-The Sri Lankan government blocked access
to several social networks in the aftermath of suicide attacks
that killed more than 290 people.
Online misinformation has stirred up
deadly ethnic violence in the country in the past.
And the ban was meant to stop false information
from causing further violence.
-I have been following the events on the ground,
literally since the first news of the attacks
reached the media.
The nature of the misinformation that I witnessed
in the immediate aftermath of the attacks
was of a nature that tried to use the chaos,
confusion, and catastrophe in the country
to further parochial and partisan agendas
and also to seed more violence and division.
-But shutting down social media,
even for ostensible public safety reasons,
can be problematic.
Social media is a key means of communication
during major terrorist events.
And analysts question whether shutting down social media
has any real affect in diffusing tension.
-For Sri Lanka, is this really addressing the problem?
If you have a country that has
the sharp sectarian and ethic cleavages
if you have the persistence of mis-education and misinformation
and people who can react so viciously to potential rumors.
Is blocking social media really going to work
or is it just playing whack-a-mole?
-Sri Lanka's government has done this before,
banning access to social media in March of 2018,
when anti-Muslim riots left three people dead
and prompted a state of emergency.
-It directly impedes the ability of those pushing back
on misinformation to operate anywhere,
while not really impeding the producers of misinformation.
-And Sri Lanka is not the only country
to enforce social media shutdowns
in response to violent threats.
Digital rights group NetBlocks estimates
there have been 60 incidents of full
or partial online shutdowns since 2015.
Authorities in the Indian state of Kashmir,
blocked 22 social media platforms in the spring of 2017,
claiming the sites helped helped spread,
"anti-national messaging" in the disputed territory.
Pakistan's government also blocked access to Twitter,
Facebook, and YouTube shortly after Islamist protests
began to spread throughout the country in November of 2017.
Critics of government intervention
in social media question
whether it actually has any effect in curbing violence.
And say it can be used as a cover for oppressive regimes
to censor citizens.
-It does open the door to a slippery slope
of reusing this claim of we have security concerns,
therefore we have to censor.
And we've seen other countries both expand their censorship,
so they've gone from blocking some social media,
some of the time, to blocking some web pages all of the time.
We-- We've seen countries expand the definition
of what counts as terrorism and include
evermore political concerns.
Turkey passed a law allowing it to control social media,
turn it off when it thought there was a national emergency.
They did that in 2016 when there was a coup attempt.
And that has spiraled into Turkey
really expanding its censorship.
We've seen African countries do this during elections.
They cite security concerns.
Congo, Chad, Uganda have done this.
They said "We're worried about political violence
during an election."
But is it really trying to suppress the vote,
to smother your opposition?
-Despite the inherent risk, regulating social media
has gained global appeal.
Even in countries with strong protections for free speech.
In response to deadly mass shootings in New Zealand
that were live-streamed on Facebook
and spread wildly online, Australia proposed
strict government regulations on social media.
Which would include sending platform
executives to prison for failing to remove violent content.
The UK unveiled similar plans in April,
punish tech giants for spreading content
that includes child exploitation,
fake news, terrorist activity and violence.
-It's really telling that the Pew Center
actually did a study and the United States
is the only country in which they surveyed,
in which a majority of responded
actually said it's okay for people to put misinformation
and potentially inflammatory content on social media
and we shouldn't block it,
because of our strong belief in the First Amendment
and the freedom of speech.
But in every other country that was surveyed,
including European countries,
majorities felt that it's better to police this sort of content.
And we clearly see the trend leaning in that direction.