160 Dictating the Internet: This makes it imperative that we ensure that human rights principles and tools are taken into account now. There are a few final points worth making in this regard. First, the internet has enabled unprecedented flows of information at the global level such that domestic laws infringing on free expression or information in one country necessarily affect the rights of individuals elsewhere. Decisions and technologies affect people across borders, such as when a person in Rakhine State in Myanmar cannot communicate with a relative in Malaysia in the midst of an internet shutdown, or when a journalist based in Estonia is charged for releasing an article deemed “prejudicial to the security of Singapore”. Meanwhile, strict regulation of information online in one country or data localization requirements in another could expose individuals to legal vulnerabilities or physical violence for speech made in an entirely different national jurisdiction. Secondly, the internet has enabled vast data collection and preservation, which has made exploiting information easier by providing sheer amounts of data to authorities trained in data analytics techniques. ‘Likes’ or ‘shares’ on social media platforms now disseminate content with much more rapidity than distributing or disseminating newsletters deemed “prejudicial to the State”. Online platforms can now, for example, circulate a video deemed “insulting to the King” through multiple fora within minutes without even the owner of the platform knowing or realizing. While big data has the potential to fuel positive strides forward in development of technologies to enhance human living – through improving communications, health, education or transport for example – it can also be manipulated or misused by States to surveil, control and violate the rights of individuals. Thirdly, legal frameworks enabling control and regulation of the internet covered in this paper all operate to create an unequal playing field between governments and individuals. Individuals can be targeted and controlled online and deprived of internet access, while governments are free to release any information online, false or otherwise, and do with individuals’ data whatever they deem “necessary” or “appropriate” under the guise of “national security” or “public order”. An ordinary individual has few resources to ascertain or even understand the full extent of the information available about them online, and can be easily targeted for something said or posted years prior. An internet shutdown is the most extreme example of this imbalance of power over data and information.