Living in the 21st century our lives are becoming increasingly digitalised year after year. Nowadays we are constantly online thinking that we have unlimited access to any information we want, but is it really so?

In 2009 the president of Kazakhstan signed a law according to which the Internet was considered mass media. Thus, all websites, chats, blogs, online stores and digital libraries were equated to mass media. From that day on, all of them can incur appropriate criminal and civil liability in case of a law violation. 

Later in December 2017, there was signed a law obliging all websites to register any user who wanted to write a comment, which made it impossible to leave anonymous comments. As a result, some Kazakhstani portals simply removed comment sections from their websites as they assumed that was unfair to their users in terms of their freedom of speech. 

From the abovementioned, we can see that the government by some means regulates online content as journalists, bloggers and other people tend to self-censor their online publications in order to avoid any legal issues. 

Censorship and content regulation is common in Kazakhstan, but can you imagine being informationally locked down and having absolutely no access to the internet and mobile services? That’s what the citizens of Kazakhstan experienced one year ago at the beginning of January 2022. It all started as peaceful mass protests followed the raised prices of liquefied petroleum gas and very soon evolved into massive riots and arson attacks. The government announced a state of emergency with a temporary lockdown when all people had to stay at home with neither mobile connection nor access to the internet. The government claimed that riots were planned by external terrorists and that was a way of cutting their communication and preventing the further spread of disorders. That seemed to be an easy way to stop the terrorists, but was it the only one? Could they possibly find more democratic solutions that would let peaceful people live their normal lives? In the era of thriving digital technologies, the internet is not only used for communication or getting information, people became too dependent on online services. For example, most people don’t use cash anymore making payments with cards and via apps, so many people were left with no means of support. 

References:

Kazakhstani law about the media, ch. 1, art. 1, pt. 4 (2022) https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=1013966&pos=59;-51#pos=59;-51

The law of the Republic of Kazakhstan about changes and additions to some legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the activities of internal affairs bodies, art. 41, pt. 1 (2015) https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=31539059&pos=1;-16#pos=1;-16

Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan On amendments and additions to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on information and communications, art. 36, pt. 5-1.https://adilet.zan.kz/rus/docs/Z1700000128