In June this year, people across areas of Sudan found their internet access severely restricted amidst political protests based in the country’s capital, Khartoum. This is not, however, the first time that people in Sudan had experienced limitations on internet access: in 2018, social media access was blocked for 68 consecutive days coinciding with political instability during Omar al-Bashir’s presidency.
This is just one example of a growing trend of internet blackouts used by governments in moments of political crisis, in which the internet is a vital channel of communication for discontent to spread and opposition to mobilise (Gohdes, 2015, p.355). Rights group, AccessNow, defines an internet blackout as the ‘intentional disruption of internet or electronic communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable, for a specific population or within a location, often to exert control over the flow of information’. In 2018, there were 196 internet blackouts, and the number continues to rise in 2019 (Selva, 2019, p.20).
The anthropological questions raised by internet blackouts, and the contexts in which they arise, are questions of freedom, security, and violence.
In 2018, governments used reasons of ‘national security’ to justify 40 of the 196 internet blackouts, and ‘public safety’ to justify another 91 (Selva, p.20). But what does it mean to justify something as a matter of ‘national security’ or ‘public safety’? When an issue is framed as such, it appears to lend weight to a government’s justification for restricting access to the internet and, to some extent, obfuscate the violations of human rights which certain activist groups have highlighted.
Furthermore, the term ‘national security’ leaves little room for the potential insecurities created by internet blackouts for those who experience them. An article published in the British Medical Journal argues that many were put at risk during internet blackouts in Kashmir this year due to inabilities to access online medication. Internet blackouts, however, also raise issues surrounding the insecurity of democracy, a concept thrown into question when freedoms such as internet access are restricted. Here, insecurity lies in the fragility of the internet as an infrastructure embedded in complex power structures, where public access can be easily cut off.
Another question to consider, therefore, is whether we can describe internet blackouts as a form of infrastructural violence, either ‘passive’ in which ‘socially harmful effects derive from infrastructure’s limitations and omissions’, or ‘active’ referring to ‘articulations of infrastructure which are designed to be violent’ (Rodgers and O’Neill, 2012, pp.406-407).
The answer to this question, however, is not straightforward; instead, we must be open to questions of agency and design and their interaction with the internet as an infrastructure, and how at the intersection of these ideas we might see the potential for violence.
The internet – specifically social media – is a powerful medium for activism and solidarity, as demonstrated by the #blueforsudan movement. But it is this same capacity which makes it a prime target for governments trying to limit unrest, who know all too well the powers of the internet (Selva, p.21).
References
Gohdes, A. (2015). Pulling the plug. Journal of Peace Research, 52(3), pp.352-367.
Rodgers, D. and O’Neill, B. (2012). Infrastructural violence: Introduction to the special issue. Ethnography, 13(4), pp.401-412.
Selva, M. (2019). Reaching for the off switch: Internet shutdowns are growing as nations seek to control public access to information. Index on Censorship, 48(3), pp.19-22.
Linked Resources
Access Now. (2019). Available at: https://www.accessnow.org/keepiton/#problem [Accessed 3 Nov. 2019].
Bendimerad, R. and Faisal, N. (2019). #BlueforSudan: Why is social media turning blue for Sudan? Al Jazeera. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/blueforsudan-social-media-turning-blue-sudan-190613132528243.html [Accessed 3 Nov. 2019].
Mahase, E. (2019). Kashmir communications blackout is putting patients at risk, doctors warn. The British Medical Journal. Available at: https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l5204 [Accessed 3 Nov. 2019].
NetBlocks. (2019). Sudan internet shows signs of recovery after month-long shutdown. Available at: https://netblocks.org/reports/sudan-internet-recovery-after-month-long-shutdown-98aZpOAo [Accessed 3 Nov. 2019].
anthropology of infrastructure 2019 