Article by ‘Gbenga Sesan: “The world is witnessing an unprecedented convergence of challenges that threaten digital democracy, social innovation, and international relations. At the heart of these threats are three fundamental shifts: the shrinking of civic space, the decline in funding for digital rights programs (or “digital funding”), and the erosion of legitimacy in global governance. These trends, while distinct, are interconnected in ways that reveal deep fractures in the global order. How high-level structural changes will impact the field of digital democracy should be continuously explored to help advocacy groups identify the necessary actions to ensure resilience, as well as help shape the role of all stakeholders in rebuilding trust in the digital democratic landscape.
Shrinking Civic Space: The Last Line Under Attack
The emergence of a post-truth era characterized by an increasing abuse of technology has significantly eroded civic space—a fundamental platform for free expression, activism, and advocacy. Governments, both authoritarian and ostensibly democratic, have weaponized technology to surveil, censor, and suppress dissent, effectively transforming many civic spaces from sites of resistance into zones of control. In a recent collection of essays from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “New Digital Dilemmas: Resisting Autocrats, Navigating Geopolitics, Confronting Platforms,” various authors highlighted trends in digital repression. Jan Rydzak’s essay, “The Stalled Machines of Transparency Reporting,” for example, revealed a troubling pattern: as technology platforms are retreating from their transparency commitments and disbanding trust and safety teams, authoritarian governments are stepping in to define the limits of permissible speech. Other pieces described the intensification of identity-based repression in the Middle East and North Africa and explained how governments and digital mobs alike are using AI-driven profiling, facial recognition, and doxxing campaigns to target human rights defenders, LGBTQ activists, and dissidents.
What makes this moment particularly dangerous is a shift in both the tools and targets employed…(More)”.
