Kazakhstan: The public opposes censorship on social media
Citizens of Kazakhstan are collecting signatures for a petition demanding that they refuse to accept amendments that tighten control over social networks.
As ACCA has already reported, deputies of the Parliament of Kazakhstan approved amendments to legislative acts on the protection of the rights of child, education, information and informatization. Among the proposed amendments is to oblige social networks to remove illegal content, first of all, we are talking about Internet harassment and bullying within 24 hours from the date of receipt of the order from the authorized bodies.
A few days later, Kazakhstani journalists demanded to abandon these amendments.
“We urge not to adopt this bill. These proposals threaten to infringe human rights and interests. They allow the Ministry of Information and Social Development, under the pretext of protecting children from online bullying, to demand the removal of almost any content, limiting access to the entire foreign Internet platform in case of refusal. These amendments are unconstitutional, because they contradict the Constitution of Kazakhstan,” was said in the open appeal of journalists and human rights activists, posted on the website of the International Center for Journalism MediaNet.
Now ordinary citizens have joined the journalists.
“This bill, along with logical and necessary provisions, contains a number of norms known as the Amendments of Sarym-Zakiyeva. They give the opportunities for restricting access to social networks and instant messengers in the country. The adoption of these amendments will jeopardize the presence of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Telegram, WhatsApp and others in the Internet space of Kazakhstan. Millions of Kazakhstanis use them to communicate, conduct business and participate in the political life of the country. This is not only a blow to Kazakhstan’s political course of integrating into the global community as a respected human rights player, but also a potential blow to the country’s economy,” was said in the petition posted on avaaz.org.
According to the authors of the appeal, the explanations that these norms are aimed at protecting children from cyberbullying are just a cover for the desire to ‘establish greater control over the Internet and strengthen censorship’.
“Anything can be summed up under the vague concept of information that violates the requirements of the laws of Kazakhstan, including justified criticism of the authorities by civil society or anti-corruption investigations. We are sure that the beneficiaries of the adoption of these amendments will be only dishonest officials and people who want to throw Kazakhstan back fifty years – to the Soviet Union – in times of total censorship and neglect of basic human rights. Statistics on requests to remove content sent by the government agencies of Kazakhstan to Google since 2011 show that discriminatory statements don’t even make up one percent of them; the main requests concern national security and criticism of government officials. We demand that the Parliament return this bill for revision with the active participation of human rights organizations in Kazakhstan, representatives of non-state media and public organizations. Signing the bill in its current form is a step that will set our society back decades and put us on a par with rogue states, both politically and economically,” says the petition, which has already garnered over five thousand signatures.
It’s worth noting that the confrontation on this issue is gaining momentum. On the one hand, officials and pro-government bloggers and activists are convincing the public that these amendments are necessary. On the other hand, human rights activists and independent journalists call for signing the petition.
“Under the guise of counteracting cyberbullying and the need to protect children, a mechanism is being legalized when you can quickly restrict social networks and messengers and remove content. The current legal norms already allow fighting extremist content, although procedurally this is a longer work, and our officials want to quickly and easily remove everything that they don’t like. Now, just believe me, the Ministry of Information is doing this on the principle of telephone law, threats and flattery, but apparently they want to be able to command, not insist. After all, it worked out in Russia, that’s how it started,” says a well-known Kazakhstani independent journalist Zarina Akhmatova about this.
“The proposed measures will in no way contribute to the fight against cyberbullying, but are a veiled attempt to establish control over the Internet. In the world, out of 200 states, only 12 countries block instant messengers and social networks. Moreover, these countries can hardly be classified as developed, but they are absolute outsiders in the freedom of speech ratings. Well-known social networks and messengers operating in Kazakhstan already comply with and apply a set of enforcement measures prohibiting the dissemination of information on topics such as violence, sexual exploitation of children, abuse/harassment, hate propaganda, suicide, and other illegal content. According to experts, the adoption of this bill will lead to such negative consequences as restricting the right to receive and disseminate information,” Tamara Kaleyeva, president of the International Foundation for the Protection of Freedom of Speech “Adil Soz”, believes.
“I am absolutely sure that only officials will be the beneficiaries of the law. And the only children, who will be protected by this law, are the children of officials who will not be afraid of investigations and scandals. I am absolutely sure that there have been no normal preliminary studies proving the terrible scale of cyberbullying in social networks. Also, as far as we know, children don’t use, for example, Facebook. But all Internet platforms with a traffic of 100,000 users per month fall under the law (!). That is all. All of these companies have their own effective policy against disruptive content, as well as the ability to report such content. But the main problem of all foreign platforms is that they are outside Kazakhstan’s jurisdiction. And therefore our officials cannot dictate or demand anything to them; for example, to delete a critical post or revealing video. And it’s thanks to foreign jurisdiction that we feel freedom of speech and use it – in social networks and instant messengers. And it’s this freedom of speech that our officials want to press. Nobody needs this bill: neither the media that have their own accounts and channels on social networks and the ability to promote their content, nor bloggers, nor ordinary users, nor businesses.
In social networks and instant messengers, on the contrary, you can draw attention to outrageous cases, collect help for those in need, and inform each other. This very dangerous bill, which will actua/wp of Information and Social Development into an Internet gendarmerie or a network People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, is only for officials. I urge everyone to oppose it, because it concerns each of us,” Adil Dzhalilov, head of Factcheck.kz project, said.
