| Autocratic regimes are developing a repertoire of tactics for financial repression—or as Felix Maradiaga prefers to say, financial and asset-based repression—to clamp down on and fundamentally incapacitate dissidents and pro-democracy activists in countries around the world. Dictators will freeze people’s bank accounts and seize their assets, sometimes using global financial and legal institutions—and often new technologies— to do it. All of which they’re only getting savvier with.
At the same time, people in autocratic countries are figuring out new ways to fight back. Some have used emerging digital assets, notably Bitcoin, to fund their organizations and movements in ways that make it easier to circumvent government control. As an example, the team working with the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny took in several million U.S. dollars worth of Bitcoin—a little more than 10 percent, they say, of their total funding.
Why does Bitcoin, of all things, seem to have become so important to dissidents in autocratic countries?
Farida Nabourema is a Togolese democracy and human-rights activist, and the executive director of the Katutu Civil Rights Center. Nabourema says that while Bitcoin relies on new technology, it’s best understood as just one of the latest in a long series of innovations in the long struggle between autocrats and dissidents: Back in her father’s time, the opposition would smuggle cash into Togo in suitcases or detergent boxes. Now, they get Bitcoin.
The biggest difference, Nabourema says, is that Bitcoin is easier and safer to use, which counts for a lot. Once upon a time, Togolese activists would have to send a courier to Ghana to stuff cases with cash; today, they can now transfer funds with the push of a button. That’s not just reduced risk around transactions; it’s helped build trust between those who send the funds and those who receive them. And for embattled dissidents, trust is of the utmost importance: If you can’t trust your comrades, you’re unlikely to risk prison or even torture for opposing the government. In a sense, building trust in a climate of fear is what keeps civil society alive in despotic states.
Nothing stays safe in these places for long, though. Dictators are doing everything they can to disrupt dissident activities, planting spyware on phones and computers to try to stem the flow of Bitcoin … |
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| BOOKS / FROM THE MEMBER’S DESPATCH |
Not too sanctimonious
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| According to The New York Times’ editorial board, U.S. President Donald Trump is directing a “campaign of menace” against his perceived enemies in the legal system—and testing the boundaries of the American Constitution. This and similar charges are a familiar theme in the established American media. More than half the pieces written by the Times editorial board since Trump’s inauguration are about his threat to American democracy. He is, they say, uniquely bad.
And yes, much of what he’s now up to, like targeting universities or detaining and deporting legal residents, hasn’t happened in America since the McCarthy Era of the 1950s—or ever. Also yes, his recent predecessors from either party wouldn’t have tried much of anything like these moves. But as Anton Jäger says in The Signal, “Any historian with a sense of long-term patterns in American democracy knew from the start that Trump is not at all exceptional.”
Is that true? |
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| NOTES / FROM OSLO |
| Under Paris skies, cont. |
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| Victor Granic writes in re. Pavel Durov’s detention in France: “… the question is why Durov and not Musk or Zuckerberg. And for that matter why not arrest every software company exec whose company made tools that were used for nefarious pursuits. Why not sue or arrest Gates for causing security breaches because of bugs in the Windows operating system. Etc. The answer to me is clear—just because you built the gun doesn’t mean you committed the murder. So, it’s unclear to me why Durov is being singled out.”
The Human Rights Foundation’s CEO Thor Halvorssen put the question to Durov at the Oslo Freedom Forum on Tuesday. Durov’s response:
“Well, I can only theorize about the reasons I was selected. I seem to be held to higher standards than most other platforms. We actually made some research; we compared Telegram with Instagram, with Facebook, with Snapchat, with other platforms here in France, and it seems that everybody has the same issues—with Telegram is actually more efficient in terms of moderation than all of these other platforms. And you’re right, you can accuse everybody in the same things that we were accused of. So we were quite puzzled. The reasons—maybe, because, I don’t know, we’re the only non-U.S. company; we’re not protected by this big American government that is very powerful. I’m not quite sure.” |
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| Become a member to access all articles, the full archive, + the weekly member’s despatch—with deep dives on key questions, vital debates, new music, and more … and become part of a growing network dedicated to helping people think for themselves in the world. |
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| Members play a crucial role in backing our mission to develop a new genre of independent current-affairs coverage—for less than one fine cup of coffee every couple of weeks. Support The Signal. |
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| Coming soon: Roger Huang on why countries around the world are developing their own digital currencies … |
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