115th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the 

1st Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Internet Freedom in the OSCE 

Region: Trends and Challenges

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Briefing of the 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Washington: 2018


CSCESeal.EPS
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Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

234 Ford House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515

202–225–1901

csce@mail.house.gov 

http://www.csce.gov 

@HelsinkiComm

Legislative Branch Commissioners

HOUSE 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, NEW JERSEY

Co-Chairman 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FLORIDA

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, ALABAMA

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, TEXAS

STEVE COHEN, TENNESSEE

RICHARD HUDSON, NORTH CAROLINA

RANDY HULTGREN, ILLINOIS

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, TEXAS

GWEN MOORE, WISCONSIN

SENATE 

ROGER WICKER, MISSISSIPPI, 

Chairman 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. MARYLAND

JOHN BOOZMAN, ARKANSAS

CORY GARDNER, COLORADO

MARCO RUBIO, FLORIDA

JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE

THOM TILLIS, NORTH CAROLINA

TOM UDALL, NEW MEXICO

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND

Executive Branch Commissioners

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 

1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of 

January 1, 1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 56 participating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. 

The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the participating States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and 

meetings are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior 

Officials, Ministers and Heads of State or Government. 

Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military 

security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian 

concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage 

and resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys 

numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the 

Caucasus, and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>. 

ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki 

Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage 

compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular 

emphasis on human rights. 

The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of 

State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the 

Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff 

assists the Commissioners in their work. 

In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that 

reflect the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details 

about the activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating 

States. 

The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy 

regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with 

parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission 

is: <www.csce.gov>. 

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Internet Freedom in the OSCE

Region: Trends and Challenges

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Page 

PARTICIPANTS 

Jordan Warlick, Staff Associate, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe ........... 1

Sanja Kelly, Director, Freedom on the Net, Freedom House ...................................................... 2

Dariya Orlova, Senior Lecturer, Mohyla School of Journalism in Kyiv, Ukraine ..................... 5

Berivan Orucoglu, Human Rights Defenders Program Coordinator, The McCain Institute .... 7

Jason Pielemeier, Policy Director, Global Network Initiative ..................................................... 10

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Internet Freedom in the OSCE

Region: Trends and Challenges 

November 14, 2017

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Washington, DC

The briefing was held at 1:00 p.m. in Room 215, Senate Visitors Center, Washington, 

DC, Jordan Warlick, Staff Associate, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 

presiding. 

Panelists present: Jordan Warlick, Staff Associate, Commission for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe; Sanja Kelly, Director, Freedom on the Net, Freedom House; 

Dariya Orlova, Senior Lecturer, Mohyla School of Journalism in Kyiv, Ukraine; Berivan 

Orucoglu, Human Rights Defenders Program Coordinator, The McCain Institute; and 

Jason Pielemeier, Policy Director, Global Network Initiative.

Ms. WARLICK. All right. I think we’ll go ahead and get started. On behalf of the Helsinki Commission, welcome and thank you for coming to today’s briefing on internet 

freedom in the OSCE region. My name is Jordan Warlick, and I am responsible for media 

freedom issues at the commission. 

It goes without saying that the internet has fundamentally changed the way we 

communicate and receive information. This has, by and large, been for the better, allowing 

for greater access to information and freedom of expression. Yet, in this constantly 

evolving landscape of new technologies are new threats and tactics to control and manipulate information. These range from far-reaching restrictions such as excessive internet 

regulation or government shutdowns of websites and social media platforms, to more 

proactive tactics such as arrests of online journalists or campaigns to actively spread 

disinformation. 

While autocracies increasingly fear the power of the internet and crack down on 

online activity, democracies struggle with how to counter foreign content manipulation 

campaigns without undermining internet and media freedom. OSCE participating States 

have agreed to uphold the principles of free expression and free media, which should 

apply as much on the net as off the net. 

This is a big subject to tackle, but we’re fortunate to have such an expert group of 

panelists to help us dig deeper into the issues. Earlier today, Freedom House released its 

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1 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2017

annual Freedom on the Net report, 1 copies of which have been made available. We’ll first 

hear from the director of Freedom on the Net, Sanja Kelly. She’ll share the general 

findings of the report with us, as well as a more targeted assessment of the situation in 

the OSCE region. Following Sanja, we have Dariya Orlova, who is a senior lecturer and 

deputy director of research at the Mohyla School of Journalism in Kyiv. Dariya will shed 

some light on the specific trends in Ukraine, which has seen one of the greatest declines 

in internet freedom over the last year and has been a top target for Russian interference. 

Dariya was a journalist herself in Ukraine, prior to her academic career. 

Next, we’ll hear from Berivan Orucoglu, program coordinator of the Supporting 

Human Rights Defenders program at the McCain Institute. She previously served as 

senior communications adviser to the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and has experience as 

a journalist at various news outlets in Turkey, Europe, and the United States. Turkey’s 

internet freedom record has declined significantly in recent years, which I’m sure Berivan 

will elaborate on much more for us. 

Finally, Jason Pielemeier is policy director at Global Network Initiative, and works 

with policymakers and other stakeholders to enhance protections for free expression and 

privacy globally. Before joining GNI, he was special adviser at the Department of State, 

where he led the internet freedom, business and human rights section in the Bureau of 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. We will follow remarks from our panelists with 

a question and answer session. 

Thanks, again, to our panelists for being here today, and Sanja, if you could please 

start us off. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you very much, Jordan. I’m deeply grateful to the U.S. Helsinki 

Commission for the opportunity to address this important topic. 

My name is Sanja Kelly, and I’m the director for Freedom on the Net project at 

Freedom House. As some of you might know, Freedom House is the oldest American 

human rights organization working on the ground in over 30 countries to help democratic 

governments and to support human rights defenders, independent media and political dissidents. Although our programs are far reaching, we’re perhaps best known, actually, for 

our publications. And as Jordan mentioned, today we are releasing the eighth edition of 

one of our signature reports, Freedom on the Net, which examines the state of internet 

freedom in 65 countries globally. 

Freedom on the Net is kind of a Michelin guide for net freedom, because we rank 

governments based on their performance, so you can immediately see on our website, and 

then also in our publication, what score countries receive, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how they compare to one another. 

The findings of this year’s Freedom on the Net are particularly disturbing. And we 

had seen that internet freedom has declined for the seventh consecutive year as governments around the world have dramatically increased their efforts to manipulate the 

information on social media. The Chinese and Russian regimes have pioneered many of 

the techniques that we will be talking about today, but this manipulation issue has really 

gone global, and we have seen that governments in 30 out of 65 countries that we examined have employed some of these methods. 

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I will just give you a few examples. In the Philippines, we have seen keyboard armies 

actually writing about these issues on behalf of the government, covertly, and kind of 

giving the indication that policies by the government are widely supported. We have also 

seen armies of trolls paid by the Turkish Government attacking journalists and attacking 

human rights defenders. 

The OSCE region itself, with its 57 member states, is diverse in terms of geography 

and in terms of type of polity. It encompasses countries that are some of our best performers on the index, so countries like Estonia, Iceland, Germany, the United States, and 

so forth. But then, it also encompasses some of the worst performers. Those would be 

Uzbekistan, Russia, and Turkey. And one of the worrisome observations from our study 

is that Russia, an OSCE member, is using the internet to interfere in democratic processes in other OSCE member States—not just the U.S. and Western Europe, but also in 

places like Armenia, Ukraine, and elsewhere. 

These same manipulation techniques, including paid pro-government commentators, 

bots and fake news, that the Russian authorities have been using in their disinformation 

campaigns abroad, have long been used, actually, against Russian independent journalists, political opponents, and other critical voices. But this is just only one of the aspects 

of controls on the internet that we had seen from the Russian Government. For example, 

amid major anti-government protests held in 2017, the Russian Government scrambled 

to further tighten control over the internet, and now, with presidential elections looming 

in March of 2018, lawmakers took every opportunity to push through legislation aimed 

at curbing dissent online. The space for anonymous communication shrunk as the government imposed restrictions on virtual private networks [VPNs] and proxies, which are key 

tools employed by both activists and ordinary users to use the internet in relative safety 

from the government’s surveillance, while also allowing access to sensitive content. 

And then, there is another new law which requires users of online messengers to register their phone numbers, linking their online communication to their real identities. And 

LinkedIn was the first major international platform blocked for refusing to comply with 

data localization requirements. We’ve seen social media users imprisoned for their expression online, and we’ve also seen LGBT activists charged with spreading so-called gay 

propaganda online, and they were issued hefty fines. But overall, in terms of the region, 

internet freedom in the OSCE has followed similar patterns as the rest of the world. And 

of the 19 OSCE countries we examined, 12 declined, 4 improved and 3 saw no notable 

change. And I would like to highlight the following three trends over the past year that 

contributed to this overall decline. 

Number one, as I mentioned, is this issue of growing online manipulation. And as 

online censorship and other restrictive tactics prove inadequate in curbing dissent, more 

and more governments are now mass-producing their own content to distort the digital 

landscape in their favor. Our study documents that the creation of online government 

propaganda, through government-sponsored websites and outright editorial directives to 

news media, were among the most widely utilized methods of manipulation, and they 

were followed by paid government commentators, by use of political bots and intentional 

distribution of false news stories—‘‘fake news,’’ as you will have it. 

Although some governments sought to support their interests and expand their influence abroad, as was the case with Russia, in many cases governments actually used these 

methods inside their own borders to maintain their hold on power. So in Turkey, for 

example, some six thousand people have allegedly been enlisted by the ruling Justice and 

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Development Party to manipulate discussions, to drive particular agendas and counter 

government opponents on social media. 

The second trend I wanted to highlight is this issue of physical attacks. And the 

number of countries that featured physical reprisals for online speech increased by 50 percent globally over the past year. This trend was mirrored in Eurasia as well, where online 

journalists and bloggers who criticized the government, who wrote about corruption or 

about social issues such as LGBTI rights were beaten, and in some cases, murdered. Perpetrators in most cases remained unknown, but their actions often aligned with the 

interests of politically powerful individuals or entities. 

In Russia, for example, in May of 2017, Dmitry Popkov, who is editor-in-chief of a 

local newspaper and online outlet, was shot and killed in his home by unknown assailants. Popkov was known for his critical reporting on corruption, abuse of power and criticism of authorities. Failure to bring to justice perpetrators of these attacks perpetrates 

a cycle of impunity and creates a chilling effect for others writing on the same substantive 

issues. And then, I want to bring up this issue of technical attacks, because this is something that we have highlighted as a global trend, and it has been a particularly important 

trend in the Eurasia region. Technical attacks against news outlets, opposition and 

human rights defenders has generally been on the rise globally, but our analysis showcases, actually, that the greatest number of successful attacks—meaning when the 

websites were taken down, or when activist networks were infiltrated—actually took place 

in Eurasia and Latin America. 

Indeed, the security vulnerabilities present government-affiliated entities with an 

opportunity to intimidate critics or censor dissent online while avoiding responsibility for 

their actions. And it is often difficult to identify, with certainty, those responsible for 

anonymous cyberattacks, including when suspicions of government involvement are high. 

There are several outcomes, or several particular ways in which we had tracked some 

of these attacks. We had found that the most frequent outcome of these attacks was actually having websites temporarily disabled. These types of attacks, you know, are often perpetrated through distributed denial-of-service attacks [DDoS]; they’re a relatively easy 

and relatively inexpensive way to retaliate against those who report on sensitive topics. 

And we had seen that in a number of countries. In Azerbaijan, for example, the independent online news platform Abzas was subject to a series of DDoS attacks in January 

2017, and they were actually online until they were able to migrate to a more secure 

service. 

We’ve also seen, as an outcome of these attacks, increased surveillance of reporters 

and dissidents. And just to give you an example, in August of 2016, reports emerged that 

Kazakh opposition figures and dissidents living abroad were targeted with malware 

attacks, with evidence suggesting that the attacks were conducted by agents of the 

government via an Indian security company called Appin Security Group. 

We’ve also seen websites and social media accounts being compromised. For example, 

in Belarus, on the eve of the March 25th Freedom Day demonstrations, the Facebook 

account of one of the opposition leaders and a chief organizer of the protests was hacked, 

and the account, then, after it was hacked—it actually disseminated fake posts under this 

opposition leader’s name that actually discouraged people from attending the demonstration. 

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So the issues that I outlined are serious and pressing, and given that many of our 

social interactions today take place online, this fight for internet freedom has become 

inseparable from the broader fight for democracy and human rights. And I’m just going 

to offer a few recommendations in the end, in terms of what can be done to help remedy 

this issue. 

Number one would be, through Congressional appropriations, we should ensure 

robust funding for the State Department and other relevant agencies for internet freedom 

programs that support advocates around the world in combating disinformation. They also 

provide cybersecurity training to civil society and independent journalists, and enable 

emergency assistance for human rights. 

I would also urge the U.S. Congress and the commission to speak out and condemn 

publicly when someone is arrested or physically attacked for simply posting their views 

online on politics, human rights, or social issues. And that will send a message that these 

incidents do not go unnoticed by the U.S. Government. I think, domestically, we need to 

ensure that political advertising is at least as transparent online as it is offline, and 

online political ads should indicate who sponsored them, and social media companies 

should make this information available and indicate the source of payments for such ads. 

And finally, better media literacy is needed to help citizens discern fake news from 

trustworthy sources, and Congress should review current law and policy with this in mind 

and assist in these educational efforts through speeches, town halls, and other constituent 

engagements. 

Thank you. 

Ms. WARLICK. Thank you very much, Sanja, for the summary of your findings in your 

report and for offering those recommendations to us. Dariya? 

Ms. ORLOVA. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this discussion, and also provide an overview of the Ukraine case. According to this year’s Freedom 

on the Net report, Ukraine has shown to be one of the biggest declines among examined 

countries. The country has lost seven points compared to the previous year. The major 

reason of the decline is the introduction of bans on several Russian internet services, 

including two popular social networks, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, a popular email 

service, Mail Ru, one of the most widely used search engines, Yandex, and several other 

online services as part of sanctions against Russian companies. 

So the ban was introduced in May this year. In justifying the ban, the Ukrainian 

Government argued that it is a security measure in response to the information war 

launched by Russia against Ukraine, pointing to the capacity of Russian security services 

to extract and use metadata on Ukrainian users from these platforms. The move got a 

huge public reaction, both inside the country and outside, particularly given the popularity of the targeted websites; to give you some figures, about 20 million of Ukrainian 

users were registered on VKontakte, and about 5.5 million users on Odnoklassniki, which 

means that every fourth Ukrainian was online on VKontakte. 

Several other factors, however, also contributed to the Ukraine’s drop in the index 

of internet freedom this year—among those, persistent prosecution of social media users 

for expressing separatist viewpoints and threatening the territorial integrity of Ukraine. 

So, dozens of such cases have been noted. In addition, there has been quite a dangerous 

environment for online activists and journalists, particularly in the light of the murder 

of online journalist Pavel Sheremet in July last year. 

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The report on Ukraine also reflects a tense situation with internet freedom, especially 

with regard to user rights violations and online censorship in the eastern part of the 

country, in the self-proclaimed separatist republics, where de facto authorities have been 

prosecuting and even imprisoning social media users and bloggers. So, this also contributed to the overall score of Ukraine. The ban on Russian social media by the Ukrainian 

government attracted fair criticism from various actors, however, primarily from the 

external ones. In the very country, response has largely been less critical, although one 

could observe divisions with regard to this issue and criticism as well. Acceptance of the 

ban by a significant part of the Ukrainian society, particularly among elites, is explained 

by the acuteness of challenges that Ukraine has been facing during the last three years. 

So, as you might know, during these last three years, Ukrainians have experienced 

Euromaidan revolution, then annexation of part of the territory—Crimean Peninsula by 

Russia, and the eruption of armed conflict in the Eastern part of Ukraine. These actions 

were also accompanied by very harsh propaganda and disinformation campaigns coming 

from Russia, and the scale of these campaigns has been enormous during these last three 

years. It started with outspoken distortions in the coverage of Euromaidan protests and 

biased portrayal of protesters by Russian media, which contributed to polarization of 

Ukrainian society, particularly in the regions characterized by stronger historical and cultural ties with Russia, where people tended to consume Russian media, including news, 

quite a lot. 

Thus, Russia utilized vulnerabilities of some of the social groups in Ukraine. 

Disinformation and propaganda has had quite many forms in Ukraine, starting from fake 

stories disseminated through the mainstream media, but not only. For instance, Russia 

created supposedly Ukrainian websites with very critical content about Ukraine and the 

government, but then journalist investigations revealed that, in fact, those outlets are 

located in Russia, and they don’t even have local correspondents in Ukraine. So their 

whole content about Ukraine is coming from Russia, and what is more, they present themselves as Ukrainian media outlets, but in fact, they are not. 

We have also seen proliferation of various agents conveying specific narratives into 

Ukrainian online public sphere. For instance, one of the most recent examples is the 

findings by the BBC on the Russian troll factory in St. Petersburg that worked with the 

self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic in Eastern Ukraine to produce extreme propaganda 

videos that aimed to discredit pro-Ukrainian elements and stirred up the conflict in the 

region. So these videos were widely disseminated through social media. 

In Ukraine, we have also found some other examples of such manipulations coming 

from external agents. In the online public sphere, for instance, Kremlin-aligned trolls have 

been observed posing as enthusiastic Ukrainian patriots online, creating several—not several, but dozens of thematic groups and communities in the social media, and observers 

have noted that the troll accounts operated in quite intricate networks and often highly 

active in Ukrainian patriotic groups on social media, sometimes even acting as administrators of those pages. Their profile pictures have been observed to contain symbolic 

Ukrainian images, and those accounts typically posted content and comments that 

depicted the Ukrainian Government as failing their citizens and calling for the violent 

overthrow of the current administration. So their biggest message and narrative was that, 

let’s have the third Maidan—let’s overthrow this government, which is not leading 

Ukraine in the right way. 

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However, it is not only external agents that have been flooding the Ukrainian online 

public sphere. There have been numerous attempts to manipulate online debate in 

Ukraine, coming from many different political actors inside the country. So we have seen 

the growing number of attacks on journalists—I mean, verbal attacks on journalists 

online, especially those journalists that produce some critical contents—some investigations. So their accounts on social media have been flooded with very negative comments 

from various accounts, most of which have features of trolls or bots. So, as a result, we 

now can observe social media fatigue among media community and broader public, too, 

in Ukraine, because of this toxic influence of paid commentators, trolls and bots. And 

many journalists claim that they feel discouraged to actively participate in the online 

debate because of this high presence of trolls and bots. 

There are reports suggesting that the network of companies and organizations that 

offer such services to various actors, including politicians, is quite broad in Ukraine, and 

so there is the whole ecosystem that includes various actors that manipulate the online 

public sphere. So I think that this briefly tells us about the situation in Ukraine and the 

major challenges that Ukrainian internet freedom and actors of internet freedom have 

been facing so far, and I’ll be glad to answer to your questions. 

Thank you. 

Ms. WARLICK. Thank you, Dariya, for that summary of the significant challenges that 

Ukraine is facing. Berivan? 

Ms. ORUCOGLU. Thank you. Thank you, Sanja, for a great report, and that very 

depressing one globally. [Laughter.] Actually, it really breaks my heart to talk in a panel 

about internet freedom and about Turkey, because not long ago—like seven years ago, 

Turkey was seen as a model country for Middle East and for other democracies. And yet, 

here we are, and Freedom House has every right to mention the sharp decline in internet 

freedom, because this is not only freedom of internet, but freedom of press, freedom of 

expression in general is restricted in Turkey, and by the day, we are losing more rights. 

And maybe, just to mention some figures would help you to have a better understanding. 

Since 2013, it was the mark of the protests—Gezi protests—Turkish public has 

divided tremendously: pro-Erdog ̆an, pro-government people and the people who hate 

Erdog ̆an in whatever he does. So there is enormous polarization within the public, and 

the government is trying to control the message, not only in mainstream media, but also 

on social media. The mainstream media is under government control, either by government people or even the other opposition papers are trying to align themselves with 

government because they are scared of the bans and imprisonment, which they have every 

right to be. 

Right now, in Turkey, there are 150 journalists behind bars, and 200 media outlets 

are shut down. Over a thousand civil society organizations are also shut down. And after 

last year’s failed coup attempt, more than 60,000 people have been arrested and 140,000 

are fired or suspended from their jobs. And just last year, almost 4,000 people are sued 

for insulting President Erdog ̆an on their social media accounts. And I want to remind that 

240 of them were under the age of 18. So it is really grim—the situation is grim. The 

mainstream media already lost its touch with people, so people do not trust mainstream 

or traditional media, and the primary focus for news gathering is social media. So this 

also brought more restrictions to internet freedom, and especially in social media. 

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So most of the time, Turkey is seen and Turkey is reported as the world champion 

in Twitter censorship. And most of the content withheld or blocked requests are coming 

from Turkey, and unfortunately, this year, we didn’t disappoint. Once again, in Twitter 

requests, Turkey has failed. And internet connection is so often slowed down—especially 

during security operations or protests or after terrorist attacks. Actually, when I first 

came to the United States, I was a little bit panicked, because I didn’t have a wi-fi connection. So, automatically, I assume something big is happening. It was just Comcast maintenance. [Laughter.] But it takes me for a while to get used to this. Unfortunately, we are 

so used that internet slowing down or shutdowns. Access to, for example, Twitter, 

Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp are restricted so many times, and sometimes 

blocked—sometimes just for a couple of hours, or days, depending on the situation, 

depending on the region, and mostly southeastern part of Turkey affected from those 

restrictions. 

Oh, another—Wikipedia is permanently blocked, actually, in Turkey since May. So 

it’s because of Turkey’s involvement in Syrian war—or, allegedly—and popular VPNs and 

Tor is also blocked or limited. Over 100,000 websites are banned, and most of the time, 

the owners of the banned sites are not informed or have enough time to comply the 

requests. So there are so many websites are banned. And almost every day, minimum 

seven people are detained because of their social media posts. So people are actually quite 

paranoid to write anything or to talk about anything. And they have a good reason for 

it. 

In recent years, after the coups, people, including journalists, academicians and activists, are hesitant to even like or re tweet a post, because they don’t know what it can 

bring in terms of charges, in terms of—it is so easy—the perception is basically, you can 

lose your job or your freedom if you are not supporting the government—more than the 

government, President Erdog ̆an. 

So this is the general mood, and the government has so many tactics. Sanja mentioned that, for the last four years, government employed 6,000 trolls, basically, to harass 

and to control the online content and online discussions. They ended up harassing journalists, human rights activists, or any citizen, basically, who is opposing President Erdog ̆an 

and his policies. 

And no one is immune. It included politicians, academicians, top models or film directors, singers. So anyone from society can be targeted by those trolls. And usually, those 

trolls are not only harassing them online, but most of the time, it brings prosecution after 

that. So this is the dangerous trend. Also, there was a hack in one of the ministers’ email, 

and we learned from those leaked emails—we have 6,000 trolls, but also we have more 

people who are just die-hard loyalists, and only working for President Erdog ̆an. And the 

smaller group, apparently, is looking for coders, graphic designers or former military 

members who have experience in psychological warfare. 

And trolls are not the only thing that government is using to repress, basically, the 

free communication—free online communication. Turkey is one of the highest countries 

in using bots in Europe and Middle East and Africa. There was also an interesting case 

last year. The government is not only oppressing the opposing voices, but also eliminates 

competition within the governing party. Last year, then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu 

forced to resign after a blog appeared, which was called Pelican Brief. And it was basically 

harassing Davutoglu and his team, and he ended up resigning, and an Erdog ̆an loyalist, 

basically, replaced him. And this blog was basically run by pro-government columnist and 

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journalists who are known close to Erdog ̆an and Erdog ̆an family. And also, this year, 

apparently, they are hiring new hackers—it’s called white hat hackers—and there was an 

online competition to find the best hackers to protect Turkey, which kind of creeps me, 

because I don’t know what they are going to be responsible of. 

If those are not enough, by the way, the police are also encouraging people—regular 

citizens to become ears and eyes of the State. So they have new applications and accounts, 

basically, to tell citizens to snitch others. So people are sending screen shots or links of 

certain Twitter accounts, and they send it to police so that others can actually follow up. 

And the pretext is always national security, and to protect country, but it ended up—

people, for example, snitching about their coworkers which they don’t really like. So there 

were so many examples. And also, this—the Turkish people, because of this whole harassment, basically, they rely on encrypting messaging. They don’t trust anyone; they no 

longer use Twitter as—they still use Twitter or social media platforms, but they are more 

hesitant to share their own views. So they are using WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal or 

those kind of encrypted messaging services. And one of those messaging services became, 

actually, quite relevant, because after the failed coup attempt, thousands of people were 

arrested just because they have an application on their mobile phones. The application 

was called ByLock, and right now, 200,000 people are under investigation because of this 

application. 

According to government, if you have any links to this application, this means that 

you are basically a coup plotter or you are trying to overthrow the government somehow. 

The good news is, even the government realized that this single app cannot be a whole 

evidence to imprison people. Bad news, there are so many people already in jail because 

of this application, for months. But I want to be fair—before the last year’s coup attempt, 

no one ever heard of this application in Turkey other than this Gu ̈lenist group who were 

basically in charge of the military failed coup attempt. 

And I just want to make a warning to U.S. public, basically, because this attitude 

towards the Gu ̈len group—they were actually the allies of Erdog ̆an until very recently—

and in the United States, there is almost an understanding that this group is kind of 

tolerant, moderate and basic activist organizations. The perception in Turkey—opposition 

or government, everyone—almost everyone unites that this is not a really clean organization. They are not transparent. They are responsible of the failed coup attempt, which 

attempted—250 peoples’ lives, and thousands of people were injured. And more than that, 

they are not only responsible of the failed coup attempt, but until recently, they are the 

ones who were doing the illegal wiretapping, or they were the ones harassing people 

online, fabricating evidence, which ended up with so many journalists in jail in 2008 and 

basically until 2012. 

So this—we’re not talking about a group of really clean activist organization, but 

unfortunately, it seems that the dislike of Erdog ̆an in the West, especially in the U.S., 

seems to give a free pass to Fethullah Gu ̈len and his organization. But for so many people 

in Turkey, people have great difficulty to understand this attitude. Yes, there are so many 

reasons to criticize Erdog ̆an. We do it every day. But this doesn’t mean that some of the 

measures, at least, have some sort of a pretext. Yes, Erdog ̆an used this as an excuse to 

oppress more critics. And there are so many people in jail who have nothing to do with 

Gu ̈len—basically, journalists, activists—they always criticized Gu ̈len, but they ended up 

in jail. This is Erdog ̆an. But also, Gu ̈len, who is residing in the United States, is a huge 

issue for Turkish people. And for the first time, the entire Americans and Turkey is in 

10

90 percent. So people are united against that and I really warn the U.S. public to be more 

careful when dealing with Gu ̈len. There is a reason that—of this whole attack and whole 

criticism about Gu ̈len in Turkey. 

Last but not least, yes, the situation is grim, but Turks are resilient and creative. 

They come up with different tricks every day to basically overcome the obstacles and 

restrictions. For example, one banned website recently celebrated its 41st new domain 

name—[laughter]—and it’s not the only one—so many of them. And I’m not going to be 

able to tell the trick, but smart Turks can access Wikipedia with just a minor trick. I don’t 

want to tell about it because—[chuckles]—then it can also be banned. 

But thank you for listening, and I’m open to questions. 

Ms. WARLICK. Thank you very much for describing the realities in Turkey. The statistics you referenced were pretty incredible and very disturbing. Jason? 

Mr. PIELEMEIER. Thank you Jordan, and thank you to the Helsinki Commission for 

hosting this event. Thank you to the fellow panelists. Just want to start with a brief 

introduction to the Global Network Initiative, for those who don’t know us. GNI is a global 

multi-stakeholder platform that’s dedicated to the protection of free expression and privacy online. Our members include internet and telecommunications companies, human 

rights and media freedom groups, academics as well as investors. So a very broad-based 

coalition. 

We work with four principal functions. The first is, we have a set of GNI principles 

and related implementation guidance, which provide a framework for responsible company 

decisionmaking and action in response to government requests and demands. We foster 

accountability through an independent assessment process to evaluate our member 

companies’ implementation of those principles. On the basis of this, sort of, trusted platform, we then create. We do shared learning, both internally among our members, which 

is a, kind of, closed, private conversations, as well as externally with relevant stakeholders, including government. And then, finally, we promote collaborative policy engagement on the issues that are central to our mission. 

In almost all of those areas, we use and place tremendous important value on the 

Freedom on the Net report, and I’d like to just take this opportunity to thank Sanja and 

her team of incredible writers and editors for producing yet another year of invaluable, 

if disheartening, reports. I also want to pay special attention and send my thanks to those 

organizations that provided financial support to Freedom on the Net, without whose support this report can’t cover nearly as many countries as it does. So, in particular, I want 

to note GNI members Google and Yahoo—now Oath—who supported the report again this 

year. And I also want to acknowledge the vital support of the State Department’s Bureau 

of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, where I worked until quite recently. I hope the 

folks here on Capitol Hill remain committed to supporting DRL’s amazing internet 

freedom grant work, including its support for Freedom on the Net. 

So I want to talk a little bit about some of the trends that have been discussed so 

far, but place them, perhaps, in a little bit of a longer historical timeline. I think that 

you can see a lot of the activity that’s been taking place—the sort of repressive activity 

that’s been taking place online of late as a reaction to some of the frustrations that 

governments have had in trying to take simpler routes to getting rid of problematic content or surveilling people who they think are using the internet in ways that undermine 

their own regime security. 

11

So, you know, traditionally, the kind of initial approach of repressive governments 

to problematic content—content that they see as problematic is to try and censor it. I 

think, increasingly, they have found that they don’t have as much leverage over the principal social media platforms as they would like, and they have become frustrated with 

their inability to get as much compliance as they would like to see from the major net 

companies. I think, you know, GNI, certainly—we’d like to take some of the credit for 

that. Our principals help provide a framework and support for companies in pushing back 

against over-broad requests from governments. 

And then, on the surveillance side, I think, you know, in particular, the increasing 

use of encryption, both HTTPS encryption for web searches as well as end-to-end 

encryption for messaging has made it more difficult for repressive governments to have 

direct access to the content of individuals that they are trying to monitor. And so what 

we’re seeing is sort of an evolution of tactics in response to some of those frustrations. 

So I would characterize those in two general, sort of, categories. One is defensive 

maneuvers by governments intended to protect themselves from activities that they see 

as threatening to their power base, and then, offensive, which is a newer set of activities 

which include activities that go beyond just their own traditional jurisdictional borders. 

To speak a little bit about some of the trends that we observe in each of those categories, first, on the defensive side, folks who study history may remember in the 1970s 

and 1980s—in particular, in Latin America, an economic model called import substitution 

industrialization, where developing countries essentially imposed very high tariffs on 

imports in order to try and shelter and build up domestic industrial production. This was 

largely a failed economic strategy, but I think I see some parallels in today’s internet 

era—what I’ll call internet substitution informatics. So it’s ISI, but a different realm, and 

a different set of techniques. 

So governments are essentially increasing the scrutiny and their requirements for 

foreign media generally, and foreign social media specifically, as well as supporting the 

development and protection of national champions—trying to build up national competitive social and internet services—social media and internet services. You see that, for 

example, in Turkey; Turkcell has come out with a new search engine called Yaani, which 

is intended to promote Turkish culture and values. 

You see that in Russia, with some of the protectionism for some of the Russian internet media companies, which are seen as useful and more accessible and more compliant 

for government, as opposed to the foreign media and social media companies. I think that 

it dovetails with some of the threats we’ve seen just in the last week from President Putin 

to respond, quote/unquote, ‘‘tit for tat’’ to the forced registration of RT here under FARA. 

And so no action has been taken, but there’s certainly a signal that there may be steps 

taken in days to come against foreign social media, in particular U.S. social media. 

Those sort of building up in support for domestic internet services, I think, are also 

in line with kind of the broader strategy that you see recently in Ukraine, right, 

attempting to basically ban Russian social media. Not as much in order to protect any 

kind of domestic incumbent, but rather as a security measure. 

And sort of similar to that, you know, there is a very sort of conscious and by now 

several-year-old strategy on the part of certain authoritarian leaders, in particular in the 

OSCE region, to discredit Western social media platforms. So Zeynep Tufekci, the Turkish 

scholar, has called this Erdog ̆an’s strategy to demonize social media. And certainly 

12

Vladimir Putin has been quite vocal in his criticism of platforms like Facebook and 

Twitter. So I think that some of those efforts to discredit the Western social media companies, I think, are also part of a broader attempt to try and get the public in some of these 

places to either move away from or approach what they see on those platforms with caution. 

And I think, unfortunately, the media narrative and policy narrative that’s evolving 

here in the U.S., as well as it has a somewhat longer history in Western Europe, around 

hate speech and fake news is playing into that. You hear some of these authoritarian 

leaders saying, Yeah, we told you that these platforms were dangerous places where horrible things happen. And without any sense of irony for what sort of role they may have 

played in fostering some of the hate speech and so-called fake news, they are now very 

happy to see people in the U.S. and in Western Europe calling for limitations on these 

platforms and essentially approving of regulation of speech on social media platforms. 

Another trend that has certainly picked up steam and is well-documented in the 

Freedom on the Net report is the push for increased data localization. So Russia has its 

very strong personal data law, which requires any data operators that record, systematize, 

accumulate, store, amend, update, and retrieve data collected on Russian citizens to do 

so on servers located physically in Russia. The enforcement of that to date has been 

spotty. Dariya mentioned or Sanja mentioned, I think, that LinkedIn was the first sort 

of trial balloon. So LinkedIn was essentially pushed out of Russia for not complying. You 

know, LinkedIn did not have a huge business there, so it wasn’t a huge deal to them or, 

I think, to the Russian Government. So it’s still unclear whether or not they would be 

willing to take similar steps towards some of the larger platforms, but we’ve heard just 

in the last week threats to sort of make Facebook the next company against whom the 

Russian media regulator might enforce that law. And we’ve seen that kind of personal 

data law copied in other CIS companies, for example in Kazakhstan. 

It’s unfortunate, I think, that—and again, with each of these examples, I think that 

the governments, in particular in the OSCE region, have been able to cite sort of legitimate policy rationales as a pretext for what are essentially authoritarian maneuvers. So, 

in the case of data localization, they can point to the data protection laws in Europe in 

particular and some of the incipient data localization in Western Europe. So, for example, 

Turkey’s data protection—Turkey has a law on the protection of personal data which came 

into effect in 2016 which limits the transfer of personal data out of Turkey and puts 

burdensome obligations on individuals which transfer personal data to another country. 

It also created a Data Protection Board, which is staffed by political appointees rather 

than technical staff, to assess which other countries provide a, quote/unquote, ‘‘adequate’’ 

level of privacy protection. 

So this is very similar to the European Privacy Shield arrangement, which has gotten 

a lot of attention in terms of its application to the U.S. And not to in any way suggest 

that the European Privacy Shield or data-protection regime more broadly is intended to 

enhance European surveillance—I don’t think that’s the case at all—but I do think that 

you could question the motives of, for example, the Turkish Government, whether it really 

is about protecting data of Turkish individuals, or rather an attempt to concentrate that 

data domestically, where it’s easier to get access to it. 

So, moving to some of the trends we see on the offensive side, again, one that was 

noted in the Freedom on the Net report was the increased use of spyware or hacking tools 

very specifically against targeted individuals, either journalists or opposition figures. 

13

That’s something we’ve seen worldwide, but also in the OSCE region. Azerbaijan journalists have been targeted, and it seems clear the government may have had a hand in that. 

The opposition in Kazakhstan has documented in a court case that’s been brought by the 

Electronic Freedom Foundation. Going back a couple years now, Privacy International did 

a landmark, very extensive report on surveillance in Central Asia that documented purchase orders by many Central Asian regimes to some of the Western companies that 

produce this spyware, and there’s very little control domestically within those countries 

in terms of how the government has used that software. 

I think, again, the concerns around surveillance that came out of the Snowden revelations in 2013 have undermined, I think, some of the criticism of this trend. And I think, 

unfortunately, also some of the attention to concerns about extremist content and terrorist 

use of the internet have been a ready justification that some of these authoritarian 

governments use to justify the purchase and use of these hacking tools. 

The other big trend, which is the headliner for this year’s Freedom on the Net report, 

is the use of misinformation. So Berivan talked a little bit about the RedHack leak in Turkey, and the insight that it provided into the Turkish Government’s attempt to sort of 

smear political opponents and engage in psychological warfare, as you said. Clearly, we 

see this coming out of Russia for political purposes, as Sanja and the report rightly points 

out, not just targeted against the United States but against a large number of countries, 

many of whom are in the OSCE region. 

But we also have seen good journalistic reporting on covering some of the misinformation that’s really purely for economic purposes, so the infamous Macedonian journalists—oh, sorry, not journalists, but teenagers—[laughter]—who were, you know, basically 

cut-and-pasting right-wing disinformation, and packaging it in a way that they could get 

as many clicks as possible and generate actually fairly significant income, at least by 

Macedonian standards. 

And, of course, the Western policy narrative that we’ve seen cited as a justification 

for this kind of—in particular the cross-border manipulation of information is the very 

internet freedom agenda that the U.S. Government, with strong support from both parties 

here on Capitol Hill, has pursued. Of course, that’s extremely cynical and disingenuous, 

but that is the excuse and the pretext that is at times cited by authoritarian regimes. 

So those are some of the trends that I think we’ve seen increasingly. I’m particularly 

concerned with the copycatting and the exchange of worst practices, perhaps we can call 

it, that we see in the OSCE region, in particular in the CIS region—a lot of exchange 

of know-how. You know, the Russian SORM system—the System of Operative Investigative Measures—which is the sort of surveillance at the internet-backbone level, is 

reproduced in a number of countries in Central Asia, and relies heavily on Russian 

companies who provide some of the hardware and software components of that. A lot of 

these tactics we’re seeing modeled, whether it’s just sort of observing it and copying it, 

or whether there is some kind of collaboration and cooperation among these governments 

is still not entirely clear. 

But we need to take heed of that and do as much as we can collectively as organizations that support internet freedom, as individuals working to support internet freedom, 

and as components of the U.S. Government to ensure that we are providing the right 

counter sort of channels of information sharing to increase awareness not only of digital 

security measures and ways to avoid surveillance and censorship, but also making sure 

we are articulating what good policy looks like so that those governments that are sort 

14

of on the edge, trying to figure out how to regulate the internet, have good, clear examples 

of how to do it in a rights-respecting way, so that they can balance that against some 

of the more problematic and authoritarian models that are being provided. 

I’ll stop there. Happy to engage in Q&A. 

Ms. WARLICK. Thank you very much for sharing some of the trends that you’re seeing 

from the diverse GNI member perspective. 

We’re running a little bit short on time, and we don’t want Sanja and Dariya to miss 

their flights, but I will just go ahead and ask a couple of questions to you now and then 

open it up to Q&A. Hopefully we can get a few in if we can please make answers as brief 

as possible. 

First, to Sanja and Jason, you’ve both been tracking developments in the internet 

freedom space for some time. Has there been a particular country that has most surprised 

you this year in the OSCE region—for Sanja over the course of this report, and Jason 

in the last year at GNI and the State Department—and either for the better or for the 

worse? 

And then, to Berivan and Dariya—Dariya, you mentioned that the Ukrainian elite 

have maybe been a little bit less critical as a result of the acuteness of the challenges 

Ukraine is facing. How encouraged are both of you, in Turkey and Ukraine, by the civil 

society and public response to what’s been going on? And how much of an influence do 

you think that this could have on the top levels of government, or does any chance for 

improvement need to originate from the top? And further, how can the U.S. Government 

and specifically the U.S. Congress better support civil society and internet freedom advocates? 

Whoever would like to start—maybe Sanja and Jason’s question first? 

Ms. KELLY. Sure. So, in terms of some of the biggest surprises, actually, it was 

Ukraine for me because until recently Ukraine actually fared reasonably well in terms 

of internet freedom, and it is over the past year that we have seen these new restrictions 

surface. I think for me personally it’s been particularly disappointing because in order, 

essentially, to fight Putin’s tactics—the Ukrainian Government has embraced censorship, 

and in a way has become like Putin in this particular extent. So that would be one particular country. 

Another one that—perhaps it’s not as surprising, but it’s definitely a diversion from 

the past, is the case of Azerbaijan. And Azerbaijan has always been in the business of 

restricting internet freedom, at least since we started tracking the country, but their tactics have changed over the past year. In the past, they seem to have focused on actually 

arresting online journalists and online activists who were speaking out against the 

government, but they actually weren’t blocking many websites. And, in fact, that’s one of 

the key reasons when we would go and talk to the government officials or when they 

would make presentations at international conferences, they would say, Oh, what censorship in Azerbaijan? We’re not blocking really anything. And that has changed over the 

past year. 

They had passed a new law that essentially authorizes blocking in wide circumstances, mainly in the circumstances where national interests or the interests of the 

society are being impacted. And as a result, we’ve seen a number of independent websites, 

including an online TV channel as well as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, being 

blocked. So, anyway, just a change of tactics there. 

15

Mr. PIELEMEIER. I guess I would call attention in particular to some of the countries 

that actually do fairly well on the report, notwithstanding the fact that they operate in 

a very difficult neighborhood where there are a lot of challenges that they have to deal 

with and no easy solutions. In particular Georgia, which is in the top 10, I think deserves 

a lot of credit. You know, the record there hasn’t always been great, but over time they’ve 

managed to avoid some of the worst decisions that some of their neighbors have made 

and they’ve managed to maintain a relatively liberal, rights-respecting environment 

online. Also worth pointing out, Armenia and Kurdistan as countries that do relatively 

well. And I think it’s really incumbent on all of us to not only call out those countries 

that do really poorly, but also acknowledge the countries that are doing relatively well, 

and make sure we provide support to them so that they can continue to demonstrate in 

a kind of more locally appropriate and perhaps adaptable way how to protect internet 

freedom in that region. 

I also would just point to the Ukraine as kind of one of the countries of biggest concern, not because I—you know, certainly the difficult environment that they face, the difficult information environment as well as the physical attacks and conflict in that country, 

are in some ways unique. But really for those very reasons I think it is incumbent on 

all of us to be doing more to provide support to reformers who are trying to take advantage of what I think a lot of people see as a really once-in-a-generation opportunity to 

liberalize the legal architecture in that country. 

That window I fear is closing. I mean, Dariya can speak to it much better than I 

can, but I feel that window of opportunity is closing quickly, and it’s only going to get 

more and more difficult to implement liberal reforms. And so I commend those here on 

Capitol Hill who have made Ukraine a real sort of consistent point of attention and focus, 

commend organizations like Internews and others within GNI who have been doing a lot 

in that country, but really encourage more of all of our organizations and entities to do 

more to support in particular internet policy reform in the Ukraine. 

Ms. WARLICK. Thank you. 

Dariya and Berivan, if you’d like to answer the other question I asked or respond 

to any of the other comments. 

Ms. ORLOVA. Yes. You asked about the reaction of the civil society to the ban and 

to other initiatives that could threaten the internet freedom in Ukraine. Well, actually, 

when it comes to this particular ban, I would say that the voice of those who opposed 

it was quite weak in Ukraine. So even if they—of course, there have been actors who—

I mean, like some NGOs, some journalists—who expressed their criticism of the move. 

However, they haven’t been very active in expressing that and reaching like the big media 

discourse. And that is explained by the extreme sensitivity of the issue of the UkraineRussia war, because there’s this general atmosphere of fear in Ukraine that Ukraine’s 

territorial integrity and sovereignty is still under threat, and so let us not discuss that 

a lot. 

However, some positive signals that could be observed in Ukraine recently include 

a quite strong reaction of NGOs with regard to several proposed bills that also included 

some of the provisions that potentially could lead to restrictions in terms of internet 

freedom. And then NGOs united—Ukrainian NGOs united—and they have been quite 

unanimous in their criticism of those provisions. And so in one of the bills that was 

accepted, this dangerous provision was deleted from that. So I would say that’s an 

16

example of some positive impact that NGOs can have when it comes to the restrictions 

of the internet freedom. 

To summarize, when it comes to the conflict with Russia issue, it’s very sensitive, 

and you cannot expect much strong voices in Ukraine. But when it comes to restrictions 

with regard to some political implications, one can expect such voices. 

Ms. WARLICK. Thank you. 

Ms. ORUCOGLU. You asked how encouraged I am, and I’m a natural-born pessimist, 

so not very much. But I think things will get worse before it gets—or even if it gets—

better. 

The thing is, I 100 percent agree to Sanja and her recommendations, especially about 

the speaking up part, because for most of the activists or imprisoned people the only thing 

that matters, you know, and helps their release is the international support. And with 

this administration, but also even with the Obama administration, Turks were very much 

disappointed because they didn’t really see the support or public support of the imprisoned activists or the journalists. And so, so many people are actually looking for Congress 

to speak out when there is human rights violations or against press or private citizens. 

And I agree with you that DRL is doing a very important job, but we see less and less 

State Department’s involvement about those issues. 

So, absolutely, the activists not only in Turkey but in the region are looking forward 

to hear just a little something to keep them going on, because if anything the authoritarians—not only Erdog ̆an, but other authoritarians as well—really care about their international image. They are affected, and they actually sometimes end up releasing people 

who are in prison. The international community needs to speak up, and this is my 

expectation as well. 

Thank you. 

Ms. WARLICK. All right. Well, I think we’ll open it up if anyone in the audience has 

a question. 

Yes? 

QUESTIONER. For Jason, then back to Sanja. This important report comes at a time 

also when the large media and internet companies are accelerated in size so dramatically. 

We see the alignment of civil society and freedom seeming to be much more comfortable 

with the private sector, and are kind of looking to the private sector to help us navigate 

where to go. But at the same time, the sheer scale of Google and Amazon and Facebook 

is a flip side of that story. I’m curious where you would comment that this report leads 

into the OTT data streaming discussions at U.N., and how the future of mobile banking 

and data flows across government lines—you know, will we lean towards less regulation 

or more government control? 

Ms. WARLICK. If you could also please introduce yourself? 

QUESTIONER. Well, I’m affiliated, in a sense, with Freedom House. We are supporters 

of Freedom House. 

Ms. WARLICK. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. PIELEMEIER. I think that there’s a number of components to your question. I 

think the issue of data flow restriction is a really concerning one to us at GNI. I think 

there are—I mentioned the trends around data localization—and also the broader issue 

of data protection, and how that could end up affecting when and where and how companies can share information even within their own sort of corporate systems when that 

17

information has to flow from one country to another. And again, I don’t want to pass any 

judgment on data protection measures, which are sort of outside of our scope, but I do 

think governments need to be very concerned and very careful with how they develop 

restrictions on data flows, because we have seen already the appeal that such restrictions 

have to authoritarian governments who want to use them as a pretext for their own 

information-control measures. And so whether the data restrictions are being designed to 

protect privacy or in furthering some sort of economic or trade priorities, I think it’s just 

really incumbent on democratic governments to think very carefully about the way in 

which they approach those kinds of potential restrictions. 

And I think really, we would say that there needs to be kind of a presumption in 

favor of the free flow of data. And so we should only restrict it in those rare circumstances 

where there is an extremely compelling policy rationale, and enough safeguards built in 

around whatever system is being designed to ensure that that data restriction will not 

lead to the fracturing of the internet and cannot be used as a pretext for other governments to do what might essentially amount to censorship or surveillance. 

Ms. WARLICK. Thank you. 

Would anyone else like to comment? Sanja? 

QUESTIONER. About the large players, large actors. [Laughter.] 

Ms. KELLY. Well, I think it’s been interesting to observe how certain partnerships 

between civil society and the private sector have evolved. And I think in many ways that 

has happened because the private sector and the companies don’t like restrictions and 

regulation. So then, as part of their business model, they actually don’t want to see censorship and they don’t want to be subjected to the policies that we see in China and 

Russia and other places. So it’s in their interest to actually promote internet freedom. And 

for that reason we had seen some quite successful partnerships between NGOs and 

human rights defenders in the field, and then companies like Google and so forth, many 

of which are GNI members. 

I think on the flip side of that coin we’ve also seen that the products of some of these 

companies are actually spaces in which some of the key trends that we identified in this 

year’s report, it’s where they happen. And in many ways, then, these products and tools 

have become ways through which governments and malicious governments are able to 

manipulate and in some ways restrict freedom of expression. 

I think it’s an interesting dynamic to observe and we’ll see what the future brings. 

But I do want to highlight that civil society has had pretty successful partnerships with 

many of the companies. 

Ms. WARLICK. Thank you. Do we have any more questions? I think we have time for 

one more. 

If not, I’ll just welcome all of you to give any final remarks you’d like to give. 

Ms. KELLY. Well, thank you all very much for coming today and for taking an interest 

in this important subject. I just want to highlight the importance of U.S. Congress and 

the Helsinki Commission in speaking out against the abuses because, I think as several 

of us have mentioned, that has proven to be critical in highlighting some of these cases, 

and in some instances the release of activists who were imprisoned for simply speaking 

out on democracy and human rights. 

And I also want to echo what several of my colleagues up here said, that we have 

personally witnessed the success of the State Department programs in much of the world 

18

when it comes to protecting internet freedom, and not many governments and not many 

entities are actually funding this very important fight that is currently going on to prevent internet censorship from happening. A lot of the partners that we see on the ground, 

a lot of the frontline human rights defenders, are really relying on the support from agencies such as the State Department and DRL. I just want to underline the importance of 

supporting their important work through appropriations and other measures. 

Ms. WARLICK. Thank you. 

Anyone else? 

Ms. ORUCOGLU. Completely agree, everything she said. [Laughter.] 

Ms. WARLICK. Very well said, Sanja. And thank you so much to all of the panelists 

for being here and for all of you for coming. 

That concludes our briefing. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you. [Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 2:18 p.m., the briefing ended.] 

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