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Christina Meetoo

On Media, Society and Mauritius

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Policy

Launch of proceedings “Countering Disinformation: Ensuring an Open and Transparent Infoscape”

18/10/2023 By christina Leave a Comment

On Thursday 5th October 2023, during the Africa Facts Summit 2023, we launched the proceedings of the workshop “Countering Disinformation: Ensuring an Open and Transparent Infoscape” which was held in May 2023 with the support of the Australian High Commission in Mauritius.

Preparing for the official launch
With Africa Check
With Google News Initiative
With Konrad Adenauer Stiftung

We also presented the key findings from the workshop as well as the Pledge on Countering Disinformation which was signed in May by representatives of the 3 main private media houses and of the national TV station.

Participants in the panel discussions held in May 2023 were professionals from the three main private media groups (namely Bernard Delaitre, Director of Le Mauricien, Iqbal Ahmed Khan from La Sentinelle and Prem Sewpaul from DefiMedia), the national broadcaster (Ashok Beeharry from the MBC), regulatory bodies (namely Drudeisha Madhub, Data Commissioner and Trilok Dabeesing from ICTA) and a media trainer/consultant (Jean-Luc Mootoosamy from Media Expertise).

On Friday 13th October 2023, we officially remitted copies of the publication to the Chargée d’Affaires of the Australian High Commission in Mauritius, Her Excellency Mrs Katie Lalor, and to the Senior Political and Public Diplomacy Officer, Mrs Yasmina Hosanoo, at the University of Mauritius.

Roukaya Kasenally, Christina Chan-Meetoo, H.E. Katie Lalor and Yasmina Hosanoo

The full proceedings can be downloaded from: https://bit.ly/countering-disinfo-ebook

The pledge to counter disinformation which was readily signed by media professionals can also be seen at: https://bit.ly/pledge-countering-disinformation

We thank Africa Check for giving us the opportunity to present the proceedings during the Africa Facts Summit 2023 and the Australia High Commission in Mauritius for supporting us in these initiatives.

Filed Under: Information, Mauritius, Policy, Press Tagged With: disinformation, fact-checking, Mauritius, media, Press, university of mauritius

Démocratie augmentée pour une transition écologique juste

16/06/2022 By christina Leave a Comment

Séminaire virtuel interdisciplinaire
Approches sociologique, de sciences politiques et philosophique

Par le Professeur Bernard REBER
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) et Sciences PO, Paris, France

S’inscrire sur: https://bit.ly/demo-eco

3 sessions de 3h30
28 juin, 12 juillet et 26 juillet 2022
De 16h à 19h30

Visant un public large : enseignants-chercheurs, étudiants, société civile organisée, fonctionnaires, syndicats, porteurs d’enjeux, industriels, citoyens…

Organisé par L’Université de Maurice
Avec le soutien de la Virtual Mobility Scheme de la Higher Education Commission
Contact: Christina Chan-Meetoo –

Description:

La transition écologique nécessaire pour réussir à faire face au réchauffement climatique requiert de faire preuve de beaucoup d’imagination démocratique et institutionnelle. En effet, il faut pouvoir mobiliser au bon niveau toutes les responsabilités, individuelles et collectives. Si ces responsabilités sont communes, selon les acteurs, elles sont également différentes. D’où le défi de savoir combiner changements de comportements individuels sur tous les plans et modes de production et de régulation collectifs, à tous les échelons territoriaux, du local aux Conférences des nations unies sur les changements climatiques (COP).

Les assemblées citoyennes pour le climat, associant de diverses manières citoyens ordinaires, experts et décideurs ont vu le jour ces dernières années. Ce fut le cas par exemple avec la Convention française citoyenne pour le climat (2019-2021), à la suite du Grand débat national provoqué par la crise des gilets jaunes, suite à une augmentation de taxe sur les carburants.

L’enjeu de ce séminaire est de bien comprendre les exigences pratiques et théoriques de ces modes de participation et de délibération innovants. Il offre à la fois le recul historique et comparatif d’expériences tenues dans diverses parties du monde. Allant au-delà de la description, il inscrit ces expériences au sein des réflexions philosophiques sur la démocratie délibérative, les rapports entre sciences et société ou encore l’innovation et la recherche responsables.

Les cas traités et les choix de gouvernance et d’institutionnalisation de ces modes de participation seront mis à l’épreuve de défis mauriciens. La République de Maurice pourrait-elle innover de façon originale en ces matières pour répondre à sa transition écologique, tirant parti de son pluralisme ?

Filed Under: Mauritius, Policy, Society Tagged With: citoyens, consultations, democratue, seminaire, transition ecologique

On the subject of Media Regulation in Mauritius

24/11/2021 By christina 2 Comments

Media regulation was debated on 17th November on an MBC TV show called Focus with former journalist and editor-in-chief of L’express-Dimanche, Rabin Bhujun (now director of a company that trains company executives on how to deal with the media), former editor-in-chief of L’express, Raj Meetarbhan (now Senior Adviser at PMO) and Abadallah Goollamallee, a CTI lecturer.

I was asked by MBC journalist Kavin Tapesar for a pre-recorded interview to be included as an insert in the show but it was too short-noticed given that I had much work to do at the time.

Watching the replay of the show prompted me to read again my past papers on the topic from 2011 and 2013. Basically, no progress has been made so far in Mauritius on this issue and what I wrote at the time is still valid.

Here are the papers for those who wish to read through:
– State or Self regulation. The search for common ground in the book Enhancing Democratic Systems: The Media in Mauritius published by Langaa in 2011.

– Ethics in Journalism: Why and How? in the book Ethical Journalism and Gender-Sensitive Reporting, 2013 and republished in Media Ethics and Regulation. Insights from Africa published by Langaa, 2013.

The two commissioned reports which were cited during the show are:

  1. A Press Council for Mauritius? Safeguarding Freedom, Responsibility and Redress for Mauritius and its Media by Mr Kenneth Morgan, former member of the UK Press Council, which was commissioned by the Media Trust in 1998.
  2. Media Law and Ethics in Mauritius. Preliminary Report by Prof Geoffrey Robertson QC, which was commissioned by the government in 2013.

The Robertson report was an extensive 80-page report so people tend to forget that it was only a preliminary version which was released in April 2013. As he wrote in his address to the then PM Navin Ramgoolam in his preamble, his idea was to come back later in the year and have discussions that would help fine-tune his recommendations. He stated that he wanted broad consultations that would have to include multiple stakeholders (such as “media, lawyers and judges, MPs, civil society and members of the public”). This is what he wrote:
It is a large project, but I have done my best to present these provisional conclusions in non-technical language and at reasonable length. They are not set in stone. I hope that the publication of the report will be followed by a period of discussion and debate over its proposals, amongst the media, lawyers and judges, MPs, civil society and members of the public. I will be happy to return later in the year, after considering all responses, to make a final set of legislative proposals.
Unfortunately, no final version was made public as the government probably didn’t like the content of the preliminary report given that they had only envisaged the setting up of a regulatory system for the media whereas the consultant went well beyond this single requirement (more details below). The PTr-led government was very unhappy with the press at the time and regularly alluded to the need to set up a Media Commission to tighten control. This is not the first time a party in power has expressed strong dissatisfaction and threatened to introduce stricter regulations for the media (recall the MMM which was in government after liberalisation of airwaves in 2002) and it is certainly not the last (including the current MSM-led government). Suffice to say that all parties have the same critical attitude to the press when in power and then, magically, become the strongest defenders of the media when in opposition (before becoming staunch critics again when getting back in power, which invariably happens due to the “alternance” in our political configurations).

Interestingly, our local media have rarely (not to say never) advocated for the release of a final version of the Robertson report up to now, nor for its application, as there are some elements which they probably didn’t like as well. They have mostly tended to focus only on the introduction of Freedom of Information legislation albeit without any in-depth reference to the details of such a legislation, using the claim only as a cry of rally against government. Status quo  thus seemed preferred by them with regards to media regulation and laws impacting their operations.

In essence, Robertson made three broad proposals which would have to be introduced in a comprehensive manner for a more balanced and healthy media environment in Mauritius:
  • Review laws that impact media operations such as sedition, defamation, publising false news, contempt of court [an interesting case in this respect being the Dooharika (may he RIP) case where Privy Council overruled a judgement against him and he was represented by Robertson himself], all of which date back to colonial times with sometimes obsolete provisions or fines.
  • Introduce Freedom of Information legislation to ensure transparency and facilitate the work of journalists (and thus review the Official Secrets Act).
  • Introduce media regulation through a national code of ethics for the media and also an institution (a Media Commission) to oversee its application (he suggested revising the mandate of the Media Trust as a possible option).

Rodertson also put emphasis on the need for a comprehensive approach rather than a pieceameal reform:

In my lecture on Developments in Media Law, delivered in the Sir Harilal Vaghjee Memorial Hall, I expressed the view that Mauritius would benefit from a new and comprehensive media law rather than piecemeal reform.

The contents of the report are part of the topics which I teach in a module called Media and Ethics in the Journalism course at the University of Mauritius.

Filed Under: Information, Mauritius, Policy, Press Tagged With: FOI, media ethics, media laws, media regulation, press council, robertson report

A Supreme Court Judgement deems the offence of causing annoyance in the ICT Act to be “hopelessly vague”

05/06/2021 By christina Leave a Comment

On 27 May 2021, Supreme Court judges D. Chan Kan Cheong and K.D. Gunesh-Balaghee delivered their judgement in the case of SEEGUM J v THE STATE OF MAURITIUS 2021 SCJ 162.

Seegum had been prosecuted before the Intermediate Court on 5 counts for the offence of “using an information and communication service for the purpose of causing annoyance”, in breach of sections 46(h)(ii)  and 47 of the ACT Act. Two counts were dismissed and the trial had proceeded  on three counts all related to “wilfully and unlawfully using an information and communication service for the purpose of causing annoyance to another person” on a Facebook forum under Section 46(h)(ii) of the ICTA, which read as follows at the time of the alledged offence:

“46. Offences Any person who -(…)
(h) uses an information and communication service, including telecommunication service, –
(ii) for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to any person;
(…)
shall commit an offence.”

Seegum had been found guilty by the Intermediate Court and fined to Rs 15,000 for each of the 3 counts (total of Rs 45,000). He appealed against the judgement on several grounds, one of them being that “that section 46(h)(ii) of the ICTA breaches section 10(4) of the Constitution”. That section of the Constitution states that:

(4) No person shall be held to be guilty of a criminal offence on account of any act or omission that did not, at the time it took place, constitute such an offence, and no penalty shall be imposed for any criminal offence that is  severer in degree or description than the maximum penalty that might have imposed for that offence at the time when it was committed.

Seegum’s counsel argued that “causing annoyance” suffers from vagueness in the formulation of the ICT Act and causes uncertainty. It does not allow the ordinary citizen to determine which conduct may be considered as causing annoyance and whether a particular conduct will fall within the purview of section 46(h)(ii) of the ICT Act.

In their statement, the two Supreme Court judges upheld this argument, recalling that a number of past cases cases have allowed courts (in Mauritius and elsewhere) to reaffirm the well established principle that criminal laws must be certain and formulated with sufficient precision to enable the citizen to regulate his conduct. They write that: “for a criminal law to pass the test of constitutionality under section 10(4), it must be so worded that it allows the ordinary citizen to  determine what constitutes an offence and what acts and omissions will render him liable to prosecution.”

[Read more…] about A Supreme Court Judgement deems the offence of causing annoyance in the ICT Act to be “hopelessly vague”

Filed Under: New Media, Policy, Society, Technology, Uncategorized Tagged With: ITCA, regulation, social media, supreme court

The proposed amendments to the ICT Act to regulate social media in democratic Mauritius entail the risk of creating a surveillance state

22/04/2021 By christina Leave a Comment

On 14 April 2021, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA) released a Consultation Paper on proposed amendments to the ICT Act for regulating the use and addressing the abuse and misuse of Social Media  in Mauritius. In a nutshell, the paper makes a proposal to amend the law so that all internet communication would have to pass through a centralised proxy server managed by the agency and citizens will have to install a digital self-signed certificate on their devices to allow the server to access, decrypt, segregate social media traffic for analysis for investigative purposes. The technical toolset would be managed by an Enforcement Unit within the ICTA and there would be a National Digital Ethics Committee to decide on how to deal with “illegal and harmful content”.

There are numerous issues with this proposal. The most salient one being that the mechanism would make Mauritius a blanket surveillance state, which is incompatible with the concept of democracy. In fact, no other democracy in the world uses such a blanket system to intercept citizens’ communication in order to regulate social media. Below is a more detailed analysis of the content.

– What is the context for the proposed amendments?
– Preliminary comment about the context
– What are those proposed amendments to the ICT Act?
– Comment about the philosophy underlying the proposal
– What does the Constitution say?
– What are other democratic states doing or trying to do?
– Other key questions posed by the proposed amendments
– What are potential alternatives to the proposed amendments?
– Conclusion

What is the context for the proposed amendments?

There is a perceived need for regulation of social media in Mauritius. The stated objective is to combat illegal and harmful content (and comment) in a way that is not dependent on international social media companies. These platforms are deemed to be not sufficiently responsive to requests from the authorities in terms of:

  • time taken to respond,
  • community standards which are not as strict as our domestic laws, and
  • the Creole language which the platform moderators do not understand.

The paper states that a “minority of individuals or organised groups” are at fault and that “The issue at hand is when these abuses, even though perpetrated by few individuals/groups, go viral, the damage created is very far reaching.”

Preliminary comment about the context

[Read more…] about The proposed amendments to the ICT Act to regulate social media in democratic Mauritius entail the risk of creating a surveillance state

Filed Under: New Media, Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: democracy, digital, ethics, ICTA, Mauritius, moderation, policy, regulation, social media, surveillance state

Making sense of complexity during the Covid-19 pandemic

02/05/2020 By christina Leave a Comment

I recently came across this long article on The Atlantic:

Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing. A guide to making sense of a problem that is now too big for any one person to fully comprehend

It is very long but very worth the read as it gives as exhaustive an overview as possible of all the issues related to communication and policy during the pandemic.

In case you want quick reads (but it is better to read the whole thing), I offer:

A detailed summary with highlights

An ‘extreme’ summary

 

 

 

 
Here’s the summary with highlights:

  1. We must distinguish between the virus and the disease which happens within a social context – Earlier instances of the term coronavirus are readily misconstrued. (…) The disease COVID-19 arises from a combination of the virus SARS-CoV-2 and the person it infects, and the society that person belongs to.
  2. There’s a deluge of publications and we need to spot errors – Scientists have published more than 7,500 papers on COVID-19. But despite this deluge, “we haven’t seen a lot of huge plot twists,”. Epidemiologists (…) have suddenly been thrust into political disputes. (…) “Some people are genuinely trying to help, but there’s also a huge amount of opportunism.” (…) Expertise is not just about knowledge, but also about the capacity to spot errors. (…) We hunger for information, but lack the know-how to evaluate it or the sources that provide it. (…) Bergstrom agrees that experts shouldn’t be dismissive gatekeepers.
  3. False expertise come with extreme overconfidence, mostly from male voices – A lack of expertise becomes problematic when it’s combined with extreme overconfidence, and with society’s tendency to reward projected confidence over humility. (…) Through attention, the media reward voices that are outspoken but not necessarily correct. Those voices are disproportionately male.
  4. Modern expertise tends to be deep but narrow and thus requires collaboration – The idea that there are no experts is overly glib. The issue is that modern expertise tends to be deep, but narrow. (…) In a pandemic, the strongest attractor of trust shouldn’t be confidence, but the recognition of one’s limits, the tendency to point at expertise beyond one’s own, and the willingness to work as part of a whole.
  5. To gain trust, provide full statements and do not hide uncertainties – “The fuller statements take longer to explain, but that’s how it is in outbreaks.” Inglesby says. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, and we shouldn’t try to tidy it up.” (…) The impulse to be reassuring is understandable, but “the most important thing is to be as accurate as possible,” Inglesby says. (…) If officials—and journalists—are clear about uncertainties from the start, the public can better hang new information onto an existing framework, and understand when shifting evidence leads to new policy. Otherwise, updates feel confusing.
  6. For audiences, sharing offers agency but we are drowning in too much information – Sharing offers agency. It allows people to collectively make sense of a situation riddled by anxiety and uncertainty. (…) Historically, people would have struggled to find enough information. Now people struggle because they’re finding too much. (…) It does not help that online information channels are heavily personalized and politicized, governed by algorithms that reward certain and extreme claims over correct but nuanced ones.
  7. The default media staccato rhythm intensifies uncertainty and drives people to misinformation – Rosen also argues that the media’s default rhythm of constant piecemeal updates is ill-suited to covering an event as large as the pandemic. “Journalists still think of their job as producing new content, but if your goal is public understanding of COVID-19, one piece of new content after another doesn’t get you there,” (…) Instead, the staccato pulse of reports merely amplifies the wobbliness of the scientific process, turns incremental bits of evidence into game changers, and intensifies the already-palpable sense of uncertainty that drives people toward misinformation.
  8. The audience needs to change: become more information literate and practise fact-checking – If the media won’t change, its consumers might have to. Starbird recommends slowing down and taking a moment to vet new information before sharing it.
  9. Pay attention to how data is gathered and do not treat models as crystal ball – The means of gathering data always complicate the interpretation of those data. (…) The numbers I see say as much about the tools researchers are using as the quantities they are measuring. (…) If measuring the present is hard, predicting the future is even harder. The mathematical models that have guided the world’s pandemic responses have been often portrayed as crystal balls. That is not their purpose.
  10. Prevention is better though not sexy – “There are two lessons one can learn from an averted disaster,” Tufekci says. “One is: That was exaggerated. The other is: That was close.”
  11. The narrative is more complex than we think: we built a world that is prone to pandemics yet not ready to face them –The coronavirus not only co-opts our cells, but exploits our cognitive biases. (…) We crave simple narratives, but the pandemic offers none. (…) And the desire to name an antagonist, be it the Chinese Communist Party or Donald Trump, disregards the many aspects of 21st-century life that made the pandemic possible: humanity’s relentless expansion into wild spaces; soaring levels of air travel; chronic underfunding of public health; a just-in-time economy that runs on fragile supply chains; health-care systems that yoke medical care to employment; social networks that rapidly spread misinformation; the devaluation of expertise; the marginalization of the elderly; and centuries of structural racism that impoverished the health of minorities and indigenous groups. It may be easier to believe that the coronavirus was deliberately unleashed than to accept the harsher truth that we built a world that was prone to it, but not ready for it.
  12. The end of its journey and the nature of its final transformation will arise from our collective imagination and action. And they, like so much else about this moment, are still uncertain.

 

And here’s an ‘extreme’ summary:

  1. We must distinguish between the virus SARS-CoV-2 and the disease Covid-19 which happens to individuals but within different social contexts.
  2. There has been a deluge of scientific publications and we need to spot errors coming from genuine mistakes or mere opportunism. False expertise comes with extreme overconfidence, specially from male voices.
  3. Modern expertise tends to be deep but narrow and thus requires collaboration.
  4. To gain trust, decision-makers and media need to provide full statements and highlight current uncertainties. The default media staccato, piece-meal, sensationalistic rhythm intensifies uncertainty and mistrust and thus drives people to misinformation.
  5. Sharing offers agency but we are drowning in too much information. The audience needs to change: become more information literate and practise fact-checking.
  6. We must pay attention to how data is gathered and not treat mathematical models as crystal balls. We have no awareness about disasters that were averted such as the Y2K bug because prevention is not sexy but it is still better than cure.
  7. Don’t play the blame game. The narrative is more complex than we think: we all built a world that is prone to pandemics (with onslaughts against nature, health, care, local micro-industry, information, expertise, minorities) yet we’re not ready to tackle their consequences
  8. The end and the nature of the final transformation will be determined by our collective imagination and action which are also still uncertain.

Filed Under: Information, Policy, Society Tagged With: audience, collaboration, complex narrative, coronavirus, covid-19, data, expertise, literacy, media, prevention, trust

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  • Launch of proceedings “Countering Disinformation: Ensuring an Open and Transparent Infoscape”
  • Émission Radio One du 13 février 2023: La Question se pose
  • Démocratie augmentée pour une transition écologique juste
  • On the subject of Media Regulation in Mauritius
  • A Supreme Court Judgement deems the offence of causing annoyance in the ICT Act to be “hopelessly vague”

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