Tag: internet

Towards a Russian Internet?

Posted on June 15, 2026 | Policy Brief

The internet enables information and opinions to flow rapidly and at low cost, including across national borders. It allows individuals to coordinate collective action on an unprecedented scale. Many authoritarian governments, therefore, seek to control the online information environment. This policy brief examines the evolution of internet control in Russia and documents how censorship and network disruptions have intensified since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Drawing on three complementary datasets—Access Now’s Shutdown Tracker Optimization Project (STOP), the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) initiative, and the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI)—we document a sharp increase in internet disruptions, platform blocking, and website censorship in Russia since 2022. We argue that this expansion of censorship was enabled by a longer-term shift from a relatively decentralized system of internet regulation towards a centralised infrastructure capable of monitoring, filtering, and controlling internet traffic at scale.

The Online War

The Russian government has been fighting its war against Ukraine on multiple fronts: aside from the battlefield in Ukraine, there is also an online front at home. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Kremlin has sought to control how the war is presented to the Russian public. Within weeks of the invasion, Russia blocked Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and restricted access to numerous foreign and independent media outlets. In the years that followed, restrictions expanded to include VPN services and specific features of messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram.

These measures are not isolated events. Rather, they represent the latest stage in a broader effort to control the Russian internet. Over the past decade, Russia has gradually built the legal and technical infrastructure needed to monitor, filter, and disrupt online communications. The war in Ukraine has revealed the extent of these capabilities and accelerated their deployment.

This brief examines how internet control in Russia has evolved in recent years. We discuss the challenges of measuring internet censorship and analyse evidence from three complementary datasets. Together, these measures show a sharp increase in internet disruptions, platform restrictions, and censorship since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Why Control the Internet?

The internet has transformed the way information is produced, shared, and consumed. It allows information and opinions to spread rapidly at low cost, including across national borders, and enables individuals to coordinate collective action on an unprecedented scale. For an authoritarian government, the internet allows the spread of information that contradicts official narratives and can facilitate political opposition. The role of social media in mobilising protests during the Arab Spring highlighted the power of the internet.

In response, many authoritarian governments have sought to exert greater control over the internet. China is the most advanced example of state control over the online information environment. Through its “Great Firewall”, the Chinese government controls access to foreign information and platforms, while influencing and monitoring domestic online activity through censorship, regulation, and the cooperation of domestic technology companies.

Russia has historically taken a different approach. Until recently, Russians retained access to many Western platforms, and internet censorship was implemented in a relatively decentralized manner by internet service providers. Rather than constructing a separate internet from the outset, Russia sought to control information flows while remaining integrated with the global internet.

Authoritarian Trade-offs

Why might the Russian government have followed this light-touch approach, and why change course now? The literature in economics and political science describes two trade-offs an authoritarian government faces when deciding how much control to exert over the internet.

The first is economic. Describing the ‘dictator’s dilemma,’ Kedzie (1997) writes, “it may now be virtually impossible for any country to maintain an open economy for expansion while remaining closed to democratic ideas“. Estimates of the economic cost of internet shutdowns support this argument. One estimate suggests that government-imposed outages cost the global economy $19.7 billion in the year 2025 (Migliano 2026).

The second is informational. Egorov et al. (2009) argue that an authoritarian government that constrains free media and communication flows too aggressively cuts itself off from information required to govern effectively. Local bureaucrats have no incentive to perform in the absence of reliable independent monitoring. King et al. (2013) provide empirical evidence for this in the context of Chinese social media censorship. They find that censors allow (potentially informative) criticism of the government but specifically target posts that could give rise to collective action.

Controlling the narrative around a prolonged, costly war necessitates a greater level of intervention. The censorship strategies discussed below can be viewed through the lens of a government seeking new ways to navigate both trade-offs.

Tracking Internet Shutdowns

Identifying government-imposed internet shutdowns is challenging. Affected users will typically have no way of verifying the extent or true cause of an outage, and their ability to report it in real-time may itself be curtailed. As a result, organizations that monitor internet shutdowns use very different methodologies. In our brief, we will describe three of the most prominent publicly available datasets that attempt to track disruptions to internet services worldwide.

Access Now, a member of the #KeepItOn coalition, provides a publicly available dataset of internet shutdowns through its Shutdown Tracker Optimization Project (STOP). The distinguishing feature of STOP is that it establishes intent. It combines technical data on internet connectivity with either official government statements or information provided by informed insiders. STOP records various types of technical disruption: from full blackouts to throttling and partial service restrictions. However, a measured disruption of internet services is only recorded as a shutdown event if it can be traced back to deliberate government intervention with a high degree of confidence. The advantage of this approach is that one can be confident that each instance in the data reflects a deliberate government-induced shutdown. The limitation is that the dataset likely undercounts shutdowns in data-scarce or highly repressive environments where establishing intent is not always possible.

Figure 1 plots internet shutdowns in Russia, and for comparison, the FREE network member countries from 2016 to 2025. The chart is dominated by the sharp upward trend in Russia, starting in 2021, and accelerating after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There is also an increase in Ukraine after the invasion; which includes both Russian actions that disrupted connectivity and Ukrainian measures to block specific Russian platforms. Similarly, Latvia imposed nationwide blocks of two Russian platforms after the start of the invasion. The chart also shows the internet blackouts in Belarus amid widespread protests following the 2020 election.

Figure 1. Internet shutdown events in FREE Network countries (2016-2025)

Source: Access Now, KeepItOn STOP (2016-2025) and authors’ calculations.
Note: This chart shows the number of distinct intentional internet shutdown events active during each quarter in countries of the SIDA Free Network. (Sweden, Georgia, Moldova, and Poland are excluded from the graph because no shutdown events were recorded for them over this period.)  An internet shutdown is defined as an intentional disruption of internet or electronic communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable, for a specific population or within a location, often to exert control over the flow of information (Access Now, KIO). A shutdown event can result from third-party interventions rather than be intended by the country’s government.

Figure 2 uses the same dataset to illustrate which social media and online messaging platforms were most affected by the increase in government control of the internet in Russia. Relative to China, Russia used to exert only ‘light-touch’ control over the internet, as seen in the first panel of the figure. From 2016 to 2021, the social media and online messaging platforms in the chart were largely unaffected by shutdown events. The second panel shows that since early 2022, all of these platforms have experienced shutdown events, and in the case of Facebook, Twitter/X, and Instagram, there have been active blocks throughout the entire period.

Figure 2. Platform service disruptions in Russia (2016 – 2025)

Source:  Access Now, KeepItOn STOP Dataset (2016-2025) and authors’ calculations. Note: This graph details the platforms affected by internet shutdowns in Russia (See Figure 1). Each bar shows the percentage of days in the period when at least one shutdown event affected the platform in Russia.

As discussed, the STOP dataset likely undercounts internet shutdowns. We therefore evaluate whether alternative measures show the same upward trend for Russia.

Our second dataset comes from the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) initiative at Georgia Tech, which monitors global internet connectivity using three complementary technical signals to detect when networks go offline. IODA identifies outages at the country, regional, or network level and records their duration and severity. Importantly, unlike STOP, IODA detects outages but not their cause. An outage may reflect deliberate government action or infrastructure failure.

Panel (a) of Figure 3 compares the IODA measure of outages with the STOP measure of internet shutdowns for Russia. The IODA measure (right axis) is roughly 100 times as high as the STOP measure in any given period, as IODA records all detected disruptions regardless of intentionality. That said, the IODA data corroborate the finding that internet disruptions have become ever more frequent in Russia, with significant increases in 2024 and 2025.

Our third dataset comes from the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), which focuses on censorship rather than outages. OONI relies on volunteers running tests through an open-source app, generating measurements of whether specific websites, messaging platforms, and circumvention tools are accessible or blocked.

Figure 3. Trend in internet disruption and online censorship in Russia (2022-2025)

a. Count of internet disruptions

b. Rate of websites and apps censorship

Source: Access Now KeepItOn STOP (KIO), Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA), Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), and authors’ calculations.
Note: Panel (a) shows STOP internet shutdown events in the blue line, which records intentional disruptions of internet or electronic communication (KIO, see Figure 1), and IODA internet outages in the orange line, which are abnormal simultaneous drops in 2 or more signals measuring internet connectivity, intentional or accidental. IODA outages are filtered to only include events lasting more than 2 hours to match the KIO restriction. The red line shows a twelve-month moving average of IODA outages. Panel (b) shows online censorship rates for websites and messaging apps, measured by the monthly rate of anomalies recorded by OONI. An anomaly is detected when a measurement presents signs of potential network interference (such as the blocking of a website or app). Messaging apps data derive from OONI messaging platform availability tests (WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Facebook Messenger), and website data from OONI Web Connectivity tests on individual websites’ availability. Days and platforms or websites with fewer than 5 measurements are excluded for reliability.

It does so by comparing results over the user’s network against a control server, with divergences flagged as potential interference. The main limitation is uneven coverage over time, a consequence of the volunteer-based approach, though the total number of daily measurements is always known.

Panel (b) of Figure 3 plots anomaly rates for websites and messaging apps as experienced by Russian users since the start of 2022. Both lines show a clear upward trend, indicating that Russian users are increasingly encountering websites and apps that are blocked in Russia but available elsewhere.

The Centralisation of Russian Internet Control

While Russia has always exerted some degree of control over the internet, it has historically relied on what Ramesh et al. (2020) call a decentralised model. Since 2012, Russia’s internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, has maintained a national blocklist of websites and required Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to restrict their users’ access to these websites. As ISPs were granted full discretion over how to comply, the blocking mechanisms and their effectiveness reportedly varied significantly across websites and providers.  The attempted blocking of Telegram in 2018 exposed the limitations of Russia’s decentralized approach to internet censorship. To enforce the ban, Roskomnadzor blocked millions of IP addresses associated with Amazon and Google cloud services, leading to widespread disruption of unrelated online services, while failing to prevent Russian users from accessing Telegram.

Since then, Russia has moved towards a more centralised model of internet governance, aimed at increasing state control over its domestic internet and reducing dependence on the global network. In 2019, the “Sovereign Internet Law” (or  “Law on Sustainable Runet”) came into force, which provided the Russian state the legal and technical tools to centrally monitor, filter and reroute internet traffic. The law requires ISPs to install TSPU (Tekhnicheskie Sredstva Protivodeystviya Ugrozam, or “technical means of countering threats”) devices on their networks, or face fines. These devices allow the government to track and manage internet traffic across private networks in a centralised manner (Human Rights Watch 2025).

TSPUs first attracted attention in 2021 when access to Twitter was throttled, but their impact has since become more widespread (Xue et al., 2021). In February 2023, OONI and the Russian digital rights organisation Roskomsvoboda reported that numerous media outlets and websites with critical coverage of the Russian war in Ukraine had been blocked in 2022. In a striking contrast to previous decentralised censorship practices, these restrictions were implemented simultaneously across internet providers. Figure 4, originally published by OONI, illustrates the simultaneous blocking of the Human Rights Watch website after it was added to Roskomnadzor’s blocklist on April 17, 2022. The figure shows that users across multiple networks lost access at the same time. The OONI report also highlights that providers are now using the same technical methods to enforce central directives, illustrating the widespread effective use of TSPUs.

Figure 4: Network interference in Russia

Source: Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), Roskomsvoboda, How Internet censorship changed in Russia during the 1st year of military conflict in Ukraine.
Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) which presented the largest volume of anomalies (more than 1,200 anomalies) in the testing of www.hrw.org in Russia between 1st January 2022 to 20th February 2023. An anomaly is detected when a measurement presents signs of potential network interference (such as the blocking of a website or app).

Recent restrictions on Telegram provide further evidence of their efficacy. In contrast to the failed block in 2018, most Russian users are now unable to access the app without VPNs or other workarounds.

The capabilities of TSPUs extend far beyond individual website blocking. Recent reports suggest that instead of just targeting specific parts of the internet, they are now used to impose temporary, near-total internet blackouts. These cut users off from much of the global internet, while preserving access to a whitelist of Russian government websites and fully cooperative platforms (Human Rights Watch, 2026). In doing so, TSPU moves Russia closer to the Chinese model of internet control, increasing the state’s ability to manage internet traffic centrally.

Conclusion

In recent years, Russia’s strategy towards internet censorship has changed profoundly. The decentralised, relatively light-touch approach, with unrestricted access to many Western platforms, has been abandoned. The government has acquired the legal and technical capability to exert tight, centralised control over service providers, and every indicator we have analysed in this brief makes clear that it is using these powers ever more aggressively.

The incremental nature of these changes and their technical sophistication mean that Russia’s internet control cannot be equated with the blunt tool of country- or region-wide shutdowns as used by authoritarian governments in other parts of the world. These types of internet shutdowns are highly visible to domestic and international users and spark outrage. Russia’s strategy is more insidious. Its citizens’ access to the global internet has been shutting down, year by year and month by month. Individual users’ experience of these changes is fragmented, making a collective response difficult.  Russia is on its way to creating and controlling its very own version of the internet.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Behavior and Information: Does Media Promote Consumerism?

Posted on December 2, 2024 | Policy Brief

Two women holding shopping bags with "Black Friday" labels on an escalator, symbolizing media consumerism during shopping events.

Consumer behavior is well recognized as a vital component in dealing with climate change. In this regard, it is important to understand both which mechanisms promote pro-environmental behavior, and which instruments stimulate unsustainable consumer activities. This policy brief summarizes the results from a study on how media use can promote consumerism. Based on a 2022 online-survey of Belarus’s urban population, the study empirically assesses how exposure to information promoting overconsumption can impact unsustainable actions. The findings show that consumerism media use has a positive effect on unsustainable consumption behavior. To mitigate the impact and promote sustainable behavior, media could be obligated to provide information about the negative footprint of unsustainable consumption.

Introduction

Consumer behavior holds large potential when it comes to climate change and other environmental problems. According to Moran et al.  (2020), changes in consumer behavior could lead to a European Union (EU) carbon footprint reduction by approximately 25 percent.

There are two conflicting streams of literature on the effects of media use on consumer behavior. The first strand states that media use exerts a positive effect on pro-environmental attitudes and behavior (Holbert et al. 2003; Wang & Hao, 2018) while the second declares that media use (in particular, the Internet) promotes consumerism (Simeone & Scarpato, 2020).

The objective of the study underlying this policy brief is to contribute to this debate by exploring whether media use positively affects unsustainable consumption behavior, drawing on data from a nationally representative online survey in Belarus.

Behavior and its Determinants

The study’s conceptual approach rests on the Attitude-Behavior-Context (ABC) theory (Guagnano et al., 1995; Gardner and Stern, 1996; Stern, 2000) which states that behavior is a product of attitudinal variables (norms, beliefs, values), contextual factors (e.g., interpersonal influences, media, community expectations, monetary incentives and costs) and personal capabilities (e.g., knowledge and skills).

With the ABC theory in mind, and also driven by prior empirical studies (e.g., Huang, 2016), the study explores how unsustainable consumption behavior can be affected by materialistic values, environmental self-efficacy (in the study perceived as a combination of values and personal knowledge), and consumerism media use.

We define unsustainable consumption behavior as conspicuous buying, which describes acquiring expensive, and luxury goods or services in order to impress others and gather prestige through objects (Rook, 1987; Pellegrino & Shannon, 2021).

Media use in general means exposure or attention to both traditional media, such as newspapers, TV, and radio, and the Internet (Huang, 2016). Consumerism media use in our study refers to the exposure on these media channels to information promoting a luxurious lifestyle and the idea that buying more leads to happiness.

According to Hurst et al. (2013), materialism can be more easily targeted and changed than personality traits, which are more stable. Besides, theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that materialistic values are negatively associated with pro-environmental behavior. To measure materialism as a value we employ the short version of the Materialistic Values Scale (Richins, 2004), which assesses beliefs about the importance of material possession.

Environmental self-efficacy, also known as perceived consumer effectiveness, refers to an individual’s belief in their ability to make a meaningful impact through their efforts (Ellen et al., 1991). We hypothesize that environmental self-efficacy should be negatively associated with unsustainable consumption behavior.

To operationalize the above constructs (see Table 1), the study uses data from a nationally representative online survey among the urban Belarusian population aged 18-75, conducted in April 2022 by MIA Research on behalf of BEROC. The sample size includes 1029 participants.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of each construct’s indicators

Note: a Four-point Likert scale (1=never, 4=always). b Four-point Likert scale (1=never; 4=very often; 0=I do not use this type of media). c Five-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree).

As seen in Table 1, consumers in Belarus are mostly exposed to the information promoting luxurious lifestyle and buying more goods to be happy on the Internet, relative to other media channels. Another interesting outcome is that Belarusian consumers are more likely to perceive material possessions as a source of happiness compared to the other domains of the classical material value triad; success, centrality, and happiness (Richins and Dawson (1992) and Richins (2004), where success refers to using possessions to evaluate the success of oneself and others centrality refers to the central role of possessions in a person’s life, and happiness reflects the belief that happiness and life satisfaction are achieved through possessions and their acquisition.

Assessment of the Unsustainable Consumption Behavior Model

The study estimates the structural equation model for unsustainable consumption behavior. The main hypothesis of the study is that consumerism media use might exert a positive influence on unsustainable consumption behavior. Materialistic values as well as environmental self-efficacy can also affect unsustainable consumption behavior. As both our values and beliefs may to some extent determine the context in which we live, we assume that materialistic values and environmental self-efficacy might impact consumerism media use. Additionally, we assume that materialistic values can have a negative influence on environmental self-efficacy. Figure 1 details the path diagram with maximum-likelihood estimates of fully standardized coefficients.

Figure 1. Path diagram of the structural equation model explaining unsustainable consumption behavior

Note: standardized coefficients; solid line denotes significant path; dashed line denotes insignificant relationships. *** p<0.001, ** p<0.01; *p<0.05

The results show that consumerism media use has a positive, and significant effect on unsustainable consumption behavior (0.124; standard deviation change). The possible channel leading to these findings is the emotions at play.  Advertisements promoting a luxurious lifestyle and buying more things to be happy can elicit quite strong emotions in consumers related to happiness and success in life. Around two decades ago a large body of literature in consumer research emerged on the role of emotions in decision-making (for an overview see Laros & Steenkamp, 2005). Recent experimental studies about adoption of sustainable innovations (e.g. Contzen et al., 2021 (a); Contzen et al., 2021 (b)) also prove the role emotions play in consumer behavior.

Materialistic values are another significant contributor to unsustainable actions (0.249 standard deviation change). As expected, materialistic values also exert a positive and statistically significant effect on consumerism media use (0.165 standard deviation change). However, contrary to our expectations, environmental self-efficacy does not exert a direct negative impact on unsustainable behavior (dashed line in Figure 1).

Conclusion

The results from the structural equation model show that consumerism media use exerts a positive moderate effect on unsustainable consumption behavior of the urban population in Belarus. This effect is statistically significant.

To reduce the negative environmental impact of unsustainable behavior, policymakers should, thus, target regulation that downplays the emotional appeal of ads promoting excessive consumption and stresses the adverse environmental effects of consumerism. This could include, for example, policies requiring ads to contain information about the environmental footprint of the product, from production to its full lifecycle.

References

  • Contzen, N., Handreke, A. V., Perlaviciute, G., & Steg, L., 2021 (a). ‘’Emotions towards a mandatory adoption of renewable energy innovations: the role of psychological reactance and egoistic and biospheric values’’. Energy Research & Social Science, 80, 102232.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102232.
  • Contzen, N., Perlaviciute, G., Sadat-Razavi, P., & Steg, L., 2021 (b). ‘’Emotions toward sustainable innovations: A matter of value congruence’’. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.661314
  • Ellen, P. S., Wiener, J. L., & Cobb-Walgren, C., 1991. ‘’The role of perceived consumer effectiveness in motivating environmentally conscious behaviors”. Journal of public policy & marketing, 10(2), 102-117. https://doi.org/10.1177/074391569101000206.
  • Gardner, G. T., & Stern, P. C., 1996. “Environmental problems and human behavior”. Allyn & Bacon.
  • Guagnano, G. A., Stern, P. C., & Dietz, T., 1995. “Influences on attitude-behavior relationships: A natural experiment with curbside recycling”. Environment and behavior, 27(5), 699-718. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916595275005
  • Holbert, R. L., Kwak, N., & Shah, D. V. (2003). Environmental concern, patterns of television viewing, and pro-environmental behaviors: Integrating models of media consumption and effects. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 47(2), 177-196. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem4702_2.
  • Huang, H., 2016. “Media use, environmental beliefs, self-efficacy, and pro-environmental behavior”. Journal of Business Research, 69(6), 2206-2212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.12.031.
  • Hurst, M., Dittmar, H., Bond, R., & Kasser, T., 2013. “The relationship between materialistic values and environmental attitudes and behaviors: A meta-analysis”. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, 257-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.09.003.
  • Laros, F. J., & Steenkamp, J. B. E., 2005. “Emotions in consumer behavior: a hierarchical approach”. Journal of business Research, 58(10), 1437-1445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2003.09.013.
  • Pellegrino, A., & Shannon, R., 2021. “Materialism’s Influence on Unsustainable Consumption Across Social Networking Sites: A Systematic Review”. International Journal of Business and Economics Research, 10(4), 125. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijber.20211004.13.
  • Richins, M. L., & Dawson, S. (1992). “A Consumer Values Orientation for Materialism and Its Measurement: Scale Development and Validation”. Journal of Consumer Research, 19, 303-316.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/209304
  • Richins, M. L., 2004. “The material values scale: Measurement properties and development of a short form”. Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 209e219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/383436.
  • Rook, D. W., 1987. “The buying impulse”. Journal of Consumer Research, 14, 189-199.
  • Simeone, M., & Scarpato, D. (2020). Sustainable consumption: How does social media affect food choices?. Journal of Cleaner Production, 277, 124036. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124036.
  • Stern, P. C., 2000. “New environmental theories: toward a coherent theory of environmentally significant behavior”. Journal of social issues, 56(3), 407-424.
  • Wang, Y., & Hao, F. (2018).  Does internet penetration encourage sustainable consumption? A cross-national analysis. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 16, 237-248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2018.08.011.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Political Implications of the Rise of Mobile Broadband Internet

Posted on February 8, 2021 | Policy Brief

Image of 5g broadband tower representing implications mobile internet

In the last ten years, the world has experienced the dramatic rise of mobile broadband internet brought by third-generation (3G) and fourth-generation (4G) mobile networks. This has resulted in major political changes – reduced confidence in governments around the world, lower voting shares of incumbent political parties, and the rise of populists. The empirical evidence is consistent with both the optimistic view of 3G internet (the “Liberation Technology”) and the pessimistic one (the “Disinformation Technology”). 3G internet helps to expose actual corruption; however, it also contributes to electoral successes of populist opposition.

The Spectacular Rise of 3G

Communication technologies have undergone a dramatic change in the last 10-15 years. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), there were only 4 active mobile broadband subscriptions per hundred people in the world in 2007, while this number reached 75 per hundred in 2020. The growth of mobile broadband internet – provided by the third and fourth generation of mobile networks (3G and 4G, respectively) – was the main driver of growth in broadband access. The number of fixed broadband subscriptions per hundred people has only increased from 5 to 15 percent in the same period of time.

Relative to the previous generations of mobile technology, 3G provides a qualitatively different way of using the internet. First, it is broadband access on the go, available wherever the user is rather than at a fixed point at home or in the office. Second, it allows for downloading and uploading photos and videos. Before 3G, mobile technology only allowed exchanging text messages along with limited and slow access to the web. Third, it is the technology that is best suited for social media. While social networks started before 3G and were initially accessed on fixed broadband, today most Facebook, Twitter and YouTube users are mobile.

Liberation Technology or Disinformation Technology?

What are the political implications of the spread of this new technology around the world? Initially, political scientists were excited about the internet as a “Liberation Technology”, especially after it played an important role in the Arab Spring. Internet – and in particular mobile internet –helped pro-democracy activists in autocratic states to disseminate critical information about the government, expose corruption, and coordinate protests.

Later on, however, it became clear that social media also provided a platform for the dissemination of false news and hate speech – thus supporting the rise of populists. This led to a rethinking of the role of mobile internet – and rechristening it into a “Disinformation Technology.”

Which view, the optimistic or the pessimistic one, is correct? In Guriev et al. (2021), we study the impact of the expansion of 3G around the world on attitudes to government and electoral outcomes.

Exposing Actual Corruption

In order to explore the effects on confidence in government, we use data from Gallup World Poll surveys of 840,537 individuals from 2,232 subnational regions in 116 countries from 2008 to 2017. In each region and year we calculate the population-weighted average access to mobile broadband relying on the network coverage data from Collins Bartholomew’s Mobile Coverage Explorer.

First, we find that increased access to 3G internet causes lower confidence in government, judiciary, honesty of elections, and a lower belief that the government is not corrupt. As shown in Figure 1, the magnitudes are substantial. In our paper, we show that a decade-long 3G expansion has the same effect on government approval as a 2.2 percentage-point rise in the national unemployment rate.

Figure 1. Mobile Broadband Access and Government Approval.

Source: Guriev et al. (2021), Table 1, authors’ calculations.

This effect is only present when there is no online censorship and stronger when traditional media are not free. Furthermore, the spread of 3G makes people think that the government is corrupt when the actual corruption is high. In the cleanest countries of the world, the effect is actually positive – better access to information may help citizens to understand that other countries are much more corrupt relative to their own. 

This positive impact is, however, limited to about 10% of the world’s countries. On average, the effect of 3G on the perception that government is clean is negative (see Figure 1). There are two potential explanations. First, as suggested by Gurriv (2018), before the arrival of the fast internet, the elites controlled the media and, as a result, the public was not fully aware of the elites’ corruption. 3G helped to expose this corruption and corrected the pre-3G positive bias. The second explanation is related to the negative bias of social media where critical messages spread faster and deeper (see the references in Guriev et al. 2021).

Another potential explanation is that social media promote overall negative and pessimistic attitudes. We show that this conjecture is not consistent with the evidence: the spread of 3G does not reduce life satisfaction or expected future life satisfaction.

Helping European Populists

The evidence above is consistent with the view that mobile broadband internet and social media help to expose misgovernance and corruption. These findings are in line with the optimistic view of mobile broadband internet as a “Liberation Technology.” However, it turns out that the pessimistic view of “Disinformation Technology” may also be correct.

We examine the impact of 3G expansion on the outcomes of 102 parliamentary elections in 33 European democracies between 2007 and 2018. Using subnational data, we show that the spread of 3G, not surprisingly, decreases the vote share of incumbents substantially (see Figure 2).

 Figure 2. The impact of 3G expansion on incumbent vote share in Europe.

Source: Guriev et al. (2021), Figure VIII.

Figure 3. The impact of 3G expansion on opposition vote share in Europe.

Source: Guriev et al. (2021), Figure IX.

If incumbents lose votes, who picks them up? We show that the main beneficiaries of 3G expansion are the populist opposition parties, both on the left and right (Figure 3). The non-populist opposition does not gain.

Why do populists benefit from the spread of mobile broadband and social media? One explanation is that social media is decentralized and has no entry barriers. It is not the first time in history that populist politicians have relied on new communication technology to circumvent mainstream media controlled by the elites (e.g. the US late 19thcentury populists used telegraph and railroads, the Nazis in Germany used radio). It may also be the case that populist messages may be simpler, and thus, better suited for a short and catchy communication on social media. For example, another pan-European family of anti-system parties, the Greens, do not benefit from the spread of the 3G internet at all (see Figure 3): their narrative is more complex, asking voters to take responsibility for the planet.

Fact-Checking Alternative Facts

Many populist politicians point to actual corruption of the incumbent elites, but some also spread false narratives or “alternative facts.” (It was Donald Trump’s Counselor Kellyanne who, in January 2017, when asked to comment on false statements by Trump’s Press-Secretary about his inauguration, famously said that these were not falsehoods but “alternative facts.”) What can be done to stop the dissemination of these falsehoods on social media? Can fact-checking by mainstream media and independent organizations help?

In two studies, Barrera et al. (2020) and Henry et al. (2021), we carry out two randomized online experiments to identify the causal effects of alternative facts spread by populist politicians and their fact-checking. The findings are as follows: (i) alternative facts are highly persuasive; (ii) fact-checking helps to correct factual beliefs – but do not change voting intentions; even though the voters understand that the populists misrepresent the facts, they still support their agenda; (iii) fact-checking, however, substantially reduces sharing of alternative facts on social media; (iv) the impact of fact-checking on sharing is equally strong regardless of whether the users are forced to view the fact-checking information or are simply given an option to click on a fact-checking link; (v) asking users to re-confirm their intention to share alternative facts with an additional click greatly reduces sharing.

Our results suggest that fact-checking may not be as effective as fact-checkers themselves hope, but can help slow down the dissemination of falsehoods on social media. Furthermore, our analysis delivers clear policy implications – both providing fact-checking (even in the form of accompanying alternative facts with fact-checking links) and requiring additional clicks before sharing can be very effective.

Conclusion

The findings from our analysis of the worldwide spread of mobile broadband internet in the last decade are consistent with both optimistic and pessimistic views. On the one hand, 3G internet does help expose actual corruption. On the other hand, it helps populist opposition to gain votes. Likely, the latter result is eventually due to the populists’ abuse of online platforms for spreading disinformation. We show that the propagation of falsehoods on social media can be at least partially slowed down by fact-checking.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Focus on Investment: A Brief Look at Regulatory Developments in EU Telecommunications

Posted on April 15, 2018 | Policy Brief

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The European Commission recently proposed a revision to its existing regulatory framework for telecommunications, the details of which have been amply discussed and are currently being negotiated. A pivotal theme of the revision is a stronger emphasis on stimulating investments into broadband networks capable of delivering high-speed (100+ Mbps) internet services. This brief highlights and briefly discusses some key changes in that regard.

Introduction

High-speed broadband networks are the backbone of the fast-growing digital economy. Promoting citizens’ access to such networks has been one of the European Commission’s stated policy priorities at least since 2010, when it launched its “Digital Agenda for Europe” (EC, 2014). Its policy mix of choice involves measures and funds facilitating deployment of so-called next-generation access networks on the one hand (commonly taken to mean access networks capable of delivering speeds exceeding 100 Mbps), while on the other hand regulating access to such networks to the extent perceived necessary to deal with potential problems resulting from incumbent network operators’ degree of market power. As regulation may harm incentives to invest in network infrastructure in the first place, a balance between investment promotion and competitive safeguards needs to be struck.

Motivated by what it considers to be a sub-optimally low speed of network upgrading in at least some of the EU’s member states, the Commission has sought to adjust its policy balance in favor of investments by proposing a revision (EC, 2016) of its regulatory framework for electronic communications, called the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC), which defines a standard approach to regulating fixed broadband network operators deemed to possess significant market power. That revision has been commented upon and discussed by the European Parliament and the European Council as well as various private and public stakeholders (Szczepański, 2017). Several amendments have been proposed and further discussion is ongoing to reach a compromise between the European institutions.

Background

Telecommunications networks were until more recently typically owned by vertically integrated, often formerly state-run, national incumbents who even after their privatization and the elimination of most legal barriers to entry were considered to possess significant market power. The EECC’s key remedy to such market power is so-called network unbundling at the wholesale level: considering the retail market for internet service provision potentially competitive, unbundling means granting competing internet service providers regulated access to the incumbent operator’s physical local-area access network, which is commonly regarded as the key bottleneck in internet service provision. Choosing the intrusiveness of the access obligation is up to the national regulatory authority (NRA), ranging from merely demanding that the incumbent publicly post a reference offer, to stricter measures such as non-discrimination, “fair and reasonable” pricing, and ultimately, full-on access price regulation, typically implemented with price caps derived from regulatory costing models. A recommendation from 2013 (EC, 2013) outlines methodological guidelines to national authorities.

Key changes

The proposed EECC revision makes the abovementioned recommendation binding, which may partly be an attempt to further harmonize regulatory practice between member states, with a view to encouraging cross-border investments by operators and service providers. It also encourages NRAs to, where possible, abandon more rigid price regulation in favor of margin squeeze tests. Margin squeeze occurs when a vertically integrated firm with market power in the wholesale segment of a production chain “squeezes” retail competitors by setting high wholesale and low retail prices, to the extent that even equally efficient, or at least reasonably efficient, retail competitors cannot survive if they are dependent on the dominant firm’s wholesale product. Moreover, and more importantly in terms of boosting deployment, the proposal encourages lighter-touch regulation for operators deploying new network infrastructure (Art. 72), and specifically relaxes regulation for deployment projects open to co-investments between operators (Art. 74). It also extends the market review period, i.e. the frequency at which NRAs are expected to update their market analysis and regulatory policy, from three to five years, giving operators a longer planning horizon, and encourages NRAs to consider any existing commercial wholesale offers in their market analysis, which can be interpreted to mean that anything short of full market foreclosure should be looked upon benevolently (Articles 61 and 65). In line with this latter development, which suggests a focus on wholesale access per se, is Article 77. This article exempts so-called wholesale-only networks – non-integrated networks whose very business model is selling access to interested internet service providers – from strict access price regulation, at least ex-ante. Typically, a presumption of consumer harm absent regulation is sufficient for intervention. Article 77 turns the tables on regulatory authorities by requiring evidence of actual consumer harm.

A counterpoint to these deregulatory elements is Article 59.2, which under certain conditions not only allows but obliges NRAs to impose access obligations on owners of existing physical infrastructure “up to the first concentration point”, in practice affecting mostly in-building wiring and cables, even when these owners have not been identified as dominant in any relevant market. In countries such as Sweden, where in-house wiring is often not owned by any operator but rather by the respective building’s owner(s), implementing such obligations may pose a regulatory challenge.

Finally, Article 22 requires NRAs to chart existing infrastructure as well as deployment plans across the country and enables them to define “digital exclusion areas” where no high-speed broadband infrastructure exists or is planned. In such areas, they may organize calls for interest to deploy networks, also with a view to resolving potential coordination problems between operators resulting from so-called “overbuild risk”: deployment in some lower-density areas may only be profitable if most of the customer base in that area can be captured, leading to a standoff between operators who cannot, do not want to, or are not allowed to communicate and coordinate their deployment strategies. As a result, investment is delayed.

A rather piquant detail here is that the proposed code allows NRAs to take action against operators it suspects of “deliberately” providing “misleading, erroneous or incomplete” information about their deployment plans. Included to prevent gaming, this provision carries the risk of suppressing investors’ appetite for the designated exclusion areas lest they be punished in case they change their mind. A minimum of mutual trust between the national regulator and market participants seems crucial for this mechanism to succeed.

Conclusion

The Commission’s proposed new regulatory framework emphasizes investment in, and take-up of, high-speed (100+ Mbps) broadband networks, explicitly defining such enhanced connectivity as a new regulatory objective on equal footing with the existing ones, most notably the promotion of competition. The present brief points out some key regulatory changes aimed at the fulfilment of these respective objectives. In terms of the revision’s impact on high-speed broadband deployment in the EU’s member states, it is difficult to make a general prediction since Europe is somewhat heterogeneous with respect to high-speed broadband penetration. For example, the 2016 EU overall NGA coverage was 75.9 % of households, but coverage rates of individual countries ranged from 99.95 % and 99.86 % in Malta and Belgium respectively to 47.0 % in France and a mere 44.2 % in Greece (EC, 2017). To the extent that the new code encourages investment relative to the old regime, regions with lower current coverage stand to benefit more. To the extent that the lower pace of deployment in those areas is the result of other factors orthogonal to regulation (one example being demand uncertainty), it will have a limited effect.

References