VPNs are a great technology for dissent when the country you live in consistently violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and scores poorly on The Economist ‘s Democracy Index or Reporters Without Borders ‘ World Press Freedom Index among other outrages.
When dissidence becomes a matter of minimums
There are still countries where you can die for covering a story , for not being born heterosexual, for protecting nature or for openly criticizing different authorities or companies with power. They are environments in which dissent becomes compulsory for those who hope for greater democracy, sustainability and public transparency, among other factors.
In 2013 the world met Edward Snowden when, following the guidelines of the United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, he publicly denounced the NSA, CIA and other agencies for the massive and industrialized espionage to which they subjected to the people, until then absolutely ignorant. He did it, in part, helped by VPN networks .
What is a VPN and how does it help dissent?
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows you to create a hidden virtual network within a physical network. Hidden, encrypted and with a password, this type of browsing is not invulnerable but it is very secure . It allows, in addition to connecting to a specific server in the business environment or hacking Netflix to view content from other countries, browsing with a certain security right under the feet of non-democratic governments.
These digital tools have been used to organize pro-democracy protests in many countries, one of the best known being the Arab Spring, from 2010 to 2012. Although they focused on public and open social networks, in this case, virtual private networks helped to the coordination of tens of thousands of young people to demand social rights.
The greatest results were seen after the falls of the governments of Ben Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt, Saleh in Yemen and Gaddafi in Libya, accompanied by notable changes in government.
When countries block VPNs
Undemocratic countries often rely on precepts such as illegal pages or the protection of software of national origin to prohibit VPNs, which in practice means the prohibition of privacy on the Internet . This clashes with Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
In Russia, for example, it is prohibited to provide VPN services with the aim of not sharing anti-government messages. In the United Arab Emirates, there are fines of up to half a million US dollars for using a VPN. In Iran, there is a list of approved VPNs. In Iraq, there are strong restrictions on internet use, and VPNs have been banned (in principle to combat ISIS, in practice to silence all dissent).
Digital crackdown on dissent: when the network goes down
Following the example of Egypt in 2011 , Iraq shut down the internet in 2019 to try to curb citizen dissent against legislation considered outdated and repressive. As expected, it did not go well at all. In 2021, countries like Burma or Cuba have done the same with similar results, resulting in less contained protests.
Dissidents used VPNs to communicate, and when these networks went down with the internet, they took to the streets to demand they be turned on. it is confessing that they are incapable of managing a situation.” They cut off communications because they can’t deal with reality.
Instead of facing the decisions of the citizens , they try to shut them down. Without a doubt, curtailing digital repression and cutting off the network are partial solutions when the goal is to eradicate VPNs, but they only move the incidents to the physical plane .
Where the internet is suspended, civil protests appear demanding not only connection, but also the lack of rights that forced them to use it. VPNs are an interesting tool, but with often non-technical alternatives. And it is that when the population organizes itself against oppression…
