Responding to Digital Repression
This chapter discusses strategies civil society groups can use to raise the costs of repression associated with the dictator’s digital dilemma. It examines specific approaches activists can pursue to counter state repression, such as using reputational, economic, political, and supply-side pressure to reverse regime advantages. Turning to the private sector, it describes companies’ roles and responsibilities in relation to digital repression. It contends that democracies should consider advancing a stronger normative framework that will set clearer guidelines about responsible corporate behavior related to digital technology. Such steps will help companies push back on political demands from nondemocratic states. Finally, it proposes strategies that democracies and civil society can adopt to counter the proliferation of digital repression equipment and services provided by authoritarian states like China and Russia, and it discusses policy implications of the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to digital technology.