to secure social efficiency on the part of the child.
These questions still remain: how can we, through education,
produce the individual who, because of social sympathy, knowledge,
and activity, will tend to advance the welfare of all; and what kinds of
education meet the demands of the aim which we have set up.
First of all, we must endeavor to produce the individual who is
sound physically. Modern education recognizes the fact that a man’s
usefulness is conditioned by his bodily condition, and is also coming
to find that physical activity is not without its effect on the mental
development and life of the individual. There is, therefore, one large
division of our work which we may call physical education.
On the side of mental development, education consists in
preserving and stimulating the child’s interest in the materials and
processes with which he may come in contact. Intellectual training
aims to develop the man or woman who is mentally alert, active in
investigation, and controlled by reason. It is to this intellectual
education that our schools have devoted the larger part of their time.
The school is the agency set aside by society for transmitting culture,
and the teacher must always concern herself largely with the
intellectual life of children.
Our modern view of education is leading us to stress, along with
physical and intellectual education, a kind of training which aims to
develop the individual whose moral standards are positive rather
than negative. Moral-social education should establish ideals of
social service as well as standards of individual righteousness.
Along with physical, moral-social, and intellectual-cultural
education, there is need for that type of training which will enable
each individual to do some particular work with a high degree of
efficiency. This type of education we commonly call vocational. It is
only recently that we have come to realize that it is not enough to
train an individual with respect to general intelligence and morality,
but that it is also just as fundamental that our education provide the
training necessary for success in the particular calling which each
individual is to enter. For the preparation of clergymen, doctors,
lawyers, teachers, and engineers, whose vocations require a
maximum of intellectual achievement, it is true that we have long had
our vocational schools. We are coming now to appreciate the fact
that equality of opportunity demands that special training be given to
those who are to enter the industries. Indeed, our vocational schools
must multiply until there is training offered for each and every calling
before we can claim to provide that training which is essential for
social efficiency.
Another problem is that of the training for leisure. In society as at
present constituted, it is possible for many individuals, and it should
ultimately be possible for all, to have a considerable amount of
leisure time. The contribution of each individual in his special line of
work, and his general interest in the whole community, will depend in
a considerable degree upon the proper use of leisure time. Our
education must, therefore, attempt to equip men with interests and
ideals which make for the nobler enjoyments.
Keeping in mind the sympathetic, wise, active social individual,
made so by the process of acquiring experience or making of
adjustments, both physical and mental, we have yet to reduce our
aim to the terms of schoolroom practice. What can a teacher hope to
do in this hour, with this group of children to work with?
First of all the teacher can work for the formation of habits which
are socially desirable and for the inhibition of those which are
undesirable. “Education is for behavior, and habits are the stuff of
which behavior consists.”[1] The school may be a very important
factor in the formation of habits in each of the fields of education
mentioned above. If the school is organized on a rational social
basis, it must continually present opportunities for actions which
should become habitual, and the future efficiency of the learner
depends upon gaining such control of much of the knowledge which
we teach that the response desired becomes habitual. The social
virtues of promptness, regularity, helpfulness, industry, fidelity,
honesty, truthfulness, cleanliness, both physical and mental,
patriotism, and the like, should be made habitual in connection with
the situations which demand their exercise. The physical habits
acquired in childhood are of the utmost significance throughout life.
Much of arithmetic, spelling, writing, geography, history, and even of
literature and art, will be significant in proportion as we have reduced
our knowledge to the automatic basis of habit. One cannot stop to
reason everything out; life is too short. We gain time and energy for
the higher activities of life in proportion as we reduce the responses
which occur frequently to the basis of habits. In vocational schools
one of the chief aims is the formation of habits of skill. Later we shall
want to discuss in detail the methodology of habit formation.
Every teacher recognizes that one of the ends which must be
achieved by the school is knowledge. We shall not here enter into
the discussion of the problem of what knowledge is of most worth,
since for the teacher this choice is usually made and prescribed in
the course of study. One cannot, however, refrain from suggesting
that much that is taught would be eliminated, if we kept constantly in
mind the end for which we strive. The following criteria, proposed by
Professor Frank M. McMurry, will be suggestive from the standpoint
of teaching, whether the teacher determines the curriculum or not.
“We hold to the following propositions in the rejection of subject
matter.[2]
“1. Whatever cannot be shown to have a plain relation to some
real need of life, whether æsthetic, ethical, or utilitarian in the
narrower sense, must be dropped.
“2. Whatever is not reasonably within the child’s comprehension.
“3. Whatever is unlikely to appeal to his interest; unless it is
positively demanded for the first very weighty reason.
“4. Whatever topics and details are so isolated or irrelevant that
they fail to be a part of any series or chain of ideas, and therefore fail
to be necessary for the appreciation of any large point. This
standard, however, not to apply to the three R’s and spelling.”
These criteria indicate clearly that knowledge can never be in itself
an end of teaching. It is not that the child may have knowledge
merely, but that he shall have knowledge which will function. This
knowledge which we seek to have the child master will concern his
physical life, his social relationships, his vocation; and in each field
the knowledge he possesses will limit his intellectual activity.
The school must keep alive, or, in some cases, awaken those
interests which are socially desirable. It is not enough that habits
have been formed and knowledge acquired. Much of the usefulness
of the individual after he leaves school will depend on his interests
which lead him to acquire new knowledge, or to attempt some new
activity. It has sometimes been asserted that the school, as at
present organized, tends to kill rather than to preserve those
interests which are common to little children. It is probable that the
passing interests in things due to curiosity must disappear,
regardless of the education which we give; but it is a poor sort of
education which leaves the child without abiding interests which will
help him not only in making a living, but also in enjoying his life.
Here, as elsewhere in education, we may be satisfied with the result
only when we get the corresponding action. That child has an
interest in good literature who reads good literature. We can be sure
that the boy is interested in natural phenomena when he is willing to
spend his leisure time finding out more about nature’s ways. The
only test that we have of an abiding interest in the welfare of others
is the fact that the child is now active on behalf of others. In like
manner are we to judge of our success in arousing and maintaining
those other interests which are desirable.
Judgments of fact are called for constantly in acquiring knowledge
and in our everyday activity; but no less important in the life of
individuals are judgments of worth. Education must concern itself
with the ideals, purposes, and standards which should be acquired
by children. There is no field in which greater skill is demanded in
teaching than in bringing children to appreciate those things which
are good, true, and beautiful. Ideals, or, for those who do not agree
with them, prejudices, will always be of tremendous importance.
They determine the course of action a man will take. Because of
their ideals men have been willing to labor incessantly for a cause
which they considered just, to give up personal good in the
pursuance of public duty, to lose all, if they might but retain their
honor, yes, even to lose their lives because they felt that this
extreme service was demanded of them. The awakening and
nurturing of ideals of work (or industry), of honor, of duty, of purity, of
service is the greatest contribution of the best teacher.
There is one other aim which the teacher should have constantly
in mind, included possibly in the above, but which needs to be stated
separately for the sake of emphasis, i.e. that children should be
taught how to work independently. The best teacher is the one who
is constantly striving to render her services unnecessary. There is
nothing that the school can do which will take the place of giving the
child knowledge of the most economical means to be employed in
achieving desirable ends. Is it a matter of knowledge, the child
should be made conscious of the methods whereby truth may be
established; is it the need of establishing a new habit, or the
breaking up of the old one, we should make available for the pupil
the principles of habit formation so that he may apply them to his
own case; in matters of right and wrong, the school should have
supplied standards of reference which will help in the difficult
situation. Possibly the great weakness of many teachers in imparting
this knowledge of methods of work is best illustrated by citing the
well-known fact that children of high school, or even college age, are
found very frequently who do not know how to read a book, or study
a lesson assigned. This problem will be treated in considerable detail
when we come to consider the study lesson.
Pupils at work forming habits of thought, feeling, and action;
acquiring knowledge of nature and of society; forming ideals which
make for social well-being; and learning in all of this work to act
independently, to function in the society of which they are a part: this
is education, and these are the goals which we should strive to
achieve every day and every hour that we teach.
For Collateral Reading

Nicholas Murray Butler, The Meaning of Education, Chapter I.
W. C. Bagley, The Educative Process, Chapter III.
Exercises.
1. How would you hope to contribute to the realization of the aim of education in
the teaching of English, arithmetic, cooking, geography, or other school subjects?
2. How would you determine whether or not the children in your grade are
socially efficient?
3. What are the most important subjects, or parts of subjects, which you teach?
Why?
4. How would an application of the aim of education as discussed in this chapter
modify the work commonly done in arithmetic? In nature study?
5. It has been claimed that education should provide for the harmonious
development of all of the powers. Criticize this statement of aim.
6. Could you defend the statement that “the aim of education is to produce
socially efficient men and women,” and at the same time deny that the greatest
individual good comes from working for the general welfare?
7. Why should education be free in a democracy?
8. Is society justified in offering special education to the deficient and the
delinquent? To the especially capable? Why?
9. Is the excessive rivalry which we sometimes foster in our schools compatible
with the aim of social efficiency?
10. Of the several types of education, physical, intellectual, moral-social,
vocational, and education for leisure, which is most neglected?
11. How do you account for the fact that many children cease to inquire, to
investigate, or even to ask questions, although they are regularly taught in our
schools?
12. Why do you teach school? What do you hope to accomplish?
13. Can you name specific instances of changes brought about in children under
your instruction which justify you in believing that you have fulfilled the aim of
education in your teaching?
14. What justification is there for music, drawing, or literature in the curriculum?
15. State briefly the aim of education.
CHAPTER II
T H E FA C T O R S C O N D I T I O N I N G T H E T E A C H I N G P R O C E S S
If it is essential that the teacher approach her work with a clear

view of the ends which it is desirable for her to achieve, it is quite as
necessary that she be conscious of the factors which condition the
teaching process. The school, with its limitations and its advantages,
the community and home life of the child, and, above all else, the
child himself, his instincts, impulses, and abilities must be the subject
of most careful study. Much progress has been made in recent years
because of a better understanding and a more sympathetic attitude
toward children. Teachers are beginning to see that education has its
beginning in, and that it is always conditioned by, the life of the child
outside of the school building. The possibilities of the school as an
institution for the education of children are just beginning to be
realized.
While it is true that the school shares with the home, the church,
and the community at large the education of children, no one can fail
to recognize the fact that the responsibilities and the activities of the
school have been very greatly augmented during the past few
decades. Where other institutions have lost or have become less
effective, the school has gained, or has been forced to accept new
responsibilities. Changed industrial conditions and life in cities have
made it impossible for the home to continue to hold the important
place which it once occupied in preparing its members for efficient
participation in the productive activities. Whether we like it or not, we
are forced to admit that the church no longer exerts the power over
the lives and conduct of men that it once did. Along with the
specialization of function which is so characteristic of our modern
life, citizenship in our democracy has come to require less of that
type of participation in public affairs which was once a great
educative factor in our community life.
As these changes in the effectiveness of other institutions have
taken place, men have looked to the schools to make good the
deficiency. The schools have responded to the demand made upon
them. Our curriculum no longer consists of the three R’s. Cooking,
sewing, gardening, and many other kinds of manual work, music,
physical training, and fine art are already found in our courses of
study. We are coming to recognize the need for more systematic
training in morals and civics, and vocational training is being
introduced.
What is the significance of these changes for teachers? Is it not
true that they must teach whatever is demanded by the course of
study; and is not this the only difference in the teacher’s function
brought about by changed conditions? The answer is, most
emphatically, no. The situation which has already made necessary
the change in curriculum demands also changes in method quite as
revolutionary. It is more essential to-day than ever before that the
school present opportunities for coöperation and for group work, a
chance for pupils to work together for common ends, because there
is so much less demand of this sort made upon children outside of
school than was formerly the case. We ought to do more than we do
to develop the independence and the self-reliance which were so
characteristic of the boy and girl who lived in an environment which
constantly made heavy demands upon their strength, skill, and
ingenuity. The responsibility for taking the initiative, and of measuring
the success of one’s efforts by the results produced, is all too
uncommon in the lives of our children. The school must, if it is to
adequately meet its enlarged responsibility, develop those habits of
thought and action which enable one to get along with his fellows.
The school life of the child must, in so far as this is possible, present
such opportunities, make such demands, and judge results by
standards essentially social. The child must learn in school to serve,
to accept responsibility, and to produce results socially valuable. We
could do much to increase the efficiency of the school if we planned
more carefully to have schoolroom activities find their application in
the homes of children.
School education begins not with the ignorance of children, but
with their knowledge. Children come to us with a great wealth of
experience. Our work as teachers is to enlarge and to interpret this
experience, to give it greater meaning and significance. Can any one
question, then, the necessity for acquaintance with the life of the
child outside of school? And this study of the out-of-school
environment must continue as long as the child is in school, if the
teacher’s work is to be most effective. It makes a great deal of
difference when you wish to teach nature study that your children
have always lived in the city, at a considerable distance from a park.
The problem of teaching a great commercial center to children living
on farms presents some difficulty. But it is not alone these more
gross differences in the lives of children which demand our attention.
There are differences in ideals, differences in social custom, in short,
in ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, which one must know if one
would claim any adequate knowledge of the child to be taught.
Probably the best opportunity to gain this intimate knowledge of the
lives of children whom we teach is to be had in the work with parents
and older brothers and sisters which should be carried on in the
school building when the smaller children are not present. The
school which is a center of community life, a place for study, for
recreation, for physical development, and for social intercourse is the
school that is fulfilling its mission in the life of the people; and the
teacher who works in such a school will know her children.
There is one other responsibility which we as teachers must
acknowledge which again leads us beyond the schoolroom. We
should work for the welfare of our children during the time that they
are not with us. No other body of men and women knows the needs
of these children better than we do. Our work is conditioned by the
life of the child before he comes under our influence. Our work is
ofttime of no effect because of the adverse conditions outside of the
school. What does it matter that we try to develop morality in
children, when the forces of immorality in the streets more than
counteract our influence? what does it matter that we strive earnestly
to provide hygienic conditions for work during five hours of the day,
when filth and disease are doing their deadly work outside of the
school for nineteen hours a day? Who knows better than we that
children with starved bodies cannot do great things intellectually? If
we were only organized to improve these conditions, we could do
much for the welfare of the community. The time is coming when it
will be considered as legitimate for a body of teachers to discuss the
problems of impure food supply, of relief for the poor, of means for
the suppression of vice, and of better hygienic conditions for the
children of our cities, as it is to discuss the problems of method or
the organization of school work. What we need, if we are to be
effective in the work, is better organization, more craft
consciousness. We now possess potentially great power for social
betterment. We are exercising this power in the school, and, as
individuals, outside of the school. We will, let us hope, in time,
recognize the larger social demand and perform the larger social
service.
The children with whom we work come to us equipped with many
native reactions or tendencies to behave. In any situation the child
will react in accordance with some native tendency or habit which
has grown out of the original tendency. Success in teaching depends
upon a recognition of these instinctive tendencies, the development
of some, the grafting of new but similar reactions on others, and the
inhibition of the native reaction and substitution of another in still
other cases. The instincts which are of importance in education have
been variously named; among these those of greatest significance
for the work of the teacher are play, constructiveness, imitation,
emulation, pugnacity, curiosity, ownership, including the collecting
instinct, sympathy, wonder. We shall deal briefly with each of these in
relation to the work of the teacher.
Play: Possibly the lesson which teachers need most to learn is that
play has real educative value. Before the school age has been
reached, the child has learned chiefly by playing. In play the child
gets his first experience in those activities which are later to make
possible a happy, useful life in the community. The number of
possible reactions possessed by a child of six is largely determined
by the opportunity he has had to play. This is why we value so much
a life free from restraint, and in contact with nature, for little children.
Contact with the trees, the rocks, the birds, the flowers, and
association with other children mean possibilities of learning for the
child which no amount of instruction or exercise of authority can
equal. The child plays now with this object and again with that; and
in consequence comes to know not only the objects, but his own
power. In an imaginative way he experiences all of the adult activities
about him, sowing, reaping, building, cooking, cleaning, hauling,
fighting; and he is wiser and better prepared for the period of
struggle, which must come later, because of these activities.
Nor should this period of play end when the child enters school.
The skillful teacher makes a game of many of the exercises of the
school, which might be otherwise drudgery. The desire to win is
common to children six years of age, and many a hard task will
become play, if the element of competition is introduced and
sufficient variety in procedure is provided for. By playing, children
may learn to work. To achieve the ends desired in a game may
involve the overcoming of difficulties which require the most earnest
effort. There can be no better preparation for life than the playing of
games where team work, self-restraint, and fairness are demanded.
We need more careful study on the part of teachers of children’s
games, and more planning that all may secure the benefits which
come from this sort of activity. In the schoolroom, wherever it is
possible, the spirit of play should pervade the work. There will be
cases enough where results will depend upon the exercise of
authority. Let us never forget that the reaction of play may mean just
as valuable results as the reaction of necessity, and that the ideal life
is the one in which all work is play.
Constructiveness: Closely connected with the play instinct is the
instinct to make out of the material at one’s command that which will
represent some element in the play. In the beginning, gestures,
sounds, and whatever objects are present suffice in the make-
believe world of the child. But soon the materials are rearranged or
shaped into some new form in order to represent the object desired.
Materials become to the child just what he can make out of them.
And it is not simply in power to construct or to represent that the
child grows because of this activity. To make something, to work out
in materials one’s idea, means growth in definiteness and control of
ideas. The one adequate test of ideas must always be some sort of
expression; and, for the adult as well as for the child, construction is
one of the most important forms of expression. We would gain much
in all of our school work in clearness and definiteness, if we resorted
oftener to construction as a test. Of course, construction is not to be
limited to the making of things of three dimensions. The map, plan,
or artistic representation belongs to the same group, and is
developed from the same instinctive tendency.
Just one more word of caution needs to be given with regard to
work of this kind. In constructive work, whether with wood or clay, or
with pencil or brush, the point of departure should be the child’s idea,
not the model or pattern provided by an adult. After the child has
made his attempt, then let him see where he has failed by reference
to the object which he has tried to represent. And we can afford to be
satisfied in the beginning with a crude product, so long as it satisfies
the child. As for technique, there will come a time when the desire for
a better product will call for greater skill and will furnish the very best
possible motive for the necessary practice.
Imitation: In both play and constructive work a most important
element is the instinct to imitate. The child constantly imitates adult
activities in play, and in construction he represents the objects about
him. As has already been indicated, it is in this way that he clarifies
his ideas, that he gains experience. In imitation, which is truly
instructive, the child does not consciously plan to imitate; it is enough
that the model is present. This kind of imitation is sometimes called
spontaneous imitation, in contradistinction to the other type of
imitation, in which the individual persistently tries to reproduce the
activity of another. In the latter case he is conscious of the process;
and this type is sometimes called voluntary imitation. This distinction
is important for teachers in many phases of school work. There are
cases where the only satisfactory response is that which accords
with the model, the standard which society imposes. We do not want
a child to try to spell a word without being conscious of the form
commonly accepted. He will succeed in spelling because he has
studied this word, or is able to build it up from his knowledge of its
constituent parts. On the other hand, wherever creative work is to be
done, wherever originality is required, the educational value of the
exercise is inversely proportioned to the degree in which conscious
imitation of a model has entered to produce the result. In such
subjects as English composition, constructive work, science work
involving observation and experiment, what we want above all else is
the attempt on the part of the learner to express his own ideas; and it
is only after this expression that any adequate appreciation of model
or of criticism can be hoped for.
There is one other factor in connection with imitation which is of
great importance in teaching; namely, that children persistently
imitate what they admire. This has a double significance for the
teacher. Those things which can be made less attractive will tend to
be less imitated; and, conversely, that which is held up as worthy of
great respect will be much imitated. If we were only wise, we would
devote our attention to the leader of the group, trying to secure the
appropriate or desired reaction upon his or her part, rather than
devoting ourselves equally to the whole group. We can depend upon
it, the crowd will follow the leader whom they admire. Our appeals
often mean little to children, and the models which we set up have
little effect, because, however admirable these standards may seem
to us, they are beyond the power of children to comprehend or
admire. Instead of giving a boy a letter of Jefferson as a model,
better give him the one written by his classmate. Do not expect the
girl to imitate the noblest women in history, but make your appeal on
the basis of the virtue of the girl she likes.
Emulation: Much that has been said above under imitation might
quite as well have been written under the head of emulation. As
social beings, we tend to do what others do. Consciousness of kind
compels us to lay great store upon our ability to do as others do.
When in Rome the difficult thing is not to do “as Romans do,” but to
do otherwise. The desire to do not only as well as others, but to
accomplish more, is responsible for much that is achieved in the
world. If we did not have others with whom we are constantly
comparing ourselves, few of us would do as well as we now do.
Rivalry will always be one of the greatest means of bringing about
improvement or advancement in social conditions. In school, as well
as in the world at large, rivalry, if kept free from jealousy and envy,
will justify its existence by the results produced. The boy or girl who
is anxious to distance his fellows in school is apt to be the man of
ambition and of success in later life.
Pugnacity: More prominent in boys than in girls, but present in
some degree in every individual, is the instinct to fight, the desire not
to be overcome either by persons or conditions which surround us.
In so far as this instinct leads to physical encounter, for all except the
unusually strong physically, the correction comes by way of defeat.
For all, the substitution of games which involve physical prowess for
fighting, and the substitution of victories of intellect for the victories of
physical combat, point to the utilization of this instinct in education. It
is sometimes possible to appeal to this instinct when
discouragement and defeat in school tasks seem inevitable. No boy
likes to be told that he has been downed by the task in long division,
or that he has failed to make good in spelling or geography. The
whole world hates a quitter, and normal, healthy children are no
exception to the rule.
Curiosity: Children are proverbially curious about things. They
want to know more, to enlarge and make more definite their
experience. This desire shows itself in their actions in handling
materials, in making and unmaking, in questions asked, in
reasoning, in play, and in imitating others. The most striking
characteristic in the mental life of children is the breadth of their
interests, due to this instinct of curiosity. Most adults think along very
narrow and restricted lines; not so with children. While it is true that
they do little abstract thinking, there is scarcely an object or an action
which comes within the range of their senses that is not followed by
the desire to find out more.
Children have the spirit of inquiry, have many problems, in short,
are mentally active to a degree most uncommon among adults. The
problem of the teacher is how to keep alive this spirit of inquiry, how
to insure a continuance of this mental alertness. Much of our school
work has certainly tended in the opposite direction. Reciting what is
written in books, without thought or question, has too often been
characteristic of recitations. The appeal to authority, whether of the
teacher or of the book, instead of the appeal to experience, to
observation and experiment, or to other methods of establishing
truth, tends to kill rather than to strengthen the spirit of inquiry. We
should place greater value upon the intelligent question than upon
the parrot-like answer. Respect for the problems of children, even
when they seem of little account to us, rather than ridicule or
evasion, will tend to keep alive this most precious heritage. Of
course it is not wise to encourage the scatter-brained boy or girl who
never thinks about the same thing for two minutes in succession.
One great function of the teacher is to help children to concentrate
upon the main issue, to show a child that his question is irrelevant to
the problem under consideration, and to guide him on the path which
makes thinking pleasant and profitable.
It would be a good thing for every teacher to ask herself whether
while under her direction the children whom she teaches are usually
mentally alert, thinking, asking questions, or whether they concern
themselves only with repeating the thoughts of others. If there be
any doubt with regard to the children’s natural aptitude, let her
observe them when out of school and contrast the result. Mental
laziness is a habit acquired in spite of our initial advantage, in spite
of our desire for knowledge and the pleasure which comes from
thinking. The school and the teacher must always be judged by their
success in keeping children awake mentally; for it is power to learn
rather than knowledge which counts in later years, and learning is
most of all dependent upon the initial impulses toward inquiry.
Ownership: Very early in the life of the child the idea of personal
ownership develops. There can be no doubt concerning the
importance of this instinct in its effect upon the achievements of
men, but we are concerned chiefly, in dealing with children, with one
aspect of this tendency which is commonly known as the collecting
instinct. This desire to have the most complete collection of buttons,
postage stamps, pictures, birds’ eggs, shells, arrowheads, or
whatever else it may be, may often be utilized to great advantage.
Illustrative material for work in history, geography, nature study, and
to some degree for other subjects can be had in this way. Such a
collection will mean not only a much greater interest in the work, but
also a livelier appreciation of the subject, more images upon which to
base its generalizations. I have never seen a class that learned more
geography in a short time than was mastered by a class who
followed the American fleet around the world, collecting pictures,
products, and stamps for each of the countries visited, and writing a
full account of the country visited to accompany these illustrations.
Another class made most interesting collections in connection with
their study of colonial history. It is a mistake to suppose that ready-
made collections will answer the same purpose. They may illustrate
better, but the added interest and enthusiasm growing out of the
exercise of the collecting instinct will be wanting.
The collecting instinct may be utilized in work which deals with
ideas rather than things. Children may be just as keen in collecting
ideas about a subject in which they are much interested as in making
their collection of stones, or birds. The transition from the one type of
collecting to the other is apparent, in collections which are interesting
mainly for the ideas which they suggest.
The Social Instinct: The school has often overemphasized the
individualistic point of view. Competition is a legitimate motive; but if
all of school life centers around this motive, the child has lost much
in the non-exercise of that peculiarly human instinct which demands
coöperation and sympathy. At the foundation of our society is the
idea of working together for the common good. Boys and girls who
are to be most useful to their fellows, who are to do the most for
society, i.e. those who are truly educated, must have kept alive and
developed this spirit, more than altruistic, which sees in the good of
society the greatest individual gain. In a later chapter this topic will
be dealt with in considerable detail; suffice it to say here that many
opportunities should be found for group projects, for service on the
part of each member of the group of the sort that he is particularly
qualified to render.
Wonder: The instinct of wonder or awe, closely related to or
possibly identified with the religious instinct, is one that our modern
critically scientific attitude tends to discourage. No one who has had
the experience can doubt the value of this element in mental life. To
wonder at the glory of the heavens will doubtless make more
difference in the lives of most men and women than the smattering
of astronomy they may acquire. The man who wonders at the
manifestation of the power of the forces of nature may get more real
joy out of life than he who feels that he has solved all of her
mysteries. We are not as a people remarkable for our reverence. It
may be well urged that our schools have often been responsible for
the opposite attitude. This instinct of wonder will thrive only in a
sympathetic atmosphere. No teacher can directly inculcate or
develop it. Only that teacher who has preserved and nurtured the
instinct in her own life can hope to be effective in keeping alive the
same spirit in children.
In the first chapter it was claimed that teachers should work to
develop the socially sympathetic, intelligent, and active individual,
and that the ends to be expected from any exercises might be
classified as habits, knowledge, interests, ideals or appreciations,
and methods of work. In our discussion of the native reactions of
children, we have endeavored to show that the possibilities of such
accomplishment are the common possession of normal children. It is
for the teacher who would accomplish these ends most economically
to discover the instinctive basis for the habit to be formed, the
knowledge to be acquired, interest to be awakened, or appreciation
to be aroused. The instinctive interests of children will furnish the
most powerful motives, and will serve as a basis for the most lasting
results. Even when the native reaction is undesirable, the successful
process may depend not merely upon negation, but upon a grafting
upon the original tendency of one that is socially desirable; or, in
other cases, the substitution of another reaction based upon some
other instinctive tendency. We may not always follow where instinct
seems to lead, but we can never ignore these native tendencies.
Whether we blindly ignore or attempt to work against nature, or
wisely utilize the instincts, the fact remains that all of our work is
conditioned by the native equipment.
It has become more or less the fashion in recent years to decry
the theory of those who discuss the teaching process from the
standpoint of the child’s native tendencies, and with due regard to
his interests. The reactionary who continually harks back to the good
old times is still with us. The term of ridicule most commonly used in
lieu of argument is “soft pedagogy.” We are told that the only way to
develop men and women of strength is to begin by making sure that
we make our appeal on the basis of our superior authority, or even
brute strength, instead of finding the foundation for our work in the
instinctive curiosity and tendency to mental activity with which
children come to us. It is presumed by those who argue on the side
of the importance of authority that, unless children are compelled by
others to do hard tasks, they will never attempt anything that
involves effort. Again, they interpret interest to mean the blind
following of the child’s instinctive tendencies.
In our previous discussion we endeavored to show that education
concerns itself quite as much with the inhibition of undesirable
tendencies as with the encouragement of those which lead to
desirable activity. The process is not one of following where children
lead, but rather of availing ourselves of the native tendencies in
order that the ends we desire to achieve may be accomplished with
the least waste of time or energy. In reality, the choice between the
two positions is not whether we will have regard for childish instincts
and capacities, but rather whether we shall approach our task from
the standpoint of one who has faith in an appeal to the lower motive
of fear, or whether we believe that children are best prepared for
later activity who work out their own problems.
The best teaching can never consist in driving pupils to tasks
which they do not understand and which have little significance for
them. The standard of efficiency is found in ability to present to the
child a need, a purpose, or a problem which solicits his attention. It
may be that we shall be but imperfectly able to accomplish this
result, but, nevertheless, this must be our ideal. And it is not for
reasons of sentiment that we adopt it. The learning process is
explained in this way only. We make a new adjustment, reconstruct
our experience only in a situation which makes such a demand upon

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The Rise of Digital Repression: How

Technology is Reshaping Power,

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021932316

How the Digital Ecosystem Operates

Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Thailand.19 Telenor is obligated to respond

But the spread of online disinformation is equally dependent on individuals

Why Do Leaders Repress?

Thus, a third “pillar” of autocratic regimes comprises strategies of legitima-

most autocrats, building coercive apparatuses to guard against external threats—​

territory.”43 Without sufficient scope, carrying out digital repression is a hard—​if

Accordingly, digital repression strategies provide unparalleled capabilities to

communications, or manipulating political narratives, such tools can also

to confront political threats.47 The sheer number of countries adopting this

documented how Israeli, Italian, German, and US firms provided spyware to

Plan of the Book

political objectives. This chapter discusses democratic backsliding in the

Motivations and Incentives

information—​everything from email and text messages, to personal photos,

What Is Digital Repression?

of spyware relies on a variety of methods, including social engineering (psycho-

manipulation (activating fake online commentators to flood platforms with mis-

Social Manipulation and Disinformation

by Bolsonaro for including coronavirus-​related misinformation in violation of

slowing of Internet service or Internet traffic by an Internet service provider in

Targeted Persecution against Online Users

authorities as well, often as a warning to other citizens. In Thailand, for example,

The Dictator’s Digital Dilemma

concerns (demonstrating its responsiveness to public concerns and making cit-

to withstand a generally dismal environment for digital activism? In part, their

Is Digital Technology Changing the Balance

For Collateral Reading

If it is essential that the teacher approach her work with a clear

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most autocrats, building coercive apparatuses to guard against external threats—

territory.”43 Without sufficient scope, carrying out digital repression is a hard—if

information—everything from email and text messages, to personal photos,

by Bolsonaro for including coronavirus-related misinformation in violation of