In many cases illegitimately, governments have used claims of misinformation and disinformation, plus claims about the necessity of emergency public health measures, to suppress the spread of coronavirus information within their borders. Though unsurprising, the trend underscores the necessity of understanding censorship as an often complex, distributed process thats more than just a central entity ordering a block on a news website.
In Russia, the Kremlin used existing laws to demand that social media platforms, even some based in the US, remove posts that criticized the governments coronavirus response or even contested its very likely downplayed infection counts. These technical capabilities, already established in the respective countries, were quickly mobilized against truthful coronavirus information to protect the regime.
However, governments have used the coronavirus pandemic to develop new censorship tools, and to leverage existing ones with greater frequency.
Misinformation in India, the worlds biggest democracy, has spanned coronavirus treatments, the nature of Italys lockdown, and hate-fueled lies attacking Indias Muslim community. But leaders in Russia, China, India, and elsewhere have largely used claims of public health emergency and mis- and disinformation to suppress free speech, particularly that which embarrasses or criticizes the state.
The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our livesfrom culture to business, science to design.