Challenges to Freedom of Expression in the Digital World: Lessons from WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Two recent developments – the WikiLeaks releases and the Arab Spring – have demonstrated the capacities of individuals and movements in advancing free expression, transparency and social change through the use of online and social media. However they have also highlighted new sets of challenges and threats that interfere with, and restrict, such media uses. In this article I will present an analytical framework for understanding and investigating these contemporary restrictions to freedom of expression, based on the dimensions of information control, access to infrastructure, critical resources and applications, surveillance, and physical repression. The model takes into account current trends such as the use of intermediaries in control regimes, and provides a global perspective that incorporates restrictions in both East and West. Further, I will outline how free expression advocates and civil society campaigns, such as the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), have contested these practices, and discuss whether their agendas confirm the issue areas highlighted above. The restrictions to, and the advocacy for, free online communication demonstrate some of the key struggles and contestations on freedom of expression in the current digital media environment, the strategic points of intervention by different actors (states, businesses, and civil society), and the requirements for “modern freedom of expression”. Keywords: Freedom of Expression, WikiLeaks, Arab Spring *** Résumé : Deux développements récents – les communiqués de WikiLeaks et le Printemps Arabe – ont démontré les capacités des individus et des mouvements de faire avancer la liberté d'expression, la transparence et le changement social grâce à l'utilisation des médias en ligne et sociaux. Cependant, ils ont également mis en évidence de nouveaux défis et menaces qui interfèrent avec et restreignent les utilisations des médias. Dans cet article, j’ai élaboré un cadre analytique pour rendre compréhensible et analyser ces restrictions contemporaines de la liberté d'expression, sur la base des dimensions suivantes : contrôle de l'information, accès aux infrastructures, aux ressources et applications critiques, surveillance et répression physique. Le modèle prend en compte les tendances actuelles telle que le recours à des intermédiaires dans les régimes de contrôle et fournit une perspective globale qui intègre les restrictions à la fois à l'Est et à l'Ouest. De plus, j’ai mis en exergue la manière dont les défenseurs de la libre expression et des campagnes de la société civile, telle que l'initiative islandaise des médias modernes (IMMI), ont contesté ces pratiques de contrôle. Les restrictions à la communication et le plaidoyer en faveur de la communication libre démontrent les luttes et contestations clés sur la liberté d'expression dans l'environnement médiatique numérique actuel, les points stratégiques d'intervention de différents acteurs (Etats, entreprises et société civile), et les exigences relatives à la « liberté d'expression moderne ». Mots-clés : liberté d’expression, WikiLeaks, Printemps Arabe
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.049 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.018 | 0.020 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.009 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".