Freedom House Automating Digital Repression: How AI Can Harm Human Rights Without robust safeguards and oversight, AI can make censorship, surveillance, and the creation and spread of disinformation easier, faster, cheaper, and more effective. AUTOMATING DIGITAL REPRESSION: HOW AI CAN HARM HUMAN RIGHTS Without robust safeguards and oversight, AI can make censorship, surveillance, and the creation and spread of disinformation easier, faster, cheaper, and more effective. Privacy Due process Big-data surveillance systems aggregate and analyze massive amounts of personal data, inferring people’s most sensitive information. AI models often rely on enormous datasets to function. AI-enabled surveillance tools, such as social media monitoring, forgo standards like “probable cause,” treating everyone as a possible wrongdoer. Free expression Automated systems are deployed to censor political, social, and religious speech. AI surveillance can incentivize people to avoid reprisal through self-censorship. Nondiscrimination Algorithmic systems can perpetuate bias built into their training data and exacerbate long-standing discrimination. Access to information Association and assembly Platform algorithms have promoted incendiary content over reliable information. Progovernment commentators can use generative AI to create disinformation at scale. AI systems with abilities like facial recognition can identify and track prodemocracy protesters, allowing state forces to arrest and retaliate against them. This infographic is from the Freedom on the Net 2023 report, as seen on www.freedomhouse.org. coverage period. After the death in custody of Jina Mahsa Amini sparked nationwide protests in September 2022, the regime intermittently restricted internet connectivity and blocked WhatsApp and Instagram, the only international social media platforms that had been accessible in the country. But state repression was not limited to the protests: two people were executed for alleged blasphemy after they shared their religious views on Telegram. Harsh crackdowns on free expression were also routine in China, which retained its title as the worst environment for internet freedom for the ninth year in a row. Among the many people imprisoned for sharing their views online, prominent civic activist and blogger Xu Zhiyong was sentenced to 14 years in prison in April 2023. Meanwhile, censors scrubbed away criticism of the declining economy and discussion of the legislature’s rubber-stamp approval of an unprecedented third presidential term for Xi Jinping. Despite such intense repression, the Chinese people showed inspiring resilience. In November 2022, for example, protests over a deadly fire in Urumqi, the toll of which was reportedly made worse by overly restrictive COVID-19 lockdown measures, grew into one of the most open challenges to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in decades, triggering a rare @freedomhouse nationwide policy reversal by the central government. People employed creative language on social media to evade censors, launching hashtags like “A4” and “white paper exercise” to evoke the blank sheets of paper that demonstrators raised to protest the extremity of CCP censorship. Myanmar was the world’s second most repressive environment for internet freedom this year. Under military rule since a 2021 coup, the country’s internet users continued to express support for the democratic resistance movement or grief for the victims of the junta’s violence, all at great personal risk to themselves. The army and its informants used Telegram groups to share information on such dissidents, allowing the authorities to identify, detain, and in some For the ninth consecutive year, China was found to have the worst conditions for internet freedom, though Myanmar came close to surpassing it. freedomhouse.org 3