Choose a recent example of authoritarians using the internet and weigh how successful it was.Political scientists, international relations and security scholars, and others often highlight some important differences between democracies and authoritarian states. The cyber domain is no different and in this week we focus on the challenge(s) posed by authoritarian states for democracies.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, students will be able to:  

Identify methods used by authoritarians to control populations

Identify potential responses by democracies

Identify and discuss different examples of how authoritarians use the internetModule 3: Learning Materials
Readings
Read the following:

P. W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, LikeWar, 2018. Chapter 4. 

PDF: LikeWar_Chapter4.pdfActions 

Marie Lamensch, “Authoritarianism Has Been Reinvented for the Digital Age” Center for International Governance Innovation, 2021https://www.cigionline.org/articles/authoritarianism-has-been-reinvented-for-the-digital-age/ (Links to an external site.) 

1. Richard Fontaine and Kara Frederick, “The Autocrats New Toolkit,” Wall Street Journal, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-autocrats-new-tool-kit-11552662637?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 (PDF available here)
2. Safa Shawan, “How governments can use cyber tools irresponsibly to preserve power,” New Atlanticist, 2019. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/how-governments-can-use-cyber-tools-irresponsibly-to-preserve-power/ (Links to an external site.)
3. Bethaney Allen, Exposed: China’s Operating Manuals For Mass Internment And Arrest By Algorithm, ICIJ, 2019. https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-mass-internment-and-arrest-by-algorithm/ (Links to an external site.)

Lily Hay Newman, “How the Iranian Government Shut Off the Internet,” Wired, 2019. PDF: How Iran’s Government Shut Off the Internet _ WIRED.pdfActions

Josh Goldstein and Shelby Grossman, How Disinformation Evolved in 2020, Brookings, 2020. https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/how-disinformation-evolved-in-2020/ (Links to an external site.)

Joel Schechtman and Christopher Bing, “White House Veterans Helped Gulf Monarchy Build Secret Surveillance Unit,” Reuters, 2019. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-raven-whitehouse/ (Links to an external site.)

Marczak, et al. “From Pearl to Pegasus: Bahraini Government Hacks Arctivitists with NSO Group Zero Click iPhone Exploits” The Citizen Lab, 2021 https://citizenlab.ca/2021/08/bahrain-hacks-activists-with-nso-group-zero-click-iphone-exploits/ (Links to an external site.)

(Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)Lecture

Watch the following:

• Zeynep Tufekci, “We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads,” TEDGlobal>NYC, 2017 (https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dystopia_just_to_make_people_click_on_ads?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare (Links to an external site.))