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Article

15 Jan 2020

Author:
Prabhjote Gill, Business Insider

As 2G returns to Kashmir after 5 months, these are some strong arguments against internet shutdowns in the future

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Internet shutdowns can have a lot of negative and harmful consequences for innocent individuals who don't necessarily pose a threat to 'national security', Marietje Schaake, president of the Netherlands-based Cyberpeace Institute. "I think internet shutdowns are very problematic. They are hardly ever anchored in rule-of-law principles or in any kind of mechanisms where victims can have avenues of redress,"... [I]n places of unrest, lack of access to the internet can be a threat to individual security... India's been in the spotlight for two consecutive years for having the highest number of internet shutdowns globally — 134 instances in 2018 and 103 in 2019... The effect of suppressing freedom of expression is reflected in India's ranking 140th out of 180 countries on the global press freedom index — an annual assessment conducted by Reporters Without Borders. 

"I think we need to wake up to the fact that if we're going to take a global approach to this, democracies today are not in the majority," claimed Schaake... Internet shutdowns are only one part of the problem. Surveillance technology is also being used for nefarious purposes... The same tool that people use to express themselves on social media can, in turn, be used to track those individuals, hack into systems, or target human rights defenders.

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