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Demonstrators hold up books during a protest against censorship in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in O ctober 2019
was fired after releasing data on the rise of deforestation and fires in the Amazon. At the beginning of the pandemic, the government edited an emergency decree suspending access to information deadlines, and has since taken down the website of the ministry of health. Brazil’s vibrant civil society reacted and the Supreme Court reverted both cases. But the rate of response to information requests has steadily decreased, and public trust in government data weakened. Journalists and the media are affected twofold: the lack of information creates new challenges and an environment of distrust, additionally, under the rhetoric of fake news, Bolsonaro is sparing no effort to attack and defund the media. Hostility towards journalists, not taking their questions and opting for live streams instead of press conferences have become the new normal. The Brazilian democratic constitution of 1988 set a framework under which, by leaps and bounds, participation grew, rights became recognized and enforced, and citizenry could see a future ahead. The 2019 Democracy Index declassified Brazil to a “flawed democracy.” The democratic resistance belt that is still forming could either corner the government and stall the erosion of freedoms and democratic institutions until the next elections or result in Bolsonaro’s ouster or resignation altogether. We would however still have to deal with the political culture that brought us here.
The long shadow of digital darkness Government-imposed Internet blackouts have increased in India over the last years. Technologist and public policy researcher Rohini Lakshané describes the impact of internet shutdowns to people in India and its economy. by Rohini Lakshané
One summer evening in August last year, the Indian government placed the state of Jammu and Kashmir under military lockdown, imposed a blackout of all communications services, stripped the state of its autonomous status and redrew its borders. This was the start of what would become the longest internet shutdown in a democratic country. It is one of the 121 shutdowns to have happened in India in 2019 and one of the 394 that have occurred in the country since 2015 — figures that make India the world’s internet shutdown capital year after year. The government for its part maintains that blackouts of telecommunications are an instrument to prevent the spread of violence, curb rumors and misinformation, control public unrest or “terror activities” and to prevent “proxy wars” and “the spread of propaganda/ideologies” that cause “disaffection and discontent among people.” Part of the justification given for such executive fiats is the violent armed insurgency that Kashmir has been experiencing since the 1990s. Shutdowns in the country are highly localized, restricted to a city, district or region, always implemented unannounced to the public, and lasting as long as the administration deems fit. Sometimes mobile voice, SMS and local TV broadcasts are shuttered along with the Internet. Two major incidents in the country led to a slew of network
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