Online Activism, Digital Domination, and the Rule of Trolls: Mapping and Theorizing Technological Oppression by Governments

TAMAR MEGIDDO*

The internet and social media have revolutionized activism. However, governments seeking to curb opposition have recently learned to target the very same technologies that empowered activists in the first place. This article challenges the accepted framework for discussing such efforts by governments, centered on surveillance and privacy. It argues, first, that governments’ actions should be conceptualized as measures of digital domination. Applying the republican concept of freedom as non-domination, the article suggests that the core harm resulting from such domination is to activists’ freedom, not only to their privacy. Since activism is a check on the government, measures undermining the ability to engage in activism also have devastating consequences for the freedom of the citizenry as a whole. Second, the article argues that governments’ reliance on digital militias allows them to sidestep the limits of their legitimate authority, therefore posing a grave threat to the rule of law. Finally, the article underscores that governments deploy measures of control beyond surveillance. Rather, they (1) gather information on activists, (2) disrupt communication channels, (3) flood online conversation to drown out the opposition, (4) deploy the state’s coercive power based on information gathered, and (5) mobilize digital militias to bully activists online.

* Post-Doctoral Fellow, Minerva Center for the Rule of Law Under Extreme Conditions, University of Haifa. I am grateful to Eyal Benvenisti, Michael Birnhack, Tomer Broude, Hanoch Dagan, Alon Jasper, Sunny Kalev, Roy Kreitner, Noa Kwartaz, Ayelet Sela, Mirjam Streng, Mickey Zar, and Elad Uzan for helpful comments and conversations, as well as to participants of the American Society of International Law Research Forum and workshops and seminars at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, Bar Ilan University, and University of Haifa. The research was conducted under the auspices of the Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions, Faculty of Law and Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa.