Darejani Markozashvili
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| Source: Freedom House |
New developments and curiosities from a changing global media landscape: People, Spaces, Deliberation brings trends and events to your attention that illustrate that tomorrow's media environment will look very different from today's, and will have little resemblance to yesterday's.
According to the latest “Freedom on the Net ” report “In a new trend, governments increasingly target messaging and voice communication apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram.” Annual report of the Freedom House, it tracks improvements and declines in governments’ policies and practices. This year the report covered 65 countries.
While Facebook and Twitter have long been targeted by governments, silencing messaging apps is somewhat new.
Messaging apps have become an integral part of peoples’ lives, enabling millions of them to communicate with their friends and family much easier, faster, and cheaper. If messaging apps are so helpful in connecting people, why do governments target them so much? One of the main reasons is encryption! In addition to low, or often no cost associated with them, messaging apps also offer a sense of security not often available in other modes of communication. Many messaging apps, like WhatsApp, use encryption. Encryption ensures that messages are secured and encrypted, making it harder, if not impossible, for governments, to monitor content.
According to this report, total number of countries restricting apps reached 24, while total number of countries arresting users reached 38. Out of all the different platforms, WhatsApp was blocked more than any other social media tool.
In addition to encryption, messaging apps may get blocked to protect state-owned telecommunications companies, that feel threatened by new communication tools. It is no surprise that the traditional voice and text services are competing to stay relevant, as the popularity of (free) messaging apps continues to rise.
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