By tasking account owners to prevent access to disinformation, the law in effect compels individual citizens to act as censors on behalf of their government. Also, by treating all online publications as true/false propositions, it compels individual citizens to act as arbiters of truth.
Given historical precedence, it is easy to see how this could lead to a witch hunt between everyday internet users. In 2018, for instance, someone appears to have tipped-off Kyrgyz national security to a post by a university lecturer, Temirbek Bolotbek, in which he lambasted Soviet-era architecture as “boring, poor and slave-like shit”. Bolotbek was subsequently investigated for instigating “inter-ethnic discord and conflict” between Russians and Kyrgyz.
Were this incident to happen under the new law, Bolotbek’s opinion could instead be treated as a truth proposition, i.e., that Soviet-era architecture is by definition ugly. A passionate lover of Soviet-era architecture could vehemently disagree, but rather than debate Bolotbek, s/he might flag the post to authorities as being potentially false. In this way, the law invites people to clamp down on debate and see potential enemies of truth – subjective truth – behind every post.
Meanwhile, the law mentions online publications whose target audience are “an undefined number of people”, implying news agencies, civil society organisations, journalists and activists – namely, those whose occupation involves addressing a general audience. If implementation must be manual due to technical handicaps, this phrasing establishes these professionals as the most cost-effective target of surveillance.
Why this law?
All this raises the question: if the ultimate goal is surveillance and censorship, why this law? Surely there must be more effective tools? In fact, the new law is a quite effective tool.
In recent decades, attempts to legalise censorship in democratic contexts have relied upon either national security rationales or libel. Kyrgyzstan has already tried both, especially libel, specifically against news agencies, even bankrupting one. Such attempts eventually backfire in public opinion, as the general public inevitably reassesses the balance between their safety and their freedom, while libel laws inevitably and blatantly favour wealthy elites.
Disinformation, however, poses a more abstract rationale that is difficult to contend with. The evidential requirements to accuse someone of propagating “fake news” are lower than accusing someone of slander, much less of instigating inter-ethnic conflict.
Gulshat Asylbayeva, the law’s sponsor, claims that the legislation was inspired by the spread of Covid-19-related disinformation, including conspiracy theories about the origins of the novel coronavirus and dangerous pseudo-medical treatments. However, there is deep concern among Kyrgyzstan’s journalism and civil society communities that this is an attempt by politicians and the illicit patronage networks which back them to manipulate the upcoming October 2020 parliamentary election by chilling free speech.
The law’s passage comes on the back of a controversial parliamentary ruling that exonerated the Kyrgyz government of involvement in a massive corruption scandal. In November 2019, an international journalistic investigation accused Raimbek Matraimov, former deputy chairman of the Kyrgyz state customs agency, of being a key figure in embezzling US$932 million worth of customs revenue and goods out of Kyrgyzstan. The embezzlement was alleged to have been facilitated by businessman Aierken Saimaiti, who turned whistleblower only to be assassinated in Istanbul shortly before the news report was published. Matraimov and his family have denied any connection to Saimaiti or being involved in corruption, and have since filed a libel suit against the news agencies who conducted the investigation. (Note: the journalistic investigation is still ongoing and released new information today.)
If ratified by the president, the law will make it dangerous to raise concerns in digital spaces about corruption and behind-the-scenes influence upon the political process. Of all the wonders of this “wonderful” law, it does not matter whether a statement is actually false. What matters is that it might be false, which is sufficient to trigger an investigation and a take down order. In the hands of Kyrgyzstan’s unscrupulous politicians, this is a powerful weapon indeed.
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Christopher Schwartz | Radio Free (2020-06-29T11:59:48+00:00) Kyrgyzstan’s not so “wonderful” anti-disinformation law. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/06/29/kyrgyzstans-not-so-wonderful-anti-disinformation-law/
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