What does it mean for protecting digital rights and democracy when governments move from disruptive internet controls toward subtler, more targeted, and legally embedded forms of online repression? In this EDP Wire, Maurice P. Schumann summarizes the findings of his dissertation on the changing nature of internet control and discusses three potential implications for protecting digital rights and democracy.

The dissertation will soon be available at the Hertie School Research Repository (OPUS).

 

The changing nature of internet control

Throughout history, technological and economic transformations have posed challenges to incumbent governments. The internet raised similar concerns by allowing citizens to access, produce, and share information outside established media channels, engage in public debate, and coordinate collective action more easily. Some governments met these challenges head-on by shaping how the internet developed within their borders early on. Liberal democracies largely promoted self-regulation, commercial expansion, and limited legal oversight, while high-capacity autocracies such as China and Saudi Arabia sought to separate the internet’s economically productive uses from its politically threatening potential by developing extensive systems of state surveillance and censorship alongside the expansion of internet access. But internet connectivity also spread fast outside these extreme cases. Often expanding faster than the laws and institutions intended to govern it. The resulting gaps in state control allowed comparatively open online communication across many African, Asian, and Latin American countries and helped facilitate political mobilization, most prominently during the Arab Spring in the early 2010s.

Governments in these countries have since sought to reassert authority over the digital sphere. This initially often involved broad censorship measures, such as the complete disruption of internet-based communication during periods of heightened political contestation. However, internet control has since evolved as governments have expanded their legal and administrative powers over online communication, creating opportunities for more targeted and routine forms of information control. My dissertation investigates the conditions and consequences of this transformation across a large number of low- and middle-income countries in the Global South.

The three studies forming the dissertation yield the following results:

• Growing economic dependence on the internet encourages more selective censorship. The first study examines internet shutdowns in India, drawing on district-level shutdown records and novel data on electronic payments, complemented by cross-national evidence. It finds that growing economic dependence on digital technologies is associated with fewer, shorter, and more targeted shutdowns, suggesting that governments become more selective in their use of economically disruptive controls.
• Regional learning shapes the adoption of restrictive internet regulation. The second study introduces an original dataset of 360 laws and regulations adopted in 44 sub-Saharan African countries between 2000 and 2022. It finds evidence consistent with governments learning from neighboring countries’ regulatory choices when expanding their legal authority over online communication. In contrast, it finds no evidence that domestic or regional unrest drives the adoption of restrictive legislation, suggesting that such laws are often adopted outside the spotlight of major political events.
• Restrictive internet regulation is associated with greater information control. The third study examines the consequences of accumulated restrictive legislation for government information control across sub-Saharan African countries. Linking the regulatory data to event data on journalist arrests, internet shutdowns, and website blocking, it finds that restrictive regulation is associated with greater information control, particularly in electoral autocracies. In these regimes, governments can benefit from the appearance of legality while facing relatively weak institutional constraints on enforcement.

Taken together, the findings suggest that online repression is not simply becoming more technologically sophisticated. It is also becoming more deeply embedded in the state apparatus.

 

What does this mean for protecting digital rights and democracy?

The countries studied in my dissertation share two characteristics that make them relevant for democracy and rights protection efforts. First, many receive substantial democracy aid (see Leininger 2026). Second, many occupy the political space between consolidated democracies and closed autocracies and have been drifting toward the latter in recent years (see, e.g., Nord et al. 2026). At the same time, the dissertation does not directly examine whether the growing embedding of internet control in state structures contributes to autocratization, nor does it investigate democracy protection interventions or their effectiveness. The following points should therefore be understood as potential implications for democracy protection that warrant further research and discussion, rather than as policy recommendations directly supported by empirical evidence.

Economic arguments against disruptive censorship may help, but also encourage more targeted measures. The first study in the dissertation suggests that governments are sensitive to the growing economic costs of broad internet shutdowns. Emphasizing the economic benefits of uninterrupted connectivity may therefore be a promising strategy for discouraging broad internet censorship, similar to how “democracy delivers” arguments highlight the economic benefits of democratic governance (see, e.g., Knutsen 2015; Leininger et al. 2025). Such arguments are increasingly advanced by businesses that depend on reliable internet access as well as digital rights advocates. However, shutdowns are unlikely to disappear entirely, even in highly digitalized economies. In situations of heightened political contention, governments may still prioritize immediate political control over economic costs. They may also increasingly restrict internet access in specific regions or target individual services rather than disrupting connectivity nationwide. In countries with greater state capacity, governments may also turn to more sophisticated and less economically disruptive forms of censorship. Economic arguments may therefore help limit broad disruptions without necessarily reducing government information control more generally. Future research could help identify which societal and economic groups governments are particularly responsive to and how their dependence on digital connectivity shapes decisions to impose restrictions. Such insights could help build broader coalitions against internet censorship, rather than focusing on specific restrictive measures alone.

The adoption of internet regulation is not necessarily progress. The second and third article of the dissertation are concert with the detrimental effects of internet regulation. Governments need legal frameworks to address the perils of internet connectivity, including cybercrime, violations of data privacy, and the growing power of digital platform providers. Yet the adoption of legislation that resembles the laws of liberal democracies on the surface does not automatically strengthen digital rights or protect democracy. Both the content of such laws and their implementation matter. When governments draft legislation without meaningful involvement from civil society and parliamentary actors, provisions intended to protect rights can easily be weakened through vague or restrictive wording. However, even relatively progressive laws can be used by governments and compliant judiciaries to target the very actors who might otherwise challenge restrictive internet regulation. Donors of democracy assistance, and foreign aid more generally, should therefore pay close attention to both the negotiation and enforcement of internet regulation when evaluating digital governance programs. On the upside, measures supporting civil society participation and independent judicial oversight may also help protect digital rights as a positive side effect.

We need to understand and strengthen citizens’ capacity to navigate increasingly restrictive digital environments. As internet controls become tighter, protecting democratic participation also requires enabling citizens to communicate and access information despite growing restrictions. This requires, first, a better understanding of how citizens perceive internet regulation, which restrictions they consider legitimate, and whether their priorities align with those of digital rights advocates. After all, internet regulation can both threaten democratic participation when used to silence political opposition and help protect it when addressing challenges such as online misinformation. Supporting research on public attitudes and locally grounded digital rights initiatives could therefore help connect democracy protection efforts more closely to citizens’ actual needs. Second, citizens need the knowledge and tools to navigate restrictions on their digital rights. Supporting education about technologies that protect privacy, enable encrypted communication, and help users circumvent censorship can help preserve access to information and independent channels of communication, even in increasingly restrictive digital environments.

Ultimately, the dissertation suggests that amid a broader wave of autocratization, internet control is becoming increasingly embedded in the state apparatus. While it remains unclear to what extent these two trends are related, neither trajectory is inevitable nor irreversible. As governments adapt their censorship strategies and create further repressive capacity through law, efforts to protect digital rights must also adapt. Understanding these changes, and how citizens, businesses, and democratic institutions can respond to them, will be an important task for future research and democracy protection efforts. After all, systems of control are never complete and can thus always be contested.