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Telecommunications Policy

Telecommunications Policy 36 (2012) 484–492

0308-59

http://d

n Tel.:

E-m

URL: www.elsevier.com/locate/telpol

Push-button-autocracy in Tunisia: Analysing the role of Internetinfrastructure, institutions and international markets in creatinga Tunisian censorship regime

Ben Wagner n

European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o

Available online 18 May 2012

Keywords:

Internet governance

Tunisia

Internet censorship

Freedom of expression

Arab Spring

Internet Freedom

61/$ - see front matter & 2012 Ben Wagner.

x.doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2012.04.007

þ39 055 4685 036; fax: þ39 055 4685 201

ail address: Ben.Wagner@eui.eu

a b s t r a c t

Internet censorship and control have been commonplace in Tunisia since the Internet

became available to then public in 1996. It was not until the last days of the Jasmine

revolution in January 2011 that the Tunisian government shut down the censorship

regime, raising numerous questions about Internet censorship in Tunisia. This article

will look at how former Tunisian president Ben Ali was able to shut down the Internet

censorship regime within a matter of hours. In order to answer this question, it looks at

the history of the Tunisian Internet and its Internet censorship regime, before analysing

Internet architecture, Internet institutions, functional differentiation between elements

of the regime and the role of international technology markets. Each of these factors

contributes to the overall censorship regime and helps understand how former

President Ben Ali was able to shutdown Internet censorship within a matter of hours.

In conclusion, tracing the genesis of the Tunisian censorship regime may contribute to

understanding the role of institutional, architectural and market-based factors in

enabling other censorship regimes across the world.

& 2012 Ben Wagner. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

On Thursday, 13 January 2011, the former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali held his last televised speechbefore fleeing the country. The speech marks an extraordinary moment in the Jasmine revolution in Tunisia, although onlylater did its significance become apparent. Ben Ali’s last public speech is interesting for many reasons, not least because ofhis first ever public speech in Tunisian dialect rather than more formal Fus’ha Arabic (Souag, 2011), or his repeated use ofthe phrase ‘‘I have understood you’’ (Aouij, 2011) which has since become an integral part of the history of the Jasminerevolution (Al-Amin 2011, p. 44). However, the following paper will focus on one, quite remarkable, concession made byBen Ali during his last speech:

In regards to the political demands, I have told you that yes, I have understood you [ana fahimtkum] and I havedecided: full and complete freedom of information in all its media [wasa’il al i’lan], no more blocking of the Internetwebsites and the rejection of all forms of censorship & surveillance [raqaba] (Ben Ali in Aouij (2011), Translationfrom Arabic by Heinrich Kollisch, University of Tubingen, Tunis, Tunisia.)

Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

.

B. Wagner / Telecommunications Policy 36 (2012) 484–492 485

In public and at times even academic discourses that followed popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya in 2011, theanswer to these questions seemed almost self-evident. Ben Ali was overwhelmed by the power of the Facebook Revolutionin Tunisia and realised that he could no longer stem the tide which was soon to reach Egypt (Hauslohner, 2012). But forthose, increasingly sceptical about this narrative, this statement raises many questions about the last days of the Ben Ali’spresidency. Many of the other concessions made by Ben Ali – lowering food prices, ending police violence, introducingindependent investigations into killings and corruption and guaranteeing a democratic electoral process – are the breadand butter of the authoritarian political concessions and the revolutionary bargaining process both in Tunisia and beyond(Seddon, 1986; Zielinski, 1999). When considered in this broader historical context, the centrality of Internet censorshipseems strange. The surprising relevance of Internet censorship in the Tunisian revolution is further emphasised by theswiftness in which this political concession was implemented: Several hours after Ben Ali’s speech all restrictions to theInternet were removed. This raises the following question: How was Ben Ali able to implement such a far reaching decisionon Internet censorship in a matter of hours?

This swift implementation of Internet policy is an interesting phenomenon with implications far beyond Tunisia. Inearly debates on the role of the Internet, scholars feared the rise of the ‘‘push button democracy’’ (Coleman, 1999, p. 368).Individual citizens would replace intermediate parties and political institutions by pushing buttons, empowering theindividual, but disempowering important political institutions such as political parties. However it is, to no small extent,Internet technology which has empowered state institutions. The empowerment of state institutions and structures – incontrast to empowering individual agency – is what has been termed here push-button-autocracy.

In order to understand how this button was created in Tunisia, this paper will first look closely at the history andevolution of Internet architecture, institutions and regulation, with a particular focus on Internet censorship and control.Tracing this evolution can help understanding how Ben Ali was able to make a snap decision on 13 January 2011 and howhe managed to control what Tunisians said on the Internet in the decades before the Jasmine revolution. In conclusion,it will be argued that a better understanding of how Ben Ali was able to make this decision may provide a valuable contextto the wider debate on the role of the Internet in popular uprisings and revolutions in the Middle East, North Africaand Iran.

2. Building the Tunisian Internet: 1991–20121

2.1. Communications infrastructure modelled for control

The Internet is the product of socio-technical evolutionary processes (Brey, 2005), which rely on private hardware andsoftware to function. The hardware layers of Internet technology, as well as routing, switching, lookup and other basicfunctions of a distributed computer network are generally invisible to the users of the Internet, but are highly relevant forInternet governance (Mueller, 2004). One effect of the private hardware and routing arrangements at the base of theInternet is that corporations and non-state regulators frequently play a crucial role in Internet governance (Denardis,2010). This is particularly relevant in the construction of Internet architecture, where private corporations play afundamental role.

The Tunisian Internet began in 1991 as a ‘‘research tool, free of any censorship or surveillance’’ (Silver, 2011, p. 6).While not available for public access, this period was marked by a lack of state control in which technically adept userscould use the Internet as these pleased (York, 2012). However, this changed in 1996, with the introduction of the publicInternet and the creation of the Agence Tunisienne d’Internet (ATI), an agency tasked with providing Internet connectivityto government agencies, but also with controlling the Internet.

The ability of the ATI to control the Internet stems from its central role in Tunisian Internet infrastructure, which isprimarily operated and controlled by Tunisie Telecom. The ATI is embedded within the centralised telecommunicationsinfrastructure of Tunisie Telecom, without which it could not operate in the same manner. As noted by Dhamir Mannai, aformer Executive Director of IT Infrastructure at Tunisie Telecom: ‘‘[e]verything goes through that agency, all Internetaccess, and all e-mail, so it’s very easy to monitor’’ (Mannai in Silver (2011)). Evidently in Tunisia control oftelecommunications infrastructure and Internet infrastructure are closely linked.

Here the Internet regulation mirrors telecommunication regulation in which the ‘‘Tunisian telecommunications markethas long been characterised by the monopoly of Tunisia Telecom and the extensive role of the State as policy-maker,regulator and operator in the sector’’ (Konan & van Assche, 2004, p. 4). Due to its close links to the government, it is oftenknown as the ‘‘Office National des Telecommunications’’ (Konan & van Assche, 2007, p. 902). Until 2002, Tunisie Telecom(TT) had a monopoly over fixed line and mobile telecommunications in Tunisia. Even after this date it continued to ownmost telecommunications infrastructure in Tunisia and retains a monopoly in Tunisia on fixed line telecommunications(Abbassi, 2011).

Notably, Tunisie Telecom was partially privatised in 2006, with a 35% stake sold to the Emirates InternationalTelecommunications [EIT], an investment arm of Dubai Holding (Byrne, 2011). However, this external investment needsto be seen in the context of widespread politically engineered investment in the Tunisian telecoms sector during 2002 and

1 This section is based on field research in Tunisia in May 2009 and June 2011.

B. Wagner / Telecommunications Policy 36 (2012) 484–492486

2011, in which the main business partners were either state-held enterprises or members of the royal family (Byrne, 2011).Indeed these business deals became infamous in Tunisia, as they allowed for satisfying external demands for marketliberalisation while at the same time trying to ensure the reassertion of power by the ruling elite. The Islamist al-Nahdaparty, one of the most prominent political parties in Tunisia post-Ben Ali, has continued this narrative claiming that ‘‘the BenAli clan ‘‘dug their swords into the telecoms sectory The wolves of corruption surrounded it’’ (Byrne, 2011, p. 11).

Finally, although Tunisie Telecom was partially privatised, its staff remained public sector employees. This has beenparticularly evident in the widespread union-organised strikes following the Tunisian revolution to ensure the protectionof the rights of public sector employees within Tunisie Telecom (McGinley, 2011). Although the Tunisian state did notformally own Tunisie Telecom, it was in complete de facto control of the organisation and held great sway over its publicsector employees. This control over Tunisie Telecom, gave the state a central role in telecommunications. This fact has hadthe effect of limiting any actual benefits of liberalisation of the telecommunications market, centralising control overtelecommunications infrastructure while setting fundamental constraints on the provision of Internet services in Tunisia(Konan & van Assche, 2004).

The only provider allowed to provide international uplink capacity to other countries was Tunisie Telecom and theinfrastructure for interconnection between ISPs was also provided by Tunisie Telecom. All of these measures gave a publiccompany factual control over a substantial part of the physical Internet infrastructure in Tunisia, as well as the essentialinterconnection and international transit points. Finally but equally important, Tunisie Telecom has control of the last mileof Internet provision and consequently controls the infrastructure linking ISPs to their clients (Gouddi, 2011).

These market conditions in the telecommunications sector significantly constrained the market viability of InternetService Providers (ISPs) in Tunisia. Private ISPs in Tunisia are sandwiched between Tunisie Telecom’s national Internetinfrastructure and the last mile which is also provided by Tunisie Telecom. This substantially weakened ISPs’ ability to runprofitable businesses and resist government intervention, as they are entirely dependent on the infrastructure of a publiccompany in the way they conducted their business. This market dominance also resulted in ‘‘Tunisie Telecom aloneaccount[ing] for about two-thirds of sectoral revenues, and only about 40 per cent of the remaining revenues are estimatedto accrue to private telecommunications and Internet service providers’’ (Cattaneo, Diop, & Walkenhorst, 2010, p. 114).

2.2. A short history of Internet filtering and censorship in Tunisia

However creating a central institution such as the ATI was not a sufficient condition to create an Internet censorshipand control regime in Tunisia. The ability to create such a regime required additional technical equipment, which neededto be installed at the central network transit point operated by the ATI. It will be argued in the following that the history ofInternet censorship in Tunisia needs to be seen as a multi-stage process, in which different parts of the regime’s capacitydeveloped over time (Fig. 1).

From 1991 to 1996, the Tunisian Internet was an open research network, which was not commonly accessible to thepublic but entirely free of censorship. The first stage of Internet filtering from 1997 to 2003 marks the first stage ofTunisian censorship infrastructure through web-blocking proxy filtering appliances. In the second stage, from 2003 to2007, the existing filtering web-proxy based filtering regime was augmented with an additional manual email-filteringregime. In the third stage from 2007 to 2010, deep packet inspection technology was included in the filtering regime, bothfor filtering and capturing emails and for filtering-out websites. Finally in the fourth and last stage, from 2010 to 2011,additional hacking attacks and website defacement techniques were employed to stem the final tide of the revolution.

2.2.1. The beginning: 1991–1996

In the initial period of Internet connectivity in Tunisia, the connection to the outside world was a relatively small affair.Tunisia Online proudly proclaimed that ‘‘big improvements have been made as regards connecting up with the Internet.The national link has developed from 19.2 kbps in 1991 with Eunet to 512 kbps in 1996 with SprintLink’’ (Tunisia Online,1999, p. 1).

2.2.2. Stage1: 1997–2003

The creation of the ATI in 1996 began the process for the creation of the first censorship regime in Tunisia in 1997.The ATI began installing web caching proxies on the centralised Tunisie Telecom Internet infrastructure where it hadcontrol. The ATI purchased the boxes used for this purpose from international companies and from 1997 onwards ATI were

Fig. 1. Stages of censorship & filtering on the Tunisian Internet.

B. Wagner / Telecommunications Policy 36 (2012) 484–492 487

actively using NetApp technology for this purpose (Silver, 2011). The technology installed by ATI was the NetCache webproxy solution (OpenNet Initiative, 2005), which was used in conjunction with the SmartFilter product. SmartFilter is aproduct developed by Secure Computing, which has since been purchased by McAfee which was in turn purchased by Intel(Noman & York, 2011).

Notably from the earliest days of the Tunisian censorship regime there was a distinction between the filtering

classification technology and the filtering implementation technology, with classification done using an URL list provided bySmartFilter and implementation enacted via a NetCache web proxy. While the technical systems of Internet censorshipand control implementation were augmented and changed over time, the same classification system for website filteringremained in place during these implementation changes.

2.2.3. Stage 2: 2003–2007

In response to the perceived insufficiency of web-based Internet filtering and ‘‘dissidents [who] started using e-mail todistribute the contents of banned sites’’ (Silver, 2011, p. 7) the ATI introduced email filtering solutions in the early 2000s,with strong suggestions that this took place in 2003. The solution is the only kind of censorship technology the ATIdeveloped in-house, using the FOSS product Postfix as an email proxy (Silver, 2011). Although using externally availabletechnology, they did not need to purchase additional hardware systems from international vendors. The email filteringwas done manually by operators in the interior ministry rather than the ATI which saw itself as a technology provider thatenabled censorship and control but did not actually partake in censorship (Elkin, 2011). Instead the interior ministryoperators went through emails, sometimes dropped or modified the contents and then forwarded emails, often hours laterto their intended recipients.

2.2.4. Stage 3: 2007–2010

The solutions employed thus far were relatively effective at controlling content on the Tunisian Internet. However,particularly the introduction of broadband in Tunisia made the amounts of data too large for the existing NetApp NetCacheappliances to handle (Silver, 2011), even though there were dozens of boxes in place in the Tunisie Telecom network.The same goes for the custom build Postfix email proxy, which was unable to deal with the load. Moreover the solutionswere not only unable to cope with the sheer amount, but increasingly degraded network performance on the TunisianInternet. Both email and web filtering systems in use in 2005–2006 were typical corporate solutions at the time and wereno longer considered effective for government grade operations.

As a result Kamel Saadauoi, one of the most important engineers of the Tunisian Internet who is now the President of theTunisian National Telecommunications Authority ‘‘went shopping for more sophisticated solutions at the ISS World tradeshows’’ (Silver, 2011, p. 7). While some vendors refused to provide Tunisia with the kinds of solutions it desired, many wereprepared to do so and the ATI eventually installed systems from ‘‘two European contractors that each used deep-packetinspection — one supplier for filtering websites and another for capturing e-mails’’ (Silver, 2011, p. 7). As noted by Muellerand Asghari in this special issue, the use of deep packet inspection technology in response to the challenge of increased datatraffic created by broadband can also be observed in the U.S. and Canada (Mueller & Asghari, in press).

Closely linked to the purchase of internationally-sourced deep packet inspection (DPI) technology is the long-standingsupport of the Tunisian censorship and control regime by European technical consultants, although their role has mainlybeen to provide important maintenance and technical support to the Tunisian filtering regime vendor. The French Internetprovider Wanadoo is one such technical provider to the Tunisian state, offering technical support for Internet censorship(Krempl, 2008). While activists (Ben Gharbia, 2008) and academics (Wagner, 2008) have suggested since 2008 that Tunisiadid indeed seem to have deep packet inspection infrastructure in place, it is not until after the revolution that it becamecompletely evident that Tunisia did indeed have a DPI filtering system installed from 2007 onwards. Interestingly Tunisiacontinued using the SmartFilter filtering lists, while implementing the website filtering with more effective DPI solutions.Consequently DPI represents more effective filtering implementation technology in Tunisia, but not a substantive changein filtering classification technology.

2.2.5. Stage 4: 2010–2011

The fourth phase in the evolution of censorship and control on the Tunisian Internet needs to be understood in context.The Tunisian government was aware of the danger to its existing filtering system that stemmed from social media and had‘‘signed a deal to add monitoring of social networks’’ (Silver, 2011, p. 8) to their existing monitoring capacity, but the‘‘supplier hadn’t yet delivered the solution’’ (Silver, 2011, p. 8) when the events of the Jasmine revolution overtook thecountry. Lacking a fully fledged social media monitoring system, the Tunisian authorities instead resorted to a makeshiftand piecemeal approach to social media monitoring and filtering. By leveraging their central role in the Tunisian Internetarchitecture, they were able to steal the passwords of Facebook users and Internet bloggers. These details were then usedas part of widespread hacking attacks in Tunisia which involved attacking social media groups, defacing websites anddeleting blogs (Ragan, 2010).

These attacks were orchestrated together with a website filtering campaign which leveraged existing web filteringinfrastructure. The ‘‘head of the Agence Tunisienne d’Internet (ATI) [stating that] the number of websites blocked by theauthorities doubled in just a few weeks’’ (RSF, 2011, p. 1). While the number of websites filtered increased, thisdevelopment was coupled with offline censorship methods. The targeted arrest of bloggers, journalists and Internet

B. Wagner / Telecommunications Policy 36 (2012) 484–492488

activists on January 7 2011 was just one example of a ‘‘string of arrests that come in the midst of what is being described asa nationwide uprising’’ (Ryan, 2011, p. 1).

While such arrests had taken place beforehand, their large scale reached a new level in January 2011. Their scale wassymptomatic of a situation in which a regime felt threatened by widespread popular protests on the streets of Tunisia inDecember 2010, which by early January 2011 had spread to all parts of the country (Rifai, 2011). Lacking a similar levelof technological sophistication in monitoring social networks to the technologies they had purchased for email, thegovernment was forced to resort to more direct home-made solutions for repressing activity on social media.

2.2.6. Stage 5? 2011–

On the evening of 13 January, Ben Ali held his ‘‘I have understood you’’ speech on Tunisian television. Several hoursafter this speech all restrictions to the Internet had been removed. With the flick of a switch Tunisia suddenly had access toan unfiltered Internet connection, although the technical filtering and surveillance infrastructure remained in place.Despite these final concessions, Ben Ali’s attempt to win over his population was not successful and he was forced to fleethe country the following day, 14 January 2011.

Since then, the new post-revolutionary CEO of the ATI Moez Chackchouk has been at pains to shift the focus of hisorganisation away from being an enabler of Internet filtering and surveillance (Chakchouk, 2011). Instead he envisages arole for the ATI as a neutral Internet Exchange Point (IXP) which retains a central role in Tunisian Internet infrastructure,but has a less political role in the operation of Internet infrastructure. Moreover he strongly believes that the ATI can play apositive role in developing the Tunisian Internet economy, by providing hosting solutions and its own expertise.

At the same time the ATI has again become the central focus point of political contestation in post-revolutionaryTunisia. Several months after turning off all Internet censorship, a Tunisian military court ordered the ATI to block 5Facebook pages which were seen as defaming the honour of several high ranking military generals. While the ATIimplemented the military courts’ judgement following the ruling, the implementation of the judgement was suspendeddue to technical constraints in August 2011 (Abrougui, 2012). Following the decision of the military court, a group of fourlawyers in Tunisia sued the ATI at a civilian Tunisian court, to ensure that all forms of pornography are censored acrossTunisia as they are un-Islamic and harmful to children (Berrjab, 2011).

Notably, the court decision was appealed by the ATI, however the appeal to the Tribunal du Premier Instance du Tuniswas unsuccessful and the ATI appealed the decision to the highest Tunisian Court, the Court de Cassation, with success.On 22 February 2012 the Tunisian Court de Cassation ‘‘overturned a judgement by a lower court last August banningpornographic Web content and referred the case back to appeal’’ (RSF, 2012, p. 1). Following elections in Tunisia in October2011, it remains to be seen how the regulation of content on the Tunisian Internet will continue (Abrougui, 2012).Whether the period from 2011 onwards will simply be stage 5 in the on-going politics of censorship in Tunisia remains tobe decided and constitutes one highly contested component of the post-revolutionary political changes (RSF, 2012).

3. Analysis

Having sketched out the history of Internet censorship and control in Tunisia, the paper will now turn to an analysis ofthe factors which might assist in answering the research question: How was Ben Ali able to implement such a far reaching

decision on Internet censorship in a matter of hours?

In response to this question, there are three dimensions that will be explored here as possible answers to this question:

a)

Centralised Internet architecture and institutions. b) Functionally differentiated content regulation. c) Access to censorship technologies through international markets.

3.1. Building centralised Internet architecture and institutions: Creating focal points of control

Having looked at the history of the architecture of Internet filtering and censorship, the first obvious factor is thecentrality of Internet Architecture in supporting censorship. The Tunisian Internet infrastructure is constructed in amanner which explicitly creates one central focal point of control. Although the intentionality of such decisions is hard toascertain, the infrastructural decisions can be seen in the wider context of Ben Ali and the Tunisian state wanting tomaintain close control over telecommunications infrastructure. As such, the centralised Internet infrastructure can be seenas a logical extension of this desire, while still acknowledging that the development of the infrastructure into this form ispart of a wider systemic evolution.

However, a centralised Internet infrastructure is not sufficient to create an Internet censorship regime. It is alsonecessary to create institutions with the capacity to manage the infrastructure and implement the censorship regime. Inthe Tunisian case a centralised administrative agency, the Agence Tunisienne d’Internet (ATI), was created in 1996 by theTunisian Ministry of Communication. The ATI holds all relevant administrative functions for regulating and controlling theTunisian Internet. First the ATI is responsible for the management of the Tunisian domain name system.tn, and assigns IP

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addresses as a national Internet registry (NIR). Moreover as previously discussed, the ATI is the exclusive Tunisian gatewayto the international Internet and acts as the sole Internet exchange point. ISPs are required to obtain their upstreambandwidth from the ATI (OpenNet Initiative, 2009). From an architectural perspective this means that all Internet trafficpasses through the ATI before leaving Tunisia, making filtering and censorship of Internet content technically relativelyeasy to accomplish.

By bundling all relevant Internet governance functions in one centralised Internet institution, the Tunisian governmenthas created a centralised control structure that is able to make far-reaching decisions about the Tunisian Internet.The empowerment of one specific state institution within the organisational hierarchy of Tunisian government also allowsfor decisions on Internet censorship and control to be implemented extremely rapidly. This was evident during December2010 and January 2011, in which the government was able to make the Internet control regime increasingly restrictive and‘‘fine tune’’ its censorship requirements. The ATI also leveraged its central institutional and architectural position withinTunisian cyberspace to enable attacks on individual users and steal the passwords they were using on social networks(Ragan, 2010).

The key role of the ATI was also clearly evident on the evening of 13 January, in which the former President of Tunisiawas empowered to make concessions to demonstrators extremely quickly and shut down the censorship regime in amatter of hours. In a sense, the ATI represents the metaphorical button that was pressed when Internet censorship wasturned off: an institutional control structure that could be used to implement Internet governance swiftly and efficiently.The ATI represents a key institution explaining how Ben Ali was able to implement the concessions at such short notice.These two factors enabled him to use the Internet censorship and control regime as a bargaining chip during the Jasminerevolution.

3.2. Functional differentiated Internet filtering and censorship

Another interesting aspect of Tunisian content regulatory regime is the extent to which the regime functionallydifferentiated (Luhmann, 1982). Most noteworthy in this context is the role of the ATI, a censorship technology provider,which acted as a technical and institutional enabler of Internet censorship without factually which content was beingcensored (Elkin, 2011). Instead it saw itself as a technology provider, which brought together the expertise andinfrastructure necessary to create an Internet control regime. While this narrative about the ATI may have been createdin post-revolutionary revisionism to protect the agency and its employees past and present, the research data suggeststhat the ATI did indeed take this enabling role. Actual decisions about what to censor were made by a special unit withinthe interior ministry, although the ATI was still branded as Ammar404 in public (Silver, 2011).

A second, equally interesting form, of functional differentiation of the Tunisian censorship regime is the separationbetween specific censorship decisions and aggregate filtering rules. While the former were individual decisions aboutpolitically sensitive websites such as Nawaat, the latter were more general decisions about the types of content whichshould be filtered. While the former decision was made on an individual basis by a special unit in the Tunisian interiorministry and, after the 13 January 2011 by Tunisian courts, the latter decisions were made on the basis of aggregatefiltering rules provided by a private U.S. company: McAffee Smart Filter (Noman & York, 2011).

It is a quite extraordinary example of functional differentiation within world society, that the Tunisian state did not seeitself fit or was not itself willing to consider how to define pornography. Instead it preferred to outsource this decision, notto a Tunisian agency or institution, but to an American company, which provides a filtering classification system. Even afterthe Jasmine revolution, a Tunisian court has ordered pornography to be removed from the Internet, assuming that atechnical classification mechanism of some kind or another will be found. The ATI for its part is unwilling to intervene inthe precise selection of individual sites to be filtered, as a result of which any mistaken definition of pornography byMcAfee in the U.S. will be repeated in Tunisia.

There are several other examples of functional differentiation as well. The filtering classification technology provided byMcAfee is distinct from the filtering implementation technology within Tunisian Internet architecture. The separation ofthese two functions makes the overall system more flexible and able to adapt. Particularly with the introduction ofbroadband the Tunisian Internet was faced with a series of problems to which the existing system was not able to respond.As classification and implementation were distinct, this allowed the overall censorship system to adapt to the growth inbandwidth without having to change the functioning classification system.

The last but equally important form functional differentiation within the Tunisian censorship regime is betweenInternet censorship and surveillance. While the technological systems were capable of fulfilling multiple functions, thisfunctionally was not typically implemented. Internet surveillance and censorship systems were typically kept technolo-gically separate and were purchased from separate vendors, as were the systems for web filtering and email filtering(Silver, 2011). There are strong indications that these choices were intentional, to avoid capture by or dependence on onevendor. This stringent separation of technological systems with multiple capacities was part of a wider strategy ofcompartmentalisation within the Tunisian censorship regime.

Within the context of the overall filtering system compartmentalisation made a great deal of sense and functionaldifferentiation was an obvious consequence of these political decisions. Those with actual control over the system in theTunisian interior ministry did not require specialised knowledge or expertise in Internet infrastructure to operate thesystem. At the same time the engineers operating the infrastructure at the ATI could absolve themselves from

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responsibility, as they were not actually making individual decisions about censorship. This compartmentalisation alsoallowed the Tunisian state to remain independent from any one international vendor of technology while allowing Ben Alito remain independent from any specific institution within the Tunisian state. Finally, it gave the overall censorship regimethe ability to respond flexibly and adapt to increases in Internet traffic, or increased censorship evasion through the use ofdifferent channels and platforms.

3.3. Access to censorship technologies through international markets

The last aspect that will be explored in the context of this analysis is the international dimension of Internet censorshipand control in Tunisia. From the first generation of Tunisian censorship infrastructure in 1997, the ATI consistentlyemployed internationally sourced filtering systems from Europe and North America. While some limited elements couldhave been developed within Tunisia, the vast majority was provided by international vendors. The one notable exceptionto this trend is the open source email product Postfix, which was used as part of the first generation of Internet censorshipsystems and was adapted to the needs of the Tunisian state by the ATI.

Beyond Postfix, all other elements of the Tunisian censorship and filtering infrastructure rested on technologycompletely built and developed outside Tunisia. Indeed, for all other elements of the censorship regime, the Tunisian statedid not have the technical ability to build these solutions themselves or have them built in Tunisia. This is evident startingfrom the first NetCache boxes the Tunisian state imported, which were built by NetApp in the U.S., to the McAffeeSmartFilter categorisation system also used from 1997 onwards and also produced in the U.S.

Particularly the use of deep packet inspection from 2007 onwards (stage 4) increased the dependency on foreigntechnology vendors, as the systems provided were increasingly closed and opaque to their operators. In response,representatives of the Tunisian government specifically ensured that they were not locked in to one vendor and ensuredthat they had access to DPI technology from multiple vendors.

Furthermore Tunisia was not only dependent on international markets for much of its censorship and filteringarchitecture, it also heavily used international technical consultants to help build and maintain the filtering infrastructure(Krempl, 2008). It is unlikely that the Tunisian state would have let foreign technical consultants gain access to sensitivenational infrastructure unless it specifically required their support. An alternative explanation is that the involvement ofinternational technical consultants may have been part of the wider strategy of compartmentalisation within thecensorship regime. This strategy could have ensured that no Tunisian actors or institutions gained too much power as aresult of their capacity to maintain the censorship systems without external support.

Whether the involvement of international technical consultations to maintain the system suggests dependence orstrategy, their importance in keeping the overall regime functioning would still seem evident. Although governmentdependency on international technical consultants is lesser than their dependence on internationally developedtechnologies, it constitutes an important and often overlooked component of the Tunisian censorship regime.

4. Preliminary conclusions

Puzzled by the events of 13 January 2011, the paper has attempted to understand how former Tunisian President BenAli was able to implement such an extraordinarily swift snap decision within a very short space of time. Understandinghow Ben Ali was able to do so requires a broader understanding of the history of the Tunisian filtering and censorshipregime. A further analysis of the key enabling components of this regime was then conducted to try to understand howsuch a decision could be made. How was Ben Ali able to implement such a far reaching decision on Internet censorship in a

matter of hours?

The preceding analysis suggests three responses to this question:

a)

The Tunisian state had created a centralised Internet architecture, thereby creating focal points of control. At thesecentral control points institutions were situated who allow for quick and efficient changes to the Tunisian censorshipinfrastructure to be made. This architecture and these institutions form the core part of the censorship regime.

b)

The compartmentalisation and functional differentiation of the censorship system limited the number of individualswith the actual ability to make changes within the system. This general strategy limited dependency from any onenational or international actor and allowed the regime to adapt to new challenges to the censorship regime.

c)

Access to Internet censorship technologies through international markets is an essential component of the overallcensorship regime. The Tunisian state does not have the capacity to develop these technologies themselves and wasonly able to build and develop its censorship regime with the help of international consultants, importing internationaltechnology and access to international filtering systems.

The combination of these three elements helps explain how Ben Ali was able to implement his snap concession within amatter of hours. However none of these arguments is itself a sufficient condition for a state to create such a censorshipregime. Rather all three elements in unison seem to contribute to the creation of the overall censorship regime. In thiscontext it does seem reasonable to suggest that these three factors together created a push-button-autocracy in Tunisia, in

B. Wagner / Telecommunications Policy 36 (2012) 484–492 491

which one individual was empowered in a short space of time to push a button, which changed the nature of the entireInternet. While the metaphorical button was functionally provided by the ATI, which considered itself a censorship

technology provider, its existence was equally enabled by international technology provision and the compartmentalisednature and functional differentiation of the overall censorship system.

That these three dimensions could together be used to create a push-button-autocracy has implications far beyondTunis. When the Internet was turned off in Egypt (Simmons, 2011, p. 591), protestors in Cairo encountered a similarsituation in which one individual actor had the capacity to make far-reaching changes over the Internet. Given thefundamental role the Internet has in enabling human rights around the world (La Rue, 2011, A/HRC/17/27), the veryexistence of such a push-button system is highly problematic.

This does not mean that well meaning regulators should have prevented the Tunisian state from accessing free andopen source software like Postfix when it was building an email censorship system in 2001 (which in any event wouldhave been a futile endeavour). But it does suggest a reconsideration of many of the often simplistic assumptions of thecapacity of the Internet to empower individuals, particularly in countries like Tunisia.

Acknowledgements

The research for this article could not have been conducted without the support of the Humanist Institute forCo-operation with Developing Countries (Hivos). I am grateful for the valuable comments on earlier version of this articleby Kave Salamatian, Monique Doppert, Eric King, Fieke Jansen, Eva Wagner, Johanne Kubler, Matt Crosston, participants inthe GIGANET Washington DC Symposium 2011 and three anonymous reviewers. Particular gratitude goes to Vernon Silverfor his erudite knowledge of the international censorship & surveillance trade and the straight-talking perseverance ofMilton Mueller. Any errors or omissions are my own.

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