Can Internet Rumors Get You in Jail?

It’s becoming increasingly common for bloggers and Internet commentators to be persecuted for what they write online (a new report on the enemies of the Internet released by Reporters without Borders last week confirms this trend). Political speech has traditionally suffered the most; however, some governments are beginning to feel uneasy even about mere rumors ...

It's becoming increasingly common for bloggers and Internet commentators to be persecuted for what they write online (a new report on the enemies of the Internet released by Reporters without Borders last week confirms this trend).

It’s becoming increasingly common for bloggers and Internet commentators to be persecuted for what they write online (a new report on the enemies of the Internet released by Reporters without Borders last week confirms this trend).

Political speech has traditionally suffered the most; however, some governments are beginning to feel uneasy even about mere rumors and speculations. The South Korean government made headlines a few months ago by arresting a prominent Korean financial blogger Minerva, whose financial doom-mongering had very dire consequences for the country’s financial markets, possibly leading to depletion of foreign-exchange reserves in the amount of $2 billion (to Minerva’s credit, he had also predicted the demise of Lehman Brothers five days before the firm collapsed). Similarly, a 18-year old American teenager who used CNN’s iReport to post a fake news report about the worsening health of Steve Jobs (cutting Apple’s market value by at least $4.8 billion in the first hour of Nasdaq trading) attracted some intense attention from the Securities and Exchange Commission (it’s unclear if they took any action against him).

But there seems to be plenty of speculation in areas other than finance. Today AFP reports that the Chinese authorities have detained a man who is accused of "posting a report on the Internet in January about 500 Uighurs demonstrating against a supposed murder in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region". The report stayed online only for three hours and was quickly removed, perhaps, a testament to the very effective censorship system designed by the authorities…But the fact that the author of the posting was actually identified and detained seems quite uncanny (unless, of course, the Chinese police grabbed an innocent man). All in all, given how fast the Chinese Internet seems to react to ethnic and nationalistic provocations, it’s likely that we would see more dissident groups try to destabilize the situation by playing on the feelings of the Chinese netizens…

Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and sits on the board of OSI's Information Program. He writes the Net Effect blog on ForeignPolicy.com

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