Deeplinks

From telecommunications infrastructure to TV and radio airwaves, the Ethiopian government’s controls over communications infrastructure in the country means that even the most private and personal conversations may be exposed to unwarranted surveillance. In some cases, where communications have escaped the government’s strict monitoring system, human informers have been planted, creating an extreme sense of fear among Ethiopians. There’s an implicit understanding in the country that when discussing politics publicly, one should do so in a low voice so that only those whom they trust can hear. In Addis Ababa, the capital city, it’s not uncommon to see people glancing over their shoulders or covering their mouths when having political conversations in coffee shops or taxis. Because of this fear-provoking atmosphere, many Ethiopians stay silent as a means of protecting themselves against surveillance.

The United States makes an improper division between surveillance conducted on residents of the United States and the surveillance that is conducted with almost no restraint upon the rest of the world. This double standard has proved poisonous to the rights of Americans and non-Americans alike. In theory, Americans enjoy better protections. In practice there are no magical sets of servers and Internet connections that carry only American conversations. To violate the privacy of everyone else in the world, the U.S. inevitably scoops up its own citizens' data. Establishing nationality as a basis for discrimination also encourages intelligence agencies to make the obvious end-run: spying on each other's citizens, and then sharing that data. Treating two sets of innocent targets differently is already a violation of international human rights law.

Last Thursday, Facebook announced changes and clarifications to its zero-rating program formerly known as Internet.org. It’s re-branded the service “Free Basics,” but the overall idea remains the same: mobile users in developing nations can access certain websites without having to pay for the data, by accessing those websites via Facebook’s system. While the changes Facebook has made are positive, we still have some concerns—especially about the dangers posed by Facebook’s central role. But let’s start with the positive.