Digital Authoritarianism Report Launch: current and future trends with Jessica Brandt, Brookings

Authoritarian governments leverage digital technologies to repress the rights and freedoms of their citizens at home, silence dissent among diasporas and other individuals beyond their borders, and to interfere in democratic governments, processes and institutions abroad. 

As part of MIGS Digital Authoritarianism project supported by U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, we hosted a Twitter Spaces with Jessica Brandt, the author of MIGS' report "Digital Authoritarianism: Pathways, Trends, Solutions." This is a recording of our chat.

This paper aims to increase understanding of the various pathways through which authoritarian regimes use digital tools to shore up their grip on power at home, weaken democratic governments and institutions that they perceive as threatening to their interests, undermine liberal norms related to privacy and free expression, and replace those norms with illiberal ones. 

Jessica Brandt is policy director for the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative at the Brookings Institution and a fellow in the Foreign Policy program’s Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology.