Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Why “good” corporations are bad for democracy

In 2004, a powerful documentary film, ‘The Corporation’, caught the political imagination when it was released at the peak of the alternative globalisation struggles that emerged following the protests at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle. Based on a book of the same name, and using a witty and stylish mix of news clips, music and perceptive analysis, the film boldly challenged capitalism’s single most important player, the corporation.

The documentary won 26 awards, with even conservative commentators such as The Economist calling it ‘[a] surprisingly rational and coherent attack on capitalism’s most important institution’. 


To launch our collection examining ‘The Corporation’, the Transnational Institute went back to the film and books’ writer, Joel Bakan, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, to find out how he views the corporation today.



Joel Bakan speaks to TNI ahead of his new book and film ‘The New Corporation’ Credit: Simon Fraser University [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Joel Bakan  is a professor of law at the University of British Columbia, and an internationally renowned legal scholar and commentator. A former Rhodes Scholar and law clerk to Chief Justice Brian Dickson of the Supreme Court of Canada, Bakan has law degrees from Oxford, Dalhousie, and Harvard. As well as his critically acclaimed international hit, The Corporation




What is the corporation?






The corporation is a legal construct, indeed a legal fiction. It is not something created by God or by Nature, but rather a legally created and enforced set of relations designed to raise capital for industrialism’s large projects. Its main function is to separate the owners of an enterprise from the enterprise itself.

The latter is alchemically transformed into a ‘person’ that can bear legal rights and obligations, and therefore operate in the economy. The owners – shareholders – thus disappear as legally relevant, with the corporate ‘person’ itself (and sometimes its managers and directors) holding legal rights, and being liable when things go wrong.

It follows that shareholders’ only risk is to lose money if their share value declines. They can’t be sued for anything the corporation does. Moreover, to further sweeten the pot for their investing, the law imposes obligations on managers and directors to act only in shareholders’ best – that is, financial – interests.

The genius of it all is that this highly pro-shareholder construction provided strong incentives for many people, particularly from the emerging middle class, to invest in capitalist enterprise.

That was the corporation’s main purpose – to generate the huge pools of capital needed to finance large enterprises, railways, factories, and so on, that industrialisation made possible. It was, in effect, a crowd-funding institution.



Watch the full feature award-winning documentary film, The Corporation



What has the corporation become?

The corporation’s central institutional function – concentrating thousands, even millions, of investors’ capital into one enterprise – also created the potential for enterprises to become very large and powerful.

There were initially limitations on their power – caps on growth, restrictions on multi-sector involvement, competition laws, and so on – but over twentieth century these were weakened and eliminated.

Now companies can merge, acquire, and get bigger and bigger, accumulating ever more power with little to constrain them. As a result, they become these vast concentrations of capital that dominate not only the economy, but also society and politics.

They are not democratic and are legally compelled to serve their shareholders’ interests in everything they do.

So, you have these huge and powerful institutions, compelled by their institutional characters to pursue self-interest regardless of the consequences, bent on avoiding or pushing out of the way anything that impedes their missions – such as regulations, taxes, and public provision – creating wealth for anonymous and unaccountable shareholders, and with no democratic accountability to the people (other than their shareholders) affected by their decisions and actions.
What has changed in the 15 years since you wrote The Corporation?

A few obvious things. Big tech didn’t exist (at least not in the dominant way it does now) at the time of the first project. Climate change was a problem, but not yet the existential and immediate crisis we know it is today. The populist right was still on the fringes, globalisation was in full swing, and corporations – smarting from anti-globalisation struggles around the world, and worried about growing popular distrust and concerns about their expanding power – strategically changed their image and their game.

In terms of the latter, corporations began, around the time my first book and film came out, to make sweeping commitments to sustainability and social responsibility – to use less energy, reduce emissions, help the world’s poor, save cities, and so on.

Creative capitalism, inclusive capitalism, conscious capitalism, connected capitalism, social capitalism, green capitalism – these were the new kinds of buzzwords that came to the fore, reflecting a sense that corporate capitalism was being modified into a more socially and environmentally aware version.

The key idea, whatever rhetoric it was wrapped in, was that corporations had changed fundamentally, that while corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability had previously been located on the fringes of corporate concerns – a bit of philanthropy here, some environmental measures there – now they became entrenched at the core of companies’ ethos and operating principles.



Growth in corporate reporting by the top 100 and 250 corporations
Well, has it made any difference?

Yes, but not necessarily a positive one. The subtitle of my new book is ‘Why “good” corporations are bad for democracy

Let me explain. To begin with, despite all the fine rhetoric, the new corporation is fundamentally the same as the old one. Corporate law hasn’t changed. The corporation’s institutional make-up hasn’t changed.

What has changed is the discourse, and some of the behaviour. The new ethos is captured by the idea of ‘doing well by doing good’, finding synergy between making money and doing social and environmental good rather than presuming there’s conflict.

So now corporations make a lot of noise about their aim being to do good, far less about the fact that they can only do as much good as will help them do well.

The fact is, despite all the celebratory talk, corporations will not – indeed, cannot – sacrifice their own and their shareholders’ interests to the cause of doing good. That presents a profound constraint in terms of what kinds and amounts of good they are likely to do – and effectively licenses them to do ‘bad’ when there’s no business case for doing good.

The further problem – and this is the part about democracy – is that corporations are leveraging their new putative ‘goodness’ to support claims they no longer need to be regulated by government, because they can now self-regulate; and that they can also do a better job than governments in running public services, such as water, schools, transport, prisons, and so on.

Climate is an area where corporations have been particularly crafty. No longer can they plausibly deny climate change, so they don’t. Instead, they say ‘yes, it’s happening, we acknowledge it, but we now care, we can take the lead and provide solutions, we don’t need government regulation’.

Now, if you talk to scientists, they all say we needed to have adopted renewables yesterday to prevent cataclysmic scenarios, and that this will require massive state-led changes.

If you talk to the fossil-fuel industry, they say something quite different, something consistent with their plans to profit as long as possible from carbon fuels. They say we have time, that we shouldn’t and can’t get to renewables any time soon, that natural gas and fracking are good alternatives, that it’s all right that they continue to develop mega-projects to tap fossil-fuel reserves (including coal, like the Adani mine in Australia), that that they will take the lead on renewables.

That we should trust them – not governments – to sort out climate.



Environmental lawyers from ClientEarth in 2019 filed a high-level complaint accusing BP of misleading consumers in its latest advertising campaign, noting that the company spends less than four pounds in every hundred on low-carbon investments and 96 pounds on fuelling the climate crisis.

This new strategy is probably even more dangerous than outright denial. By purporting to be the ‘good guys’ now, they more subtly obfuscate and obscure truths and intentions, wielding their influence with governments and at climate summits to ensure their carbon-fuel-based business models remain largely unimpeded.

In my first book, the Corporation, I argued that if corporations were really people, they would be by their behaviour and traits be considered psychopaths. Now, as they put on a false face, they have effectively become charming psychopaths.
What difference has the rise of the digital giants made to the nature of the corporation?



Ten years ago, technology companies were not in the list of top 20 world companies

When internet and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are harnessed to the corporate compulsion to create profit, bad things can happen – and are happening. It’s true, as tech advocates say, that innovation and disruption are the result. But neither is necessarily a good thing. For example, the innovations of big tech are disrupting the policing of monopolies.

For many tech players, monopoly is built into their business models. Facebook, for example, has to be the place everyone goes for social connection. Amazon needs to be the platform for all shoppers and retailers. Google, the search engine everyone uses. The value of these companies is based on being the one place where everyone goes. That gives them a monopoly on the two things that have value in the tech space – attention and data.

It also incentivises them to go beyond their sectors, to invade and dominate other sectors – such as Amazon entering cloud-based computing and pharmaceuticals, Facebook becoming a major news hub and increasingly central to how election campaigns are run, Google pushing into urban planning (through Sidewalk Labs).

Current anti-monopoly laws and regulators are too weak (a result of deregulation) and politically unmotivated to keep up, which is what has allowed these companies to turn into behemoths that stifle competition and have undue influence on politics and society – in short, to disrupt democracy.

Another problem is that corporations are collecting ever more data, triangulating it, graphing our every move and emotion, especially as all the hardware in our lives becomes internet-connected (through the ‘Internet of Things’) and the software becomes more sophisticated at monitoring and predicting our behaviour.

The problem is often thought about in terms of privacy – that our privacy is being invaded by the collection of all this data. But the real problem is control: how the data is likely to be used to control how we act, think, and feel in ways that are ultimately profitable to corporations.

The possibilities for employers controlling workers’ every move are already evident in, for example, Amazon’s micro-monitoring of warehouse workers’ performance. Similarly, insurance companies are starting to monitor life insurance policy-holders’ fitness and physiological data through wearable devices and so on.
And how does that affect democracy?

As corporations gain greater direct control over individuals through new technologies, it becomes more difficult – if not impossible – for democratic governments to regulate the relationship between corporations and private citizens.

When an insurance company has direct control of individuals it insures – knowing their driving habits, or whether they are fit, and adjusting rates or denying pay-outs on these bases – it becomes difficult for democratic institutions – regulators and courts – to protect individuals’ consumer rights.

When a platform like Uber uses technology to effectively circumvent the employment relationship (a regulatory construct designed to protect workers from the much greater power of their employers) it becomes difficult to protect workers.

Democracy is also affected by the rise of misinformation, hate, and incendiary speech, which is magnified by the internet and social media. That too is connected to big-tech business models. A company like Facebook thrives by getting more people engaged more of the time. More is better – and questions about truth, or the public interest, or democracy are simply irrelevant.

More generally, the rise of right-wing authoritarianism, which is happening through democratic electoral processes, is in large part a reaction to 40 years of neoliberal policies that have destroyed jobs and social provision, and thus lives and communities. Those 40 years of policies were – and continue to be – spearheaded by large corporations, which used their resources to lobby, fund elections, move and threaten to move operations in response to regulation and proposed regulation, roll back and avoid taxes, and so on.

Leaders of the ‘new’ corporation movement – the very companies claiming to care, to be socially responsible and sustainable – have been at the forefront of these campaigns. None of them has said, ‘social and environmental values are important, so let’s have more regulation and taxes to protect them’. Quite the contrary.

Corporations are now leveraging their supposed new persona to push back democracy, by claiming, as noted above, that they can regulate themselves in lieu of legal measures, and that they should be put in charge of social provision in place of public authorities.

It’s quite the two-step. They campaign to eviscerate governments’ capacity to deal with social and environmental issues, and then step in to say that they can do the work government has been rendered, through their efforts, unable to do.

The result is less government and more corporations in our lives and societies – meaning less democracy overall.
How have civil society and social movements responded to the rise of the corporation?

The last 20 years have seen a remarkable rise of organised and effective movements to push back against corporate power and the threat it poses to democracy.

More than 200 cities around the world have rejected water privatisation by re-municipalising previously privatised systems; indigenous peoples have won battles against extractive industries and for recognition of land rights and self-determination; the ‘movement of the squares’ swept through cities around the world in 2011 and included the Occupy movement; progressive politicians have won victories in cities like Barcelona and Paris in Europe, New York, Jackson, Seattle and Tucson in the United States, and Vancouver in Canada – along with many others. 


Graphic from TNI’s report, Reclaiming Public Services: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/reclaiming-public-services

In the United States, there was Bernie Sanders, an open socialist, making (in 2016, and again in 2020) a play for the presidency, and the thousands of progressive election campaigns he helped inspire, many successful – like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and other progressive representatives.

And then there’s the new energy and urgency of surging activism around the world, mass movements demanding action on climate change, extractive industry projects, indigenous rights, against racism.

It’s all very positive and inspiring.

We have to be wary, however, of corporations’ attempts to co-opt this wave of resistance. They are certainly trying, working hard to make us to believe that they are the true change-makers; that our best path to a better world is to buy their ‘green’ products, support their social and environmental initiatives, follow their advice on recycling, reducing, and so on.

Companies and their CEOs take stands on various issues, and they increasingly form partnerships with non-government organisations (NGOs) like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Save the Children (SCF), Conservation International and inter-governmental organisations such as the various entities of the United Nations.

No doubt some good may come from all this, but it’s important to recognise that the same companies allying with NGOs, and taking up a stance on racism, immigration, or discrimination against LGBQT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer and Transgender) people are also lobbying hard to reduce government oversight, push back taxation, expand markets, cut social provision, and so on.
Is there a place for the corporation in the future?

I think there is a place for a financing vehicle for large projects that require large pools of capital, which is essentially what the corporation is. But it has to be understood as a tool, as a means, not an end in itself.

The corporation was created by government for that purpose, as a financing tool. Its virtue in incentivising investment – its legal mandate to create wealth without constraint – is also its greatest danger.

Because of that, it must be regulated, and it shouldn’t be used to deliver inherently social goods, and certainly not to help govern society. It is completely ill-equipped to do those things, being fundamentally self-interested and lacking democratic accountability to anyone but its shareholders.

We should also be thinking about using other kinds of economic organisations to create goods and services, such as cooperatives, or public institutions with public-interest mandates.

There is no evidence to support, and much to contradict, that that the ideal institution is always, or even usually or sometimes, the large for-profit corporation. Rather, corporations are best thought of as we might think about, say, a lawn mower. It has its uses. It’s very good at cutting the lawn. But you don’t want to use it to cut your hair or vacuum your living-room rug.

All of which may be an argument for shifting away from capitalism to some other kind of system – such as those imagined by democratic socialism, or the commons movement or indigenous cosmologies – where social and ecological ends are prioritised rather than the accumulation of capital.

Though something like that may be on the horizon, in the meantime we have to figure out how to rein in the dangerous tendencies of the corporations and capitalism we currently have, and to ensure they do not – as they may – turn out to be doomsday machines.
What about B-Corps or Benefit corporations? Are they a good step?



Promotion of Benefit Corporations on https://bcorporation.net/

No. B-corps are not a solution and I have opposed them, including in my home province of British Columbia where the government took measures to recognise them.

Typically, a B-corp is nothing more than a certification by a private company (such as B-Lab) that a corporation meets certain social and environmental standards.

It’s not needed for corporations that are not publicly traded, which already have leeway to subordinate financial to social and environmental goals if they so wish. And for publicly traded corporations, even if they become B-corps (which, so far, no major one has), they’re still legally bound to prioritise shareholder value. A private certification doesn’t change the law.

So what B-corps end up being are, in effect, a privatisation of regulation, a prop for the ideology that corporations, through market mechanisms and private oversight, can protect and promote public interests. It’s not about democratically promulgated rules to control corporations, nor about state-backed enforcement mechanisms for such rules. It’s yet another velvet glove hiding the iron fist of neoliberalism.

A different approach is to reformulate the legal constitution of the corporation to include social and environmental goals as well as financial ones. Again, I don’t favour this approach.

One problem is that it will never subordinate financial goals to social and environmental ones – the latter will always be pursued only in ways that are compatible with the former.

The second problem is that indeterminate judgements about whether social and environmental goals are met – which should be pursued, how and to what extent – are placed in the hands of managers rather than democratically accountable regulators.

Third, the presence of this new kind of corporation would inevitably be leveraged, probably successfully, to push for more deregulation – the argument being that regulation is redundant when standards are baked into the corporation itself.

The problem is that the corporation’s sole reason for existing within capitalism is to incentivise investment. That will always entail prioritising returns on investors’ capital, rather than competing values fixed into the corporation’s legal nature. The imperatives of corporations within capitalism will always be capitalist imperatives.

We need to deal with the dangers of that dynamic democratically, through policies, laws, and regulation, rather than by tweaking the corporate form and effectively delegating regulatory functions to corporate managers and directors.
How do we get there?

I don’t advocate revolution because I believe existing democratic structures, however corrupt, can be reclaimed and repurposed, reunited with grassroots movements and the genuine needs and voices of citizens.

In the meantime, we need to do a lot of myth-busting to reveal the truth that corporations and markets can’t deliver the social and environmental goods we need; that democracy and democratic institutions must be revived.

We need to work with and in our communities, schools, and unions, to educate and inspire each other. To work with, become part of, and help elect progressive political parties, join and form movements, promote solidarity while celebrating difference.


Tags: building resilient societies, capitalism, Corporations, neoliberal ideology

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Bernie Sanders holds campaign rally with woman who co-wrote Medicare for All bill: 'Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege'

Vermont senator appears in Washington state as Nevada poll gives him 20 point lead


Andrew BuncombeTacoma, Washington @AndrewBuncombe


Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders has thunderously championed his universal healthcare plan - Medicare for All - with the personal support of the woman who helped him write “the damn bill”.

In front a large, raucous crowd south of Seattle, the senator said healthcare was a human right, not a privilege. For much of his speech, his words were drowned out by the cheers and roars of his supporters.

During debates with other Democrats seeking to become the nominee to take on Donald Trump in November, the Vermont senator has several times asserted his expertise on universal health care by declaring: “I wrote the damn bill.”

In truth he only wrote the Senate version of such a proposal. The legislation introduced in the House of Representatives was written by congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who has endorsed Mr Sanders and appeared in Tacoma on Monday night.

“I’m proud to be the person, along with Bernie Sanders, who sponsored Medicare for All,” said Ms Jayapal, a Democrat who represents Washington’s 7th congressional district, located 40 miles to the north. “[And] tuition for all.




When he took the stage at the Tacoma Dome, where 17,000 people were said to have gathered to see him, Mr Sanders drew attention to many of the issues he has made central to his campaign - addressing inequality, combating climate change, working towards criminal justice reform.

He also dedicated considerable time on his vow to pass universal healthcare if he was elected president, an issue that could help propel him into the White House, or derail him if voters consider it too progressive.

No issue has acted more clearly as a marker for the different lanes of the Democratic Party. Elizabeth Warren initially supported Medicare for All, before tweaking her position to allow consumers to stay on a private plan during a three-year transition plan.

Bernie Sanders responds to New Hampshire victory


Pete Buttigieg supports Medicare for those who want it, while Joe Biden would like to see existing coverage - remnants of the Affordable Care Act he worked with Barack Obama to pass - expanded and improved.

“Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege,” said the 78-year-old democratic socialist. “It is insane we spend twice as much on healthcare per person as Canada and any other [country] on earth.”

He added: “Despite all of that we have 87 million people, some of them who are here tonight, who are uninsured or under-insured. We have 30,000 people who die every year because they don’t get to a doctor on time.”
Among those who had come to see Mr Sanders were Jessica Livingstone, 36, a nanny from Seattle, who said she had to pay $400 a month for her health insurance. She had supported Mr Sanders four years ago, when she claims the nomination was unfairly denied to him by the Democratic National Committee, elements of which had favoured Hillary Clinton.
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“I’ve been a a big Bernie supporter since 2016,” she said. “I think billionaires have too much money.”

Another supporter, Andrea Gamble, 53, an accountant, said she supported many of the senator’s policies. Asked if he could win the nomination and defeat Mr Trump, she said: “I think people will put him over. People are more important than money.”

Mr Sanders' appearance in Washington state, his first in the 2020 campaign, comes on the back of a virtual tie in Iowa with Mr Buttigieg, and a narrow victory over the former South Bend mayor in New Hampshire.

In Nevada, the next state to vote and which holds its caucus on Saturday, Mr Sanders leads a poll published by Data for Change with 35 points, Ms Warren, 16, Mr Buttigieg on 15, and Mr Biden on 14.

“Donald Trump is a fraud. He sold out the working families of this country who he promised to defend,” said Mr Sanders. “He said that everyone would have healthcare, and yet he took 32m people off the healthcare they had.”



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The US Foreign Policy Debacle In The Philippines – Analysis



Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Photo courtesy of the Presidential Communications Office

February 18, 2020 By Mark J. Valencia


The decision by Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to terminate its Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with its U.S. ally has elicited a cacophony of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the US foreign policy community. This initial reaction may soon be followed by recriminations regarding “who lost the Philippines’. But Duterte’s move to officially distance the Philippines from the US militarily was long in coming and should have been foreseen. Indeed, this particular US foreign policy failure is the inevitable result of blinkered diplomatic ignorance and arrogance.

The context is important. The US military has had a presence in the Philippines at least since the transfer of colonial rule from Spain in 1898. The Philippines was an American colony from 1898 to its independence in 1946. Since 1951 the Philippines and the U.S. have had a Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) which under certain conditions provides that each would support the other if one were attacked by a third party. Under this arrangement the U.S. had large bases in the Philippines of strategic importance to its continued regional dominance– Subic naval base and Clark air force base. But many Filipinos considered them evidence of US imperialism and wanted them closed. https://quizlet.com/64789103/wh-chapter-342-the-colonies-become-new-nations-section-2-southeast-asian-nations-gain-independence-flash-cards/

In 1992, the Philippines evicted the troops. In 1999 the VFA was negotiated to provide the framework for deployment of US forces in the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visiting_Forces_Agreement_(Philippines_%E2%80%93_United_States) In 2016, a supplement to the VFA was negotiated –the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement–to allow the U.S. to rotate troops into the Philippines and to build and operate facilities on Philippine bases. It has been slow in its implementation and anyway the abrogation of the VFA may make it moot.

The reactions of US Asia policy wonks to this current development ranges from panicky predictions of a serious blow to the U.S. hub and spoke alliance system in Asia- as well as its war against terror https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/shunning-the-us-who-will-the-philippines-turn-to-next-33725 – to ‘don’t worry, this – and the Duterte administration – will pass. https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/lets-keep-our-nerve-us-philippines-relations

Brad Glosserman writing in the Japan Times asserts that the 1999 VFA is essential to the implementation of the MDT. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/02/12/commentary/japan-commentary/duterte-poised-shake-regional-security-order/#.XkdQtShKiAQ This was corroborated by Philippines Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. who indicated that ‘without the VFA, the MDT would be “hollow” and the EDCA “practically useless”. https://globalnation.inquirer.net/185263/us-wrong-move-to-end-vfa-amid-china-buildup

Derek Grossman of Rand thinks the collapse of the alliance would send the “message to Washington’s remaining allies and partners that you simply shouldn’t trust that the US will defend or assist you against China. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3050833/ending-philippines-us-military-pact-will-affect-south-china-sea


James Holmes of the Naval War College thinks terminating the VFA “could ripple throughout Southeast Asia to the detriment of _ _ US maritime strategy toward China”. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-philippines-alliance-dying-123841 But he also thinks both sides are bluffing and that they need each other enough that a deal will be struck.

When the possibility of a downturn in US-Philippines military relations first arose, Satu Limaye, the director of the East-West Center in Washington did not think the alliance was in danger of unraveling. He dismissed the possibility saying “US-Philippines relations have weathered far worse than the current tempest.” https://www.philstar.com/other-sections/news-feature/2019/03/01/1897753/commentary-renegotiated-mutual-defense-treaty-neither-simple-nor-panacea-bilateral-ties#jFfgBvXZhzk6vrsV.99

Nevertheless some in the US government are worried. According to Mark Esper the Secretary of Defense “I do think it would be a move in the wrong direction as we both_ _are trying to say to the Chinese: ‘You must obey the international rules of order.”
https://globalnation.inquirer.net/185263/us-wrong-move-to-end-vfa-amid-china-buildup#ixzz6DzoSL9wZ

Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Phil Davidson fears that ending the defence relationship would undermine the counter terrorism campaign in the Philippines south. https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3050435/china-threatens-pacific-stability-us-commander-warns-citing The US embassy in Manila said that the withdrawal is “a serious step with significant implications.” https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-11/philippines-notifies-us-of-intent-to-end-major-security-pact

On the other hand, US President Donald Trump’s response was to welcome it. He said nonchalantly “I don’t really mind if they would like to do that, it will save a lot of money.” https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/02/12/world/asia/12reuters-philippines-usa-defense-trump.html But Amy Searight, former deputy assistant secretary of defence for South and Southeast Asia said “Trumps’ willingness to let it end certainly hurts US credibility”.

Supposedly, the proximate cause of Duterte making good on his standing threat to disengage militarily from the U.S. was the US denial of a visa for his ex police chief because he had been in charge of Duterte’s war against drugs. But if so, this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. This foreign policy disaster was long in the making and involved generations of US foreign policy makers and ‘experts’. Not only did they just not ‘get it’–that is, the underlying cause and depth of Duterte’s personal angst– but they failed to recognize that the roots of the problem were — American cultural hubris and diplomatic heavy handedness. They all blindly –and some even enthusiastically– supported and implemented the US policy of advancing US interests as if they all were the same as those of the Filipino people. They are not and never were.

As a recent example of this misconception, in response to some of Duterte’s early anti-US rhetoric, then US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Denial Russel said “there’s lots of noise, a lot of stray voltage coming from Manila. We’ve been through a lot worse in our 70-year history”. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/10/30/commentary/world-commentary/behind-manilas-pivot-china/#.XkdTRyhKiAQ

He added that “the benefits the Philippines gets from U.S. assistance and protection under the1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and the strong public support in that country for America “make it improbable any Philippine leader would distance himself from the United States.”

People and cultures have long memories especially when they have been badly treated by another nation. American colonialism in the Philippines tried to Americanize Filipino culture. To America, Filipinos were “our little brown brothers”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_brown_brother The legacy of American colonialism is still very apparent in the Philippines. Its Constitution’s recognizes English as an official language and its education system is modeled on and oriented toward the U.S. Particularly galling is the continuing condescending treatment of Filipinos and especially Filipinas by the US military and American ‘tourists’ as well as by the U.S. diplomatic approach. There is a dormant volcano of resentment that has built up over decades of Americans taking advantage of Filipino warmth and tolerance. It last erupted against the VFA in 2009 when—against a Philippines court’s orders– the US Embassy harbored a US Marine convicted of rape until his conviction was controversially overturned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subic_rape_case

Duterte’s attitude towards America may be based in part on personal experience. As a college student he was supposedly denied a visa to visit the U.S. In May 2002 when he was mayor of Davao, the U.S. embarrassed him by facilitating the surreptitious departure of an American charged with causing an explosion in a hotel there. Duterte did not forget what he considered this arrogance and deceit. In 2013, he refused an American request to base drones at Davao’s old airport.

When Duterte was elected, the U.S. began to reap what it had sowed. His then Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay Jr. explained the view of the current leadership thus “The United States held on to invisible chains that reined us in towards dependence and submission as little brown brothers not capable of true independence and freedom.” https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/world/asia/philippines-rodrigo-duterte-obama.html

As Duterte has put it, he is the democratically elected “President of a sovereign state and we have long-ceased to be a colony.” https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/world/asia/philippines-duterte-obama.html The current approach of the U.S. towards the Philippines has rekindled this anti-American angst.

Duterte remains hugely popular with his people—he has an 87% approval rating. scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3050972/has-rodrigo-duterte-squandered-his-one-chance-transform. Whatever happens now, he has stood up to the U.S. and it will be very difficult if not impossible to put the genie of nationalism back in the bottle. He believes he is freeing his country and people from the ideological and political shackles of America’s neocolonialism.

But there are also solid contemporary reasons why Duterte is doing what he is doing. He thinks American power in the region is waning and that China’s is rising. He is unsure if America will back up the Philippines in a conflict with China. He also believes that the Philippines will have to live with and get along with China for the long term. Becoming more neutral militarily is more compatible with this view.

What Duterte is doing is risky. He may only be switching one hegemon for another. Or he may wind up losing both as friends and supporters.

Worse there is the possibility of a US-supported military coup. Any such US involvement in regime change would only compound this foreign policy disaster. It would just restart the cycle of resistance and rebellion against the U.S. and its supporters and ultimately splinter the country to the advantage of global Muslim jihadist movements—and to China because it will neutralize an American asset.

The political context in the region and the Philippines has changed dramatically and the U.S. must adjust to it. The only way to rebuild the integrity and robustness of the US-Philippines alliance is for the U.S. to shed its neocolonial approach and focus on truly common interests – as defined by—not for– the Philippines.

A much shorter version of this piece appeared in the South China Morning Post https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3050861/us-policy-failure-philippines-has-deep-roots-decades-american



Mark J. Valencia,
is an internationally known maritime policy analyst, political commentator and consultant focused on Asia. He is the author or editor of some 15 books and more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and Adjunct Senior Scholar, National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China



Ending Philippines-US military pact will affect South China Sea disputes: analysts

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte wants to end the agreement governing US forces in the Philippines and US leader Donald Trump doesn’t mind

Experts say it will have an impact on calculations by Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea dispute and be a ‘huge win for China’

Meaghan Tobin Published16 Feb, 2020


The Visiting Forces Agreement is a key part of one of 
Southeast Asia’s major security partnerships. Photo: DPA

After years of threatening to abandon the Philippines’ military alliance with the United States, President Rodrigo Duterte  last week confirmed plans to terminate the agreement governing the presence of American troops, a key part of one of Southeast Asia’s major security partnerships.

The announcement was widely interpreted as an attempt by Duterte to extract concessions from Washington, which regards military cooperation with Manila as crucial to
countering Beijing’s activities in the South China Sea. US President Donald Trump, however,  told reporters he had no concerns about the treaty being scrapped.

“I really don’t mind, if they would like to do that,” Trump said on Wednesday. “We’ll save a lot of money.”


P
US resident Donald Trump with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte
 at an Asean Summit in 2017. Photo: AP

Between 2016 and 2019, the US spent US$550 million on
military assistance to the Philippines, which is also a top recipient of US aid – second only to Indonesia in Asia – receiving nearly US$280 million in 2018, according to the US aid agency.


TO BUY WEAPONS FROM THE USA AND RENT FOR THE SUBIC BASE


The Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) is one of three pacts governing the US-Philippines defence relationship. Experts warn that without it, the other two – a mutual defence agreement and the 2014 enhanced defence cooperation agreement, known as EDCA – will be substantially less effective. The agreements provide for training and assistance to the Philippines’ military modernisation effort as well as annual joint military exercises

US Defence Secretary Mark Esper last week described the termination of the VFA as “unfortunate” and “a move in the wrong direction”.

“We have to digest it. We have to work through the policy angles, the military angles,” Esper told reporters.

Trump has also pressured US allies Korea and Japan to pay more for their defence partnerships, and experts warn the deterioration of the partnership with Manila,
although initiated by Duterte, could undermine Washington’s status as a security guarantor in the region.

“Trump’s willingness to let the agreement end certainly hurts US credibility,” said Amy Searight, former deputy assistant secretary of defence for South and Southeast Asia who is now senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Being so dismissive of alliance relationships hurts our image in Southeast Asia.”

After Philippines scraps US defence pact, Rodrigo Duterte eyes Russian arms
13 Feb 2020

The Philippines was a US territory before independence in 1946, and the US has remained its primary defence partner. However, Duterte has regularly complained about Manila’s relationship with Washington and sought to realign his foreign policy towards Beijing and Moscow since he took office in 2016. Last month, he repeated his threat to end the pact after the US denied a visa to one of his allies,
Ronald Dela Rosa, who oversaw the controversial war on drugs while he was police chief.

Those complaints notwithstanding, Washington was a key ally in Manila’s fight against Isis-linked insurgents in 2017 after they laid siege to Marawi on Duterte’s home island of Mindanao.

Has the US already lost the battle for the South China Sea?
17 Feb 2020

The US has also been a critical ally to the Philippines in countering China’s claims in the disputed South China Sea. Before Duterte confirmed he wanted to terminate the agreement, the Philippines Foreign Secretary Tedoro Locsin Jnr told a televised Senate hearing that: “While the Philippines has the prerogative to terminate the VFA anytime, the continuance of the agreement is deemed to be more beneficial to the Philippines compared to any predicates were it to be terminated.”

Maritime expert Jay Batongbacal told the Philippines media that without the VFA, Beijing could continue building military bases in contested waters.

For Washington, the treaty’s collapse could leave it without a key outpost for force projection in the South China Sea.

Although the US has outposts in Darwin, Guam and Okinawa, its presence in the Philippines is described by the defence establishment as an “immediate footprint”in the South China Sea and a critical part of Washington’s strategy to pursue a free and open Indo-Pacific.



Trump’s comments could also call into question the mutual defence agreement with the Philippines, according to Derek Grossman, senior defence analyst at the Rand Corporation, a Washington think tank.


Trump’s willingness to let the agreement end certainly hurts US credibility Amy Searight, defence analyst

“If the mutual defence treaty collapses, it would be a huge win for China,” Grossman said. “This would send exactly the wrong message to Washington’s remaining allies and partners – that is, you simply shouldn’t trust that the US will defend or assist you against China, and it is therefore right to question the value of the American presence in the Indo-Pacific in the years to come.”

In a commentary for the Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times, Li Kaisheng, the deputy director at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of International Relations said he did not believe the scrapping of the pact would see Manila “gravitate towards Beijing” as China was only one of several countries it was pursuing closer ties with.
Instead, there would be an impact on the South China Sea, he added.

"Washington has repeatedly meddled in regional affairs through various means, such as sending its warships to conduct so-called freedom of navigation operations, and joint military exercises with other claimants, including Vietnam. Without the VFA, US interference with the South China Sea will be constrained,” Li wrote.

The US continuously deploys between 500 and 600 troops in the Philippines, according to Rand. The US presence was dramatically reduced in the early 1990s when lawmakers in Manila moved to shut down two bases in the 1990s which were at the time the largest US military outposts in the western Pacific.

Philippines Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Thursday said the
annual joint military exercises – called Balikatan, meaning “shoulder to shoulder” in Tagalog – planned for May would take place during the agreement’s remaining 180 days.

“Once the termination is final, we will cease to have exercises with them,” Lorenzana said.

Are Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia about to get tough on Beijing’s South China Sea claims? 17 Feb 2020

More distant relations between Washington and Manila could also lead to a
recalculation by other countries in Southeast Asia, especially those whose South China Sea claims overlap with Beijing’s.

Collin Koh, research fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said Indonesia and Vietnam could seek closer military cooperation with the US.
Singapore has also been a key defence partner of the US and could expand military cooperation, Koh said.
“On the cusp of the closure of the US military bases in the Philippines in the 1990s, Singapore offered the US access to Changi naval base,” he said. “Singapore has been an ardent supporter of the US military presence in the region.”

Australia also maintains a visiting forces agreement with the Philippines and has in the past, along with Japan, taken part in the annual joint military exercises with the US and the Philippines. Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Felimon Santos Junior said the nation will increase military engagements with these neighbours after the agreement with the US ends, local media reported.

On the other hand, some experts regard the back-and-forth between Trump and Duterte as typical of two leaders known for conducting foreign affairs via dramatic statements on social media, which is ultimately unlikely to result in the dissolution of one of Asia’s longest-standing military partnerships.

China’s ‘great friendship’ with Micronesia grows warmer, leaving US with strategic headache in Pacific 23 Dec 2019

Koh suggested domestic stakeholders in
Manila’s security establishment would not support Duterte scrapping the
Philippines’ military relationship with the US altogether, and that the relationship would endure.

“This defence relationship is a long-standing, proven and deeply entrenched one that has over the decades survived the ups and downs of different administrations,” Koh said. “It’s difficult to imagine the loss of the visiting forces agreement will unravel such close bilateral military ties.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Warning over move to end pact on Defence


Meaghan Tobin has nearly a decade of experience spanning journalism and public policy in Washington, Taipei and Beijing. For the Post, she covers geopolitics, diplomacy and policy trends in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Pakistan government secretly passes strict social media regulations

 


 Men using computers are seen in Islamabad, Pakistan, on October 20, 2017. The country secretly passed regulations that restrict social media activity. (Reuters/Caren Firouz)

Pakistan government secretly passes strict social media regulations


CPJ

Washington, D.C., February 13, 2020 -- The Pakistan government should immediately roll back a set of social media regulatory measures that were passed in secret, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On January 28, the federal cabinet approved the “Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules, 2020,” a set of regulations on social media content, without public consultation; the measures were enacted in secret and were reported yesterday by The News International, an English-language daily.

A copy of the regulations, which was leaked online, shows that the rules empower the government to fine or ban social media platforms over their users’ content. The regulations provide for a National Coordinator to be appointed within the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications responsible for enforcing the rules.

In the text of the regulations, the government claims the rules were approved under the authority of the 2016 Pakistan Electronic Communications Act.

“These stringent but vague rules approved by Pakistan’s federal cabinet threaten the ability of journalists to report the news and communicate with their sources,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “The cabinet should immediately reverse course and seek broad consultations with legislators and civil society, including the media, on how to proceed with any such regulations.”

The regulations require social media companies including Facebook (which owns WhatsApp), Twitter, and Google (which owns YouTube), to establish representative offices in Pakistan to answer complaints filed by the National Coordinator.

The companies are also required to remove content deemed objectionable by the National Coordinator within 24 hours, and to provide to the regulator decrypted content and “any other information” about users on demand.

The companies are also made responsible for preventing the live streaming of any content “related to terrorism, extremism, hate speech, defamation, fake news, incitement to violence and national security.” If a service is does not comply, the National Coordinator is granted the power to block services and levy fines of up to 500 million rupees ($3.24 million).

The regulations do not specify how encrypted services such as WhatsApp would be able to comply with the rules.

Firdous Ashsiq Awan, special assistant to the prime minister on information and broadcasting, said in a press conference today that the regulations were aimed at protecting citizens’ interests and national integrity, and said the government would not take any steps against users’ interests, according to news reports.

Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, a member of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party and chair of the senate Human Rights Committee, told CPJ via messaging app that the rules were seen “as an attempt to further restrict space of free discourse in Pakistan,” citing censorship imposed on the media under the current government.

He said the Pakistan People’s Party would oppose the rules in the parliament and the courts.

Media Matters for Democracy, a local organization that promotes press freedom, said in a statement that the rules were an attempt to silence political opposition and critics, and expressed doubt that social media companies would comply.

A separate statement by the Digital Rights Foundation, which promotes internet safety, described the rules as a “blatant violent” of free speech provisions in Pakistan’s constitution and expressed concern that the rules would lead to self-censorship.

On February 11, Pakistan’s Senate Committee On Human Rights rejected legislation that would have empowered the country’s broadcast regulator to regulate internet and digital content, according to reports and Senator Khokhar.


Shooting the messenger


Editorial DAWN


Updated February 18, 2020

TO shoot the messenger is the go-to tactic for authoritarian leaders; facts are anathema if inconsistent with the airbrushed version of reality they choose to project. When the government demonises the media as the ‘enemy’, it creates a buffer against the public being informed of inconvenient truths and against poor governance or corruption being exposed.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s diatribes against the press have become increasingly frequent and hostile. On Saturday, during a chat with journalists, he claimed he had endured “media attacks” over the past two years, singling out the Dawn and Jang media houses as having, in his words, published “false stories” against him and his government.

In the same breath, he rightly described the media as “an important pillar of democracy” — which makes his discrediting of the press all the more ironic. Presumably, in the prime minister’s eyes, only a media uncritical of his government’s performance is a pillar of democracy; only a media that fawns over him, as it did during his long dharna in 2014, is tolerable. Now in the ‘hot seat’ himself as the country’s chief executive, Mr Khan — his well-documented aversion to criticism on full display — has even advised the people to refrain from watching TV talk shows and reading newspapers.

Democratic dispensations do not have the luxury of a victim narrative; they must defend their performance before the public on the basis of facts. However, Mr Khan demonstrates a woeful lack of understanding of the media’s function as a conduit of information — whether favourable or otherwise to the government of the day — and, if it acquits itself well, as a watchdog for the public interest.

Certainly, it is possible that inaccuracies may have crept into some coverage, and a few newspaper columns may not have been to the government’s liking. But to accuse the media of having some ‘agenda’ against it is ridiculous and smacks of rising frustration in PTI ranks. The government should not hide behind wild accusations, such as those by Mr Khan’s media aide that 20 “baseless news” had appeared in Dawn and Jang in the recent past.

Which stories were these? The publications concerned have a right to know and defend themselves.

The state’s desire to bring the media to heel is most clearly manifested in its arbitrary, unacceptable and illegal strategy since last December of denying government ads — as have done some previous administrations — to certain outlets that refuse to be dictated to. While the approach is being tacitly applied at the federal level, and KP and Punjab too have resorted to unannounced bans, there is no doubt the orders have come from the very top. The prime minister must rethink his short-sighted approach, immediately lift the ban and engage with media leaders. Power is ephemeral, and Mr Khan should consider that one day he may once again need a free press.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2020


Pakistan's draconian rules on social media take activists by surprise
“The Rules are a blatant violation of Article 19 of the Constitution.’’
Posted 17 February 2020 


On January 28, the Pakistan federal cabinet approved the “Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules, 2020,” without consulting other stakeholders or informing the public as The News International, an English-language daily, reported on February 12, 2020. The rules and regulations have been inserted in the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016.

These set of rules will regulate all social media activities online and the social media companies would be obliged to disclose any information or data to investigation agencies when requested by the authorities. They would also be required to remove content deemed unlawful by the authorities. If platforms fail to comply with the rules, they risk being blocked and fined. It is not clear when the new rules will go into effect.

This took Pakistani activists by surprise:


#Pakistan Approves Broad New Restrictions Over #SocialMedia would dramatically change the way companies such as ⁦@Facebook⁩ and ⁦@Twitter⁩ operate in the country #censorship https://t.co/NWvhu9efB5

— Farahnaz Ispahani (@fispahani) February 13, 2020
What's in the rules?

According to Secretary Ministry of Information Technology Shoaib Siddiqui, the new rules require “social media companies and platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Dailymotion, Twitter and others to open offices in Pakistan and register in the country within three months.” These platforms will have to remove any “unlawful content’’ pointed out to them in writing or in an electronically signed email within 24 hours, and in emergency cases within six hours.

According to the rules, social media means “any social media application or service or communication channel dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content, sub-content sharing and collaboration’’ and a social media company refers to “an entity that owns or runs or manages those online Systems.’’ According to the rules, such companies “shall take due cognizance of the religious, cultural, ethnic and national security sensitivities of Pakistan.’’

A National Coordinator will be appointed by the Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunication “who will be assisted by a committee comprising of stakeholders (the rules did not specify these stakeholders) as notified by the aforesaid Minister.’’ According to the rules, the Coordinator's functions will also include writing instruction in relation to the regulation of social media:


advis[ing] the Federal or Provincial Governments, and issu[ing] instructions to departments, authorities and agencies, in accordance with requirements of National Security in relation to management or regulation or functioning of social media companies. The departments, authorities or agencies shall act in compliance with the said instructions. Such instructions may include actions related to blocking of unlawful online content, acquisition of data or information from social media companies, and other such matters;

According to rule 6, “social media companies shall provide to the Investigation Agency designated or established under section 29 of the Act subscriber information about the subscriber, traffic data, content data and any other information or data.’’

Rule 7 mentions that “in case a social media company fails to abide by the provision of these Rules, the National Coordinator may issue instructions for shutting down the respective service or blocking of the entire Online System and levy a fine up to 500 million Pakistan Rupees (3.24 million US dollars).’’
“Draconian’’ rules

All major digital rights activists and many social media users in Pakistan have rejected this step and condemned it saying that this is a new attack on freedom of expression, privacy, and digital rights of Pakistanis. The rules were passed secretly in the cabinet and parliamentarians will not be debating it.

Local human rights organization Bytes for All (B4A) expressed its concerns:


Bytes for All has serious reservations over the Citizens Protection Against Online Harm rules. We believe they aim at granting access to State to personal data of citizens and curb their speech. Moreover, it will have serious implications on internet based businesses in country

— Bytes for All, PK (@bytesforall) February 14, 2020

Digital Rights activist Nighat Dad mentioned that the brand new regulations will give the government dangerous powers to control social media. According to her the definition of extremism, faith or tradition mentioned in the rules can be misinterpreted to name any on-line content material unlawful or extremist or anti-state. Section 2(d) of the rule states:


“Extremism” means the violent, vocal or active opposition to fundamental values of the state of Pakistan including the security, integrity or defence of Pakistan, public order, decency or morality, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.

Media Matters for Democracy stated:


The scope and scale of action defined in the rules appear to go way beyond the mandate given under the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organization) Act, 1996 (XVII of 1996) and the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (XL of 2016). We remind the government that anybody creating Rules under a law has to treat them as subordinate legislation and thus, the prescribed Rules cannot exceed the power of the parent Acts, i.e. the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organization) Act, 1996 (XVII of 1996) and the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (XL of 2016).

While Digital Rights Foundation said:


The Rules are a blatant violation of Article 19 (freedom of speech and information) of the Constitution.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) is concerned that the rules will enable the designated authorities to control freedom of expression and opinion in the guise of protecting “religious, cultural, ethnic and national security sensitivities.’’

Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq of opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) tweeted saying:


Parliamentary oversight allows both NA & @SenatePakistan to review rules & regulations; an important component of delegated legislation.

Also, any draconian/repressive rule that stifles freedom of speech, Article 19, falls under the purview of Human Rights committee https://t.co/sHJPyBFOWN

— Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq (@AyeshaRaza13) February 13, 2020

Journalist Talat Hussain made angry comments:


#Pakistan is being thrown behind the iron curtain of one of the most draconian #socialmedia #censorships of modern times. A new authority & legal framework put in place will choke & shut down posts on fb, youtube, twitter reducing the country to a Burma or #3rdReich. Heil! Heil! pic.twitter.com/iMvMXvzH45

— Syed Talat Hussain (@TalatHussain12) February 12, 2020

The Asia Internet Coalition, an industry association comprising leading internet and technology companies including, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google, also expressed its concerns:


The Asia Internet Coalition submitted its initial response to Pakistan’s Citizens Protection Rules (Against Online Harm). In the submission, AIC expressed sincere concern tht unless revoked, these rules will severely cripple growth of Pak’s digital economy https://t.co/lAJn5vxxjS

— Taha Siddiqui (@TahaSSiddiqui) February 16, 2020


Google, Facebook, Apple & others:

“As no other country has announced such a sweeping set of rules, Pakistan risks becoming a global outlier needlessly isolating and depriving Pakistani users and businesses of the growth potential of the internet economy”https://t.co/e7seEXjzzr

— Fahad Desmukh (@desmukh) February 16, 2020

Despite the outcry, the Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry defended the government’s decision mentioning that it was enacted to regulate social media to tackle harmful content and fake accounts.

This is not the first time that social media and its users in Pakistan have been under fire by the government. Recently Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) drafted a policy proposing to license and regulate Over the Top (OTT) Services and Web TV and asked for public feedback, sparking a public outcry.

Written byR Umaima Ahmed 


Pakistan government's new social media rules draw criticism

Digital-rights activists say the new rules will give the authorities unflinching powers to stifle social media.

14 Feb 2020


When required, the companies will be required to provide subscriber information, traffic data, content data and any other information or data that is sought, the regulations stipulate [Johanna Geron/Reuters]


Pakistan's government has approved new rules for regulating cyberspace which opponents say could be used to stifle dissent and free speech.

Under regulations that were approved by the cabinet late last month but were not immediately made public, social media companies will be obliged to help law enforcement agencies access data and to remove online content deemed unlawful.


Companies that do not comply with the rules risk being blocked online, according to a copy of the regulations seen by Reuters news agency.

The approval of the new rules follows accusations by opposition parties that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government has sought to intimidate and silence its opponents and allegations of media censorship. Pakistan's military has also faced accusations of cracking down on media and free speech.

INSIDE STORY I Should social media be regulated? (25:00)

But Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, the top official at the Ministry of Information Technology that wrote the regulations, said the new rules would help "identify and weed out unwanted and slanderous online content."

"We needed to do it to uphold the integrity, decency and respect of individuals and sanctity of institutions," he said.

The new rules on social media are described by the authors as intended to prevent live streaming of online content relating to "terrorism, extremism, hate speech, defamation, fake news, incitement to violence and national security."

Social media companies will be obliged within 24 hours to respond to a request to remove "unlawful" material or six hours in emergency cases. They will have three months to register with authorities in Pakistan and must have a physical presence in Pakistan.

When demanded, the companies will be required to provide subscriber information, traffic data, content data and any other information or data that is sought, the regulations stipulate.

The rules also state that interpretations of the regulations by the authorities in Pakistan "shall take precedence over any community standards or rules or community guidelines or policies or any other instruments devised by a social media company."
'Overreach'

Nighat Dad, who runs the not-for-profit Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan says the new rules will give the authorities unflinching powers to stifle social media.

"The worrying part for me is that the definition around extremism, religion or culture is so wide and ambiguous and that means they have these unfettered power to call any online content illegal or extremist or anti-state," she told Reuters.

Dad told Al Jazeera that the social media policy proposed by the government would likely mean that women, ethnic and religious minorities were going to be the most vulnerable under the new rules.

Farieha Aziz, the founder of Bolo Bhi a digital rights advocacy group, also voiced concern.

"This is the kind of overreach we were worried about," she said. "They're trying to go beyond the ambit of the law, trying to go above and beyond what the law allows them to do."

Pakistani lawyer and an advocate of the Supreme Court Anees Jillani told Al Jazeera the policy was an "infringiment on freedom of speech".

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES


Pakistan Puts Press Freedom At The Core Of Struggle For New World Order – Analysis
February 18, 2020  By James M. Dorsey

Sweeping new regulations restricting social media in Pakistan put freedom of expression and the media at the heart of the struggle to counter both civilizationalist and authoritarian aspects of an emerging new world order.

The regulations, adopted without public debate, position US social media companies like Facebook and Twitter at the forefront of the struggle and raise the spectre of China’s walled off Internet with its own state-controlled social media platforms becoming the model for a host of illiberals, authoritarians and autocrats.

The regulations, that take effect immediately, embrace aspects of a civilizational state that defines its legal reach, if not its borders, in terms of a civilization rather than a nation state with clearly outlined, internationally recognized borders that determine the reach of its law and that is defined by its population and language.

The regulations could force social media companies to globally suppress criticism of the more onerous aspects of Pakistani law, including constitutionally enshrined discrimination of some minorities like Ahmadis, a sect widely viewed as heretic by mainstream Islam, and imposition of a mandatory death sentence for blasphemy.

The new rules force social media companies to “remove, suspend or disable access” to content posted in Pakistan or by Pakistani nationals abroad that the government deems as failing to “take due cognizance of the religious, cultural, ethnic and national security sensitivities of Pakistan.” The government can also demand removal of encryption.

Social media companies are required to establish offices in Pakistan in the next three months and install data servers by February 2021.

The government justified the rules with the need to combat hate speech, blasphemy, alleged fake news and online harassment of women.

The Asia Internet Coalition, a technology and internet industry association that includes Facebook and Twitter, warned that the regulations “jeopardize the personal safety and privacy of citizens and undermine free expression” and would be “detrimental to Pakistan’s ambitions for a digital economy.”

The introduction of the regulations reflects frustration in government as well as Pakistan’s powerful military with social media companies’ frequent refusal to honour requests to take down content. Pakistan ranked among the top countries requesting Facebook and Twitter to remove postings.

On the assumption that Facebook, Twitter and others, which are already banned in China, will risk being debarred in Pakistan by refusing to comply with the new regulations, Pakistan could become a prime country that adopts not only aspects of China’s 21st century, Orwellian surveillance state but also its tightly controlled media.

The basis for potential Pakistani adoption of the Chinese system was created in 2017 in plans for the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a US$60 billion plus crown jewel of the Belt and Road, an infrastructure, telecommunications and energy-driven initiative to tie Eurasia to China.

The 2017 plan identifies as risks to CPEC “Pakistani politics, such as competing parties, religion, tribes, terrorists, and Western intervention” as well as security. The plan appears to question the vibrancy of a system in which competition between parties and interest groups is the name of the game.

It envisions a full system of monitoring and surveillance to ensure law and order in Pakistani cities. The system would involve deployment of explosive detectors and scanners to “cover major roads, case-prone areas and crowded places…in urban areas to conduct real-time monitoring and 24-hour video recording.”

A national fibre optic backbone would be built for internet traffic as well as the terrestrial distribution of broadcast media that would cooperate with their Chinese counterparts in the “dissemination of Chinese culture.” The plan described the backbone as a “cultural transmission carrier” that would serve to “further enhance mutual understanding between the two peoples and the traditional friendship between the two countries.”

Critics in China and elsewhere assert that repression of freedom of expression contributed to China’s delayed response to the Coronavirus. China rejects the criticism with President Xi Jingping calling for even greater control.

Pakistan’s newly promulgated regulations echo Mr. Xi’s assertion during the Communist party’s January 7 Politburo Standing Committee meeting that “we must strengthen public opinion tracking and judgment, take the initiative to voice, provide positive guidance, strengthen integration, communication and interaction, so that positive energy will always fill the Internet space… We must control the overall public opinion and strive to create a good public opinion environment. It is necessary to strengthen the management and control of online media.”.



James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.