This month’s newsletter covers an entire gamut of expression issues – from AI to espionage, and from Mexico to Malaysia.

But how well do you know freedom of expression?

On 13 January, Taiwan voted in a presidential election that China bombarded with coordinated disinformation and deepfakes spanning Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube.

Yet despite China’s best efforts, democracy won out: the people of Taiwan elected the Democratic Progressive Party.

This result is particularly impressive given that, of all the countries in the world, Taiwan is the most targeted by foreign disinformation operations – and even more so given that, due to China’s pressure campaigns, Taiwan is not even recognised as a sovereign country.

In this Super Election Year, what can we learn from Taiwan about protecting democracies from foreign information manipulation?

The world’s governments should follow Taiwan’s example: prioritising open data, radical transparency, genuine public participation, and deepening both digital and democratic literacy.

Yet when it comes to building solutions, the Taiwan case suggests that the civic tech community is at least as important as government initiatives. From creating fact-checking chatbots to running media-literacy workshops to organising disinformation-disrupting hackathons, organisations like Taiwan FactCheck Center, Cofacts, g0v, and the Open Culture Foundation have been central.

And – crucially – Taiwan’s government worked closely with these organisations to embrace and scale these solutions.

Perhaps the key lesson is this:

In our connected world, no single sector can build digital democracy and resist digital authoritarianism alone. The whole of society – public, private, and the people – must unite.

‘Ultimately, the methods of digital democracy developed by Taiwan’s civic tech community and embraced by its government may point to structures by which other states might seek to roll back the rise of digital authoritarianism.’

– Michael Caster
ARTICLE 19 Asia Progamme Manager

26 January marked a huge milestone in the case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), brought by South Africa, alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention in Gaza.

Acknowledging that the ‘catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip is at serious risk of deteriorating before the court reaches its final judgement’, the ICJ ordered Israel to do the following while the case continues:

• prevent acts of genocide – including by its military;
• prevent and punish incitement to genocide;
• allow humanitarian access; and
• prevent the destruction of evidence that could be used in the case.

‘Each journalist’s death is a personal tragedy for their loved ones, and each attack against them deprives all of us of critical information about the facts on the ground.’

– Saloua Ghazouani
(Regional Director, ARTICLE 19 MENA)

Historical footage of unrelated wars, clips from video games, AI-generated deepfakes… Some of the most viral online content about the Israel–Gaza war has been false.

This poses significant challenges to truth, justice, and democracy. It also increases the risk of genuine footage being dismissed as ‘fake news’ – a significant concern in 2024, when over half the world’s population will go to the polls.

In the latest episode of Techtonic, we speak to Valerie Wirtschafter of the Brookings Institution about how the conflict in Gaza has played out on social media.

Join us to discuss not only the problems but also the solutions: improving digital literacy, promoting credible journalism, and challenging our own in-built confirmation biases.

‘What is viral is often what’s most outrageous. If we can not contribute to that by just taking a little pause, exploring a little more… that is really, really important – especially in these intense moments.’

– Valerie Wirtschafter
(Brookings Institution)

On 12 January, a judge in a Mexico City court acknowledged that:

• Journalist Carmen Aristegui’s phone was tapped with illegal Pegasus spyware from 2015–16;
• She was targeted because of her journalism, which investigated corruption at the highest levels; and
• This spying inhibited her work and put herself, her family, and her sources at risk.

However, the judge acquitted businessman Juan Carlos García Rivera of the crime because, regrettably, the Attorney General’s Office had not provided sufficient evidence. The judge urged the Attorney General’s Office to continue its investigations until those responsible can be brought to justice – a call ARTICLE 19 wholeheartedly supports.

Dozens of similar cases of illegal espionage against journalists and human rights defenders remain unsolved. Some were brought to the Attorney General’s attention over 6 years ago; others were perpetrated by the Armed Forces under the current administration.

As long as those responsible enjoy impunity, journalism will remain under threat.

That’s why, in addition to calling for justice for individual journalists, ARTICLE 19 is calling for a moratorium on surveillance technologies until regulations are in place that protect human rights.

Stay tuned for our new report, AI Red Lines, which will equip civil society with essential tools to advocate for effective regulation of surveillance and biometric technologies.

This month, ARTICLE 19 attended the hearings of 3 journalists facing trumped-up terrorism charges in Türkiye. We are calling for their acquittal, and for the Turkish authorities to stop abusing anti-terrorist legislation against journalists for simply doing their jobs as public watchdogs.

In recent years, states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have undergone profound upheaval – from crackdowns against protesters in Belarus to conflicts along the Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan border to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. 

In the context of these upheavals, we have witnessed a worrying regional trend of authorities weaponising anti-extremism and anti-terrorism laws and policies to crush dissent, civil rights, and public participation.

Our new report, produced by ARTICLE 19 and partners of the Civic Solidarity Platform, examines this trend and offers recommendations for change.

At the end of 2023, the UN Secretary-General’s AI Advisory Body issued its interim report, Governing AI for Humanity.  

While we welcome the report’s embrace of international human rights law as a guiding principle for AI governance, we are disappointed that it does not capture the impacts that AI has already had on freedom of expression – not least for journalists and the media, who are notably missing from the report.

• Joanna Szymańska tells the Liverpool Echo about Andrei Aliaksandrau, journalist and valued ARTICLE 19 ex-colleague, who remains in jail in Belarus.

• Mahsa Alimardani tells Deutschland Radio [German] how women in Iran are being surveilled using facial-recognition technology made in Germany.

• ARTICLE 19 Mexico and Central America is mentioned in a Washington Post piece about the growing dangers for journalists in Mexico.

Freedom Film Network (FFN) is a nonprofit established to support and develop human rights documentary filmmaking in Malaysia. It organises an annual human rights film festival, FreedomFilmFest, as well as supporting filmmakers through training, grants, and network-building.

FFN’s campaign, #SaferSpacesForArts, documents attacks against artists, analyses whether they constitute incitement to harm, outlines what the state and the public can do, and provides resources for persecuted artists: from emergency funding to Digital First Aid kits.

ARTICLE 19’s Asia Pacific office is working with FFN on a campaign to protect the creators of the film Mentega Terbang, who were charged on 17 January for ‘hurting religious feelings’.

Though the film was released back in 2021, it was banned in September  2023 for being ‘contrary to the public interest’, and filmmakers Tan Meng Kheng and Khairi Anwar Jailani have suffered a distressing witch hunt – both online and offline.

But the filmmakers are not taking it lying down.

On 31st January, they will be back in court, filing a judicial review that challenges the constitutionality of the ban. Indeed, they have bravely resisted the censorship all the way. And they’ve had widespread support – both locally and internationally.

You can advance freedom of expression around the world by supporting ARTICLE 19!

Remember to take the quiz!

How well do you know freedom of expression?