Arab authorities use digital surveillance to control press freedom: journalists’ perceptions

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent of digital surveillance by Arab authorities, which face risks and threats of surveillance, and how journalists seek to press freedom by using tools and techniques to communicate securely. Design/methodology/approach The study used focus group discussions with 14 journalists from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Yemen, Oman, Jordan and Egypt. While in Egypt, questionnaires were distributed to 199 journalists from both independent and semi-governmental outlets to investigate how Egyptian journalists interpret the new data protection law and its implications for press freedom. Findings The study indicated that journalists from these countries revealed severe censorship by their respective governments, an element inconsistent with the Arab Constitution. The recommendation of the study encourages media organisations to play a more active role in setting policies that make it easier for journalists to adopt and use digital security tools, while Egyptian journalists see the law as a barrier to media independence because it allows the government to exercise greater information control through digital policy and imposes regulatory rules on journalists. Practical implications The study identifies practical and theoretical issues in Arab legislation and may reveal practices of interest to scientists researching the balance between data protection, the right of access to information and media research as an example of contemporary government indirect or “soft” censorship methods. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first research contributions to analyse the relationships between Arab authoritarians who used surveillance to restrict freedom of the press after the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 to keep themselves in power as long as they could. In addition, Egypt's use of surveillance under new laws allowed the regimes to install software on the journalists’ phones that enabled them to read the files and emails and track their locations; accordingly, journalists can be targeted by the cyberattack and can be arrested.

Arab journalists have no place: Authorities use digital surveillance to control investigative reporting

“…All news websites are under the umbrella of the United Media Company and are in fact owned by the intelligence services. Alashry (2023) argues that journalists who become objects of surveillance fear being threatened and become more submissive to authority.…”

“…Lewis (2012) noted that the media still take an exclusive and authoritative role when mentioning collaborators like WikiLeaks and ProPublica in their reporting, while ProPublica gets more nuanced descriptions, WikiLeaks is rather described as a "source" and less as a collaborative partner. Due to the restrictions from the government, journalists embrace the open-source culture as it creates opportunities to expose corruption and change communities, providing the information necessary to build investigative journalism, especially in light of the legal restrictions imposed on it (Dillon, 2012;AlAshry, 2023).…”

“…Arab journalism faces threats such as the transformation of truth into a "despised notion" (Tsui & Lee, 2019), the instrumentalisation of the media in spreading rumours and falsifying the truth during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the decline of the print press and the low level of professionalism (AlAshry, 2023). Pomeranz and Schwid (2021) argue that during the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified a "massive" global "information epidemic" of not identifying reliable sources and information about the virus, which in turn led to the spread of panic and a threat to public health.…”

“…Arab governments after the 2011 Revolution have been massively expanding their capacity for surveillance by using new technologies to collect user data and track user behaviour. However, journalists have the opportunity to protect themselves from surveillance through encryption, as they represent a potential threat to security (AlAshry, 2023). After the COVID-19 outbreak, authoritarian regimes began to surveil online news and the ability to gather and analyse large amounts of digital information through sophisticated applications and devices (Mills, 2018).…”