ABSTRACT

This paper presents an analysis of the evolving cyber politics landscape in Latin American countries from the perspective of the region’s Indigenous social movements. It examines the types of regulations and tools that Latin American governments have adopted to assert their control over the online world, how these measures constitute barriers for Indigenous organizations, and how social media and other ICTs are shifting the balance of power between Indigenous movements and the state. Based on three years of qualitative fieldwork in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile, this paper argues that the ability of Indigenous groups to use ICTs for political engagement is threatened by restrictive communications policies, libel laws, authoritarian national security legislation, and government use of surveillance technologies. Indigenous claims challenge established political and economic structures of power, but communities lack the resources to ensure their own information security, to detect online attacks and to defend themselves against authoritarian practices. As a result, Indigenous organizations are faced with censorship, self-censorship, and accusations of defamation and terrorism. This limits the potential of ICTs to serve as instruments of democratization.

摘要

本文从该地区的土著社会运动的角度分析了拉丁美洲国家不断演变的网络政治格局。它考察了拉丁美洲政府为维护其对网络世界的控制而采用的法规和工具的类型，这些措施如何构成对土著组织的障碍，以及社交媒体和其他信息通信技术如何改变土著运动与网络世界之间的权力平衡。状态。基于在厄瓜多尔、玻利维亚和智利进行的三年定性实地调查，本文认为土著群体使用 ICT 进行政治参与的能力受到限制性通信政策、诽谤法、威权国家安全立法和政府使用监视的威胁技术。土著要求挑战既定的政治和经济权力结构，但社区缺乏资源来确保自己的信息安全、检测在线攻击和保护自己免受专制行为的侵害。结果，土著组织面临审查制度、自我审查制度以及诽谤和恐怖主义的指控。这限制了信息通信技术作为民主化工具的潜力。