TWEETING TO FREEDOM 4
who are not actually suspected of any connection to terrorism or any wrongdoing;
then it stores it, in case the government needs it at a later date in connection with
terrorism probes. PRISM allows the NSA to collect user data from digital commu-
nication companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo. In 2016, most of the
program was still shrouded, and the extent of its activities was not fully known.
But its mere existence is a deep concern for its critics.
Challenges to Access
Internet activists worry about efforts by their governments to curb citizens’
access to certain sites on the Internet, no matter how seemingly justifiable peo-
ple’s reasons for access are. For example, access to Internet content has been
challenged by legislative proposals such as the U.S. House of Representatives’
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the companion Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA)
in the United States, as well as the Digital Economy Act in England. SOPA was
a highly controversial act proposed in 2012 by U.S. Representative Lamar S.
Smith (R-Texas) to widen the government’s ability to combat copyright infringe-
ment in the digital world and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Among
the act’s contents were provisions that would prevent Web search engines from
linking to websites that were thought to be infringing on copyrights or offering
counterfeit goods for sale. Critics asserted that SOPA would threaten free speech
and innovation on the Web and would allow the government to block access
to entire Internet domains because there might be infringing content on a single
blog or website. Libraries worried that the act would expose them to prosecution
for simply allowing users to access the sites through library computers. Others
Anti-Slavery Activism in Mauritania
In June 2016, “Page Mauritanie,” a Mauritanian community Facebook page dedi-
cated to culture and politics and moderated by a group of activists, announced the
arrests of several anti-slavery activists who clashed with security forces during an
operation to oust the residents of a Ksar district slum, west of the capital of Nouak-
chott. The activists, who belonged to IRA-Mauritanie, were at the eviction scenes
protesting slavery and supporting a proposed bill that would allow everyone to own
land. Word of the clash and arrests spread quickly through blogs, websites, and
social media. Slavery was officially abolished in Mauritania in 1981, but the govern-
ment has not enforced the law.
Bah, Abdoulaye, 2016. “Mauritanian Authorities Once Again Go After Anti-Slavery Activists.”
Global Voices, July 22, as accessed on July 22, 2016, at https://globalvoices.org/2016/07/22
/mauritanian-authorities-once-again-go-after-anti-slavery-activists/.
