In the digital age, the tools that promised to liberate speech have become instruments of its suppression. A global anti-censorship organization, Global Voices Advox, has placed India among twenty nations where governments have learned to wield the internet as a weapon of political control — shutting down connectivity during protests, reframing critical journalists as security threats, and orchestrating coordinated harassment of minorities through social media. This is not a story of isolated abuses, but of a coherent system, one that raises a question as old as power itself: who controls the
India flagged among 20 nations for digital authoritarianism by anti-censorship group
Journalists face arrest and surveillance; religious and political minorities targeted through coordinated social media harassment.
Internet shutdowns during protests create an information vacuum authorities can fill
Mark
When the report says internet access was restricted during protests, what does that actually look like on the ground?
Mimi
It means people in certain regions simply cannot connect. No mobile data, no WiFi. You cannot call anyone outside the area, cannot post to social media, cannot look up news. It's a complete information blackout imposed by the state.
Mark
And the social media trolling of minorities—is that something the government is directly organizing, or is it more that they've created an environment where it happens?
Mimi
The report suggests it's deliberate. The BJP leadership uses their own accounts to amplify divisive messaging, which then gives permission and momentum to their supporters to do the same. It's not accidental.
Mark
Why would authorities argue that freedom of expression isn't absolute? That sounds like a legal principle that could apply anywhere.
Mimi
True, but the way it's being used here is as a blanket justification for cracking down on dissent. Once you say freedom of expression has limits, you can define those limits however you want—and they're defining them very broadly.
Mark
The journalist piece troubles me most. How does branding them as enemies of the state actually change what happens to them?
Mimi
It changes everything. Once that narrative takes hold, arresting a journalist looks like national security work, not suppression. Surveillance becomes justified. Media outlets self-censor because they know the cost of crossing the line.
Mark
So the digital tools themselves aren't the problem—it's how they're being used?
Mimi
Exactly. The internet could be a tool for freedom. But in the hands of an authoritarian system, it becomes a tool for control. The same platform that lets you organize a protest also lets the government track you.
Il Polso
- Researchers documented how India's government cuts off internet access entirely during public protests, creating information blackouts that silence dissent and allow authorities to shape the only narrative that reaches the outside world.
- Journalists who ask difficult questions are not merely ignored — they are rebranded as enemies of the state, a rhetorical move that opens the door to surveillance, arrest, and the systematic dismantling of press freedom.
- The ruling BJP's vast social media presence has been used not just for political messaging but to coordinate harassment campaigns targeting religious and political minorities, making digital platforms a battleground for those without institutional protection.
- Indian authorities defend these measures by arguing that freedom of expression is not absolute, embedding restrictions in national security legislation that can be applied broadly against almost any form of dissent.
- Global Voices Advox warns that this dual use of digital technology — as a megaphone for power and a muzzle for opposition — is intensifying worldwide, with India's inclusion on the list signaling these are no longer outlier tactics but a new grammar of governance.
In the digital age, the tools that promised to liberate speech have become instruments of its suppression. A global anti-censorship organization, Global Voices Advox, has placed India among twenty nations where governments have learned to wield the internet as a weapon of political control — shutting down connectivity during protests, reframing critical journalists as security threats, and orchestrating coordinated harassment of minorities through social media. This is not a story of isolated abuses, but of a coherent system, one that raises a question as old as power itself: who controls the story controls the world.
Between January 2022 and March 2023, researchers at Global Voices Advox studied twenty countries — among them India, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela — and found a shared architecture of digital control. What they documented in India was not a single policy failure but a layered system, one that operates simultaneously on infrastructure, media, and social discourse.
When citizens have taken to the streets, the government's response has included cutting off internet access in affected regions entirely. These shutdowns do more than silence a protest in the moment — they disrupt economic life, prevent the flow of accurate information, and hand authorities the power to fill the resulting vacuum with their own version of events. Reality itself becomes contested terrain.
Journalists have faced a parallel strategy. Rather than simply suppressing critical reporting, authorities have adopted a more insidious approach: rhetorically recasting reporters who ask hard questions as threats to national security. That framing, once established, justifies surveillance, publication restrictions, and arrest — transforming the free press from a democratic institution into a perceived danger.
Meanwhile, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's commanding social media presence has served not only as a platform for political messaging but, according to the report, as an instrument for organizing coordinated harassment of religious and political minorities. When pressed on these practices, officials have invoked the legal argument that freedom of expression, while valued, is not without limits — a claim used to anchor internet legislation in national security grounds.
What Global Voices Advox ultimately describes is a system that has become a model. Governments, the report concludes, have learned to use digital technology in two contradictory directions at once: amplifying their own voice while narrowing everyone else's. India's place on this list of twenty nations suggests these patterns are no longer exceptional — they are becoming the defining feature of how power operates in a connected world.
A global anti-censorship organization has documented a pattern of digital control in India that extends far beyond simple content moderation. Between January 2022 and March 2023, researchers at Global Voices Advox studied how governments in twenty countries—including India, Brazil, Egypt, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela—have weaponized the internet itself as a tool of political power. What they found in India was a multifaceted system: internet shutdowns imposed during moments of public dissent, journalists critical of the government rebranded as national security threats, and coordinated social media campaigns targeting religious and political minorities.
The report, released in early August, paints a picture of digital authoritarianism that operates on multiple levels simultaneously. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have maintained a substantial social media presence, which the researchers found has been used to amplify partisan messaging and to organize what amounts to digital harassment campaigns against religious minorities and political opponents. This is not incidental to the party's strategy—it appears to be central to how it maintains and projects power.
When Indians have taken to the streets to protest, the government has responded by cutting off internet access entirely in affected regions. These blackouts, the report notes, do more than silence dissent in the moment. They disrupt economic activity, prevent the spread of information about what is actually happening on the ground, and create an information vacuum that authorities can fill with their own narrative. The cumulative effect is a distortion of reality itself—citizens cannot verify what is occurring, cannot organize, cannot communicate with the outside world.
The treatment of journalists has followed a parallel track. Rather than simply blocking critical reporting, authorities have adopted a rhetorical strategy: framing journalists who ask difficult questions as enemies of the state. This framing, the report observes, creates justification for a cascade of other measures—surveillance of reporters, restrictions on what media outlets can publish, arrests of individual journalists. The narrative transforms a free press from a democratic institution into a security threat.
When challenged on these practices, Indian authorities have invoked a legal argument: that freedom of expression, while important, is not absolute. This claim allows them to justify restrictions on speech in the name of national security, public order, or other state interests. The report found that India is among the countries that have used national security as the explicit legal foundation for internet legislation—laws that can then be deployed against almost any form of dissent.
What Global Voices Advox describes is not a single policy or a single moment of overreach, but a system. Authoritarian governments, the report concludes, have learned to use digital technologies in contradictory ways: as megaphones for their own messaging and propaganda, and as tools to restrict what others can say and see. This dynamic has only intensified as the internet has become more central to how people communicate, organize, and understand the world. India's inclusion on this list of twenty nations suggests that these patterns are no longer confined to a handful of outlier states, but have become a widespread feature of how power operates in the digital age.
Citazioni salienti
Authoritarian regimes use digital technologies to advance their messaging while restricting access for others in order to shape reality, conceal abuses, and maintain power— Global Voices Advox report
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Politics & Governance