The Digital Dictators – How Technology Strengthens Autocracy
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Erica Frantz, and Joseph Wright for Foreign Affairs
This week’s long read highlights how technology can strengthen autocrat rulers in their quest to preserve power. Autocracies perceive anti-government protests as their most significant threat and, in order to curb them, the regimes are harnessing a new arsenal of digital tools. Those are less intrusive and more efficient than traditional surveillance, are less human-dependent and use fewer resources. They also induce citizens to alter their behaviour without explicit physical repression. The nascent social credit system in China is an example, as it punishes dissent and rewards loyalty, thus shaping behaviours.
The digital age changed the context in which authoritarian regimes operate. New communication tools made it easier for citizens to mobilise and question the government. Between 2000 and 2017, 60 per cent of all dictatorships faced at least one anti-government protest of 50 participants or more, with 10 unseated authoritarian regimes, and another 19 that lost power via elections following the protests. However, digitally savvy authoritarian regimes are using technological innovations to push against popular mobilizations. Autocracies that use digital repression face a lower risk of protests, and a lower likelihood that the protests that do happen will evolve to large, sustained mobilisation efforts.
Led by China, digital autocracies have grown far more durable than their pre-tech predecessors. Between 1946 and 2000, dictatorships lasted for around 10 years; now the average is 25. Countries such as Iran, Russia and numerous autocracies across Africa are following the Chinese footsteps and incorporating AI-powered surveillance to monitor citizens and identify dissidents in a timely and sometimes even pre-emptive manner. Russia also excels in the use of bots to amplify influence campaigns and shape public perception of the regime and its legitimacy. Maturing technologies such as microtargeting and deepfakes are also likely to further the capacity of authoritarian regimes to manipulate regime perception and discredit the opposition. The risk that technology will usher in a wave of authoritarianism is even more concerning as the authors indicate their findings that digital tools are associated with an increased risk of democratic backsliding.
New technologies have dual use: enhancing government efficiency and providing states with the capacity to address challenges such as crime and terrorism, but also with the tools to oppress, persecute and restrict opponents and citizens. Pushing back against digital authoritarianism requires addressing the detrimental effects of the new technologies on governance. The United States should expand legislation to ensure that local entities are not enabling human rights abuses by, for example, exporting hardware that incorporates AI-enabled biometric identification to rogue countries or by investing in companies that build AI tools for repression. Sanctions should also be applied against foreign individuals that are involved in AI-powered human right abuses. Finally, the United States should also make sure it leads in AI and, as such, helps shape the global norms for its use in ways that are consistent with democracy and human rights.
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