Christina Meetoo

On Media, Society and Mauritius

Society

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

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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.”

The judges proceed to compare the initial version of section 46(h)(ii) of the ICTA to similar provisions of the law in the UK and India, namely section 66A of the Information Technology Act 2000 of India and section 127(2) of the UK Communications Act, 2003.  They find a marked difference between the Mauritian provision and the English and Indian provisions. In both the UK and in India, there should be evidence that the offender knew that his/her message was based on information he/she knew to be false or made persistent use of electronic means to send the message. The elements of falsity and persistent use “in the English and Indian law make the offence more objectively ascertainable by the Courts and by the citizens.”

Section 46(h)(ii) certainly offers no clear distinction between a conduct which is innocuously annoying and one which is criminally reprehensible. It lacks  precision and clarity and is “hopelessly vague”. Leaving it up entirely to the Courts to determine which conduct is criminal on a case to case basis, with no discernible objective criteria, is giving a too wide discretion to the Courts and creating uncertainty in the law.

The judgement thus basically deemed that the version of article 46(h)(ii) of ICT Act to be unconstitutional.

The judges do specify that they do not make any pronouncement about the constitutionality of  the redrafted version of the section (done in 2018). But this will undoubtedly create a precedent for any new cases being judged under the redrafted section of the ICT Act and it further weakens the justifications for the ICTA proposal for regulation using a technical toolset to intercept all internet traffic in Mauritius, a proposal which was itself predicated on that very section.

It is useful to recall that the new version of Section 46(h)(ii) of the ICTA now reads as follows:

(ii) which is likely to cause or causes annoyance, humiliation, inconvenience, distress or anxiety to that person; (the changes are in bold )

It seems to me that this new formulation is even more subjective than the former version which was the basis for the Supreme Court case. The 2018 updated formulation creates even more uncertainty and imprecision in defining the nature of the offence as it introduces the phrase “which is likely to cause…”, meaning that the impact of the offence may be hypothetical, rather than real. It also adds new terms: “humiliation” and “distress”, which are not well-defined either.

I may be wrong but such a judgement from no less than the Supreme Court further diminishes the likelihood for the amendments proposed in the ICTA Consultation to be given the go ahead. And this is good news!

My final submission to the ICTA on its proposed amendments to the ICT Act

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In this blogpost, you will find the link to my final submission to the ICTA on its proposed amendments to the ICT Act. In the last section of my paper, I include my answers (reproduced below) to the specific questions of the ICTA in its Consultation Paper.

Click here to access the full text of the analytical paper

Click here to access the PDF format of the Analytical Paper

Summary of questions being released for public consultation

14.1 What are your views on the present approach of self-regulation of social networks by social media administrators themselves where they decide to remove an online content or not based on their own usage policy and irrespective of your domestic law?

Countries around the world face issues concerning circulation of posts which are potentially in breach of their domestic laws on social media platforms. There is, at present, no fully satisfactory response which is proposed or effectively deployed in any democratic country. Only non-democratic countries have recourse to drastic measures aiming to block and/or intercept all of their own citizens’ online communications and social media traffic in an attempt to regulate the same. As a democratic country, Mauritius cannot use methods which would be more suitable for non-democratic regimes.

It is true that the content being circulated online which either targets or is created by Mauritian citizens on social media may be in breach of domestic laws. However, an objective assessment of the extent of such illicit content being circulated needs to be conducted to determine the extent of abuse and/or misuse as already specified in the above paper,

It should also be recalled that social media platforms offer various levels of privacy, meaning that one may categorise the online communication sphere created by these into multiple sub-categories, which can tentatively be broadly listed as follows:

  1. Online national public sphere created by public personalities (prominent members of society such as politicians, leaders of big organisations, community and religious leaders, opinion leaders, etc.) and organisations (whether public or private bodies) who decide to publish their posts on the full “public mode” level. Their content becomes accessible to anyone without the need to be directly connected as “friends” or “friends of friends”. They generally have a large number of followers/friends and their posts can be shared, thereby enabling them to become viral.
  2. Targeted public circles created by specific individuals and bodies who wish to communicate within a semi-restricted sphere, upon invitation.
  3. Private circles whereby an individual or entity communicates only with their friends and whose posts cannot be shared outside of the network of friends.

There are obviously more levels of control which are generally available on some social media platforms in between those three broad categories. Suffice to say that the first level (online national public sphere) is the one which should command the most attention, followed by the second level (targeted public circles) whereas the third level (private circles) may be considered the equivalent of private conversations between private individuals.

Individuals and entities who have large follower bases in the online national public sphere and targeted public circles are the ones who should be more subject to scrutiny as they have the potential for virality and their speech is tantamount to public speech, which may be evaluated against prevailing domestic laws.

As it is, the responsibility for regulating content rests primarily on the social media platforms themselves, the most popular of which are based overseas, thus not directly subjected to domestic laws. These platforms use their own terms of use or community standards to evaluate content (1) when prompted by other users who flag potential issues or (2) when their internal algorithms detect highly sensitive content requiring intervention by the platform.

Intense debates have taken place after the occurrence of major incidents linked to social media accounts of public figures such as former US President Donald Trump. The latter’s account was shut down on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook after the Capitol invasion in January 2021 when he lost elections. Despite multiple posts which contained fake news and racist comments during his presidency, he was only banned from social media platforms when he lost the last elections, thus sparking debates about whether all major public figures around the world would henceforth be liable to similar treatment by the platforms. This was one of the most prominent cases entrusted by Facebook to its own Oversight Board for review. The Facebook Oversight Board published its ruling on 5th May 2021 and upheld the decision but requested that Facebook review the decision within the next six months and also develop clear, necessary, and proportionate policies that promote public safety and respect freedom of expression.

Thus, it can be deduced that platforms are not monolithic organisations and they are prone to debates both on the internal and external fronts. All parties involved still fray with the delicate issue of regulation and remain open to reviews and possible disruption of their moderation policies and mechanisms.

These mechanisms remain unsatisfactory and will probably never ever be satisfactory due to the complexity involved whereby the very same platforms can be used:

  • to mobilise for good causes or incite bad mass behaviour,
  • to communicate on different levels such as one-to-one, one-to-few, few-to-few, one-to-many or many-to-many.

Regulating social media is not an easy task and a simple one-size-fits-all solution will simply not work without creating bigger prejudices.

14.2 Do you think that the damage caused by the excesses and abuses of social networks to social cohesion warrants a different approach from the self-regulatory regime presently being enforced by social media administrators themselves?

There is not enough data which has been made available about the damage caused by the excesses and abuses of social networks to social cohesion in Mauritius to be able to formulate an informed reply to this question. The data remains impressionistic rather than scientific. For instance, how many such cases have there been over the last years and months that have not been detected and tackled through the current investigation and legal system? What have been the trends in the number of such cases? What is the exact breakdown? What have been the actions taken by authorities? In what way have they been insufficient? To date, we have no knowledge of massive excesses that have created havoc in the social tissue of our country. There have been no major riots nor major ethnic conflicts which have been reported by the Mauritian police over the past few days that we know of.

14.3 What are your views on the overall proposed operational framework in terms of the
• National Digital Ethics Committee (NDEC)
• Enforcement Division
which is intended to bring more clarity to section 18 (m) of the ICT Act, where the ICTA is mandated to take steps to regulate or curtail the harmful and illegal content on the Internet and other information and communication services.

Please refer to comments made in the paper submitted above.

14.4 What are your views on the proposed legal amendments to the ICT Act to give legal sanctity and enforcement power to the NDEC?

This is a risky proposal as the composition of such a committee will inevitably be reviewed each time a new political party or coalition gains majority in the National Assembly to constitute government. Such powers should rest only within the justice system to ensure impartiality and independence from political power games.

14.5 What are your views on the proposed modus operandi of the NDEC?
There is scant information provided in the consultation paper about the modus operandi of the proposed NDEC. It merely stipulates that “it is proposed that the Chairperson and members of the NDEC be independent, and persons of high calibre and good repute.”

There are no indications whatsoever about the following:

  • Number of members
  • Composition of the committee (profiles of members)
  • Process for nomination of members
  • Duration of mandate for members
  • Process for evaluating complaints
  • Existence of a review or appeal systems (as opposed to the justice system where the different appeal levels are clearly defined by law)
  • Proposed stages of penalty or fines (as opposed to the justice system where maximum sentences and fines are clearly defined by law)

14.6 What are your suggestions on the safeguard measures to be placed for the NDEC?
No specific safeguard measures for the NDEC have been proposed in the consultation paper. The paper merely stipulates that:
“Before start of operations, the NDEC will also be tasked to come up with sufficient and effective safeguards to be published in order to ensure complete operational transparency and avoidance of any abusive use and misuse of this operational framework.”
First and foremost, the nature of the committee itself is problematic and one cannot expect the committee to define its own safeguards, which would be the equivalent of a watchdog being asked to watch over itself.

14.7 What are your views on the use of the technical toolset, especially with respect to its privacy and confidentiality implications when enforcing the mandatory need to decrypt social media traffic?
As stated by major browsers namely Google and Mozilla in their joint submission, the proposed technical toolset is very dangerous as it would undermine the privacy of Mauritian citizens and put them at risk of attacks by third parties if it does work. Browser makers may decide to block the system. The proxy server may be clogged down by the volume of traffic to be handled and may even be targeted by cyber attacks. As a result, access to the internet may be slowed down or even paralysed for all in Mauritius. This would not only impact citizens but also foreigners communicating and transacting with people based in Mauritius as well as local and international corporate entities.

This toolset can set us back completely as an aspiring tech hub. We may lose business and partnership opportunities, incoming FDI, inbound tourists, and existing foreign companies may prefer to move their branches or headquarters to other countries.

If this toolset is implemented, Mauritius will also undoubtedly be downgraded in international indices such as Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, the ITU ICT Development Index, the Global Innovation Index or even the Ease of Doing Business index, inter alia. The repercussions for the economy may be far-reaching. Many international organisations have already expressed their concern and opposed the proposed amendments to the ICT Act.

14.8 Can you propose an alternative technical toolset of a less intrusive nature which will enable the proposed operational framework to operate in an expeditious, autonomous and independent manner from the need to request technical data from social media administrators?

No technical toolset can be proposed at the local level. Solutions should preferably be sought in consultation with the social media platforms and the legal and judiciary should be better equipped to deal with complaints related to social media.

In the first case, diplomatic negotiations should be leveraged with regional organisations such as the African Union, SADC and COMESA or international partnerships such as with fellow Commonwealth and Francophone allies and SIDS (Small Island Developing States).

When reinforcing our legal capacity to tackle infringements to domestic laws on social media, the investigative teams within the police force also need to be provided with regular training as technological products and services evolve quickly.

More importantly, if abuse and misuse of social media in breach of domestic laws are to be tackled in a sustainable manner, it is very important to invest in nation-wide as well as targeted campaigns for:

  • digital literacy,
  • media and information literacy,
  • civic education.

14.9 Should the Courts be empowered to impose sentences (which include banning use of social media) on persons convicted of offences relating to misuse of social media tools?

The responsibility of adjudicating sentences should indeed remain within the judiciary system of Courts as learned magistrates and judges are trained professionals for adjudicating sentences.

The investigative teams within police departments concerned should also be reinforced through capacity building.

Summary of key points in the body of my Analytical Paper

Premise

  • It is a positive point that the ICTA has published this as a Consultation Paper and extended deadline for submission of comments.
  • ICTA states that social media plaforms take too much time to respond to their requests, that community standards are not as strict as nor necessarily compliant with our domestic laws, and that they may not be able to moderate content adequately as they do not understand our Mauritian Creole language. For the ICTA, a “minority of individuals or organised groups” are at fault and “The issue at hand is when these abuses, even though perpetrated by few individuals/groups, go viral, the damage created is very far reaching.”
  • Before proposing any solution, the exact nature of an existing problem needs to be examined in detail to answer the question “How big is the problem of misuse and abuse of social media really in the country that warrants such far-reaching measures as those being proposed by the ICTA in its consultation paper?”
  • This should include detailed information about the “very far reaching damage” created. The consultation paper does include a table listing the number of incidents reported to the MAUCORS but lacks information about the current investigation process, actions taken by authorities, whether dealt with locally by law or reported to platforms, and results obtained and final outcomes achieved.

The ICTA proposal:

  • Setting up of a National Digital Ethics Committee (NDEC) as the decision-making body to: “investigate on illegal and harmful content on its own or through interaction with other stakeholders already involved in national security, crime investigation, detection and prevention or through complaints received;”
  • Creation of a Technical Enforcement Unit to enforce the technical measures as directed by the NDEC.
  • Use of a technical toolset whereby internet users in Mauritius will have to use a local proxy server as intermediary and will be asked to install a self-signed digital certificate allowing the ICTA server to be accepted as intermediary by the browser or the app, thereby bypassing the https protocol.

Analysis

  • The adjective “harmful” needs to be defined clearly to understand what is allowed and what is not allowed. Otherwise, there is a risk of potential abuse and misuse by authorities and any parties involved in the mechanism. Assuming that the intention of the current appointees of the ICTA with this proposal is genuinely to create a safe online public sphere in Mauritius and to work for the greater good rather than for vested interests, there is no guarantee that subsequent appointees would follow suit. Petty political games may ensue.
  • The adjective “illegal” is clearer as this relates to the laws of the country, which are enacted by parliament, interpreted by courts of justice and implemented by policy-makers.
  • The main issue with this proposal is a potential conflict with Section 12 of the Constitution as highlighted in the paper itself. The Constitution states that there can be no interference in our communications except with our consent and except for specific provisions involving public defence, safety, order, morality and health, reputation, privacy, courts authority, technical administration of telecoms and civil service restrictions. BUT, the provisions should be “justifiably reasonable in a democratic society” and the proposed amendments to the ICT Act do not seem “justifiably reasonable in a democratic society“.
  • The proposal is tantamount to blanket surveillance on the citizens of Mauritius without judicial oversight. ALL citizens’ communication would be interfered with in a blanket manner. The proportionality test needs to be applied: Does this pass the balance of risks/benefits? This proposal seems to contradict the philosophy of the Data Protection Act which aims to protect citizens’ private data and which was adopted in 2017 (and modelled on the EU GDPR).
  • No other democratic state is using such a system as the one proposed by the ICTA. There is a high probability that Mauritius will tumble down in world freedom rankings.
  • In all the democratic states cited in the consultation paper, the responsibility for moderation and removal of illegal content remains vested with the social media platforms as these state agencies never endow themselves with any technical capacity to interfere, intercept and remove any content on social media in comparison with the Mauritian ICTA proposal.
  • The mechanism for intercepting, decrypting and re-encrypting social media traffic would require enormous technical capabilities given the enormous amounts of data (photos, videos, livestreams, etc.) generated daily. It is also very much a moving target. Any social media network may change some implementation details which might make the system ineffective. Anyone can also bypass the system just by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Potential alternatives to the proposed amendments

  • The last question in the consultation paper asks citizens if they think that local courts of justice should be empowered to “impose sentences (which include banning use of social media) on persons convicted of offences relating to misuse of social media tools”. This may indeed be explored.
  • Preventive measures such as education, sensitisation and digital literacy remain crucial to create a more civic space online.
  • We could also explore the use of our diplomatic connections at the regional level to enter into negotiation with the social media platforms in order to improve their responsiveness to requests from local authorities (eg. AU, SADC).

Conclusion

  • The public consultation formula is a positive process. In the same spirit, it is expected that there be a public report about inputs received (as announced by the ICTA) and how these inputs are tackled by the ICTA and any other authority involved in the process.
  • On the basis of information provided so far, the present proposed amendments do not seem reasonable at all in terms of the proportionality of the measures with respect to the problem to be tackled. Rather, they represent a significant threat to our democratic setup and may have far-reaching repercussions not only on the social and political but also on the economic fronts.

Nous ne sommes pas tous égaux devant l’enseignement à distance

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Article paru dans Le Défi le 14 mai 2020

Interview réalisée par Pradeep K. Daby

Est-ce que l’éducation à distance, grâce à différentes applications digitales expérimentées en ce moment, est-elle appelée à bouleverser la méthode d’apprentissage traditionnelle, dominée par le livre papier et les salles de classes ? Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication à l’Université de Maurice (UoM), Christina Chan-Meetoo est d’avis que «les deux peuvent cohabiter », faisant valoir que « les plateformes numériques pour l’enseignement à distance offrent de nombreux avantages. »

Quelle réflexion vous inspire l’enseignement à distance décidée avec l’entrée en vigueur du confinement et de l’état d’urgence sanitaire ?
Il me semble que quasiment toutes les écoles privées à Maurice ont rapidement augmenté ou déployé l’utilisation des outils technologiques pour l’enseignement à distance. Pour le secteur public, il y a eu une adoption élargie mais pas une couverture à 100% en raison des disparités socio-économiques qui existent entre les écoles, les enseignants et les élèves. C’est probablement la raison pour laquelle le ministère de l’Éducation a lancé des programmes d’accompagnement à travers les chaînes de télévision publique même s’il y a eu des critiques sur les contenus.

À l’Université de Maurice, les plateformes étaient déjà là pour l’enseignement à distance à travers Google Suite qui inclut les outils Google Classroom et Meet et nous avons rapidement eu le mot d’ordre de les utiliser autant que possible tout en permettant une certaine flexibilité.

Globalement, l’on peut donc, d’une part, constater qu’il y a des fossés numériques et sociologiques qui font que ce mode d’enseignement n’est pas encore universel, et d’autre part, que dans les situations de crise, on peut tout de même étendre et accélérer l’adoption d’outils technologiques.

Tout ceci requiert tout de même des changements majeurs au niveau individuel que ce soit pour les enseignants et les apprenants. Il faut adopter ses méthodes pédagogiques et prendre en compte les difficultés auxquelles certains apprenants sont parfois confrontés au domicile selon les niveaux scolaires : accès parfois limité à un ordinateur, manque d’espace pour soi, capacité limitée des parents à aider, emploi du temps chamboulé par les travaux ménagers, stress lié au manque de revenus au domicile, etc.

Pour ma part, sachant que ma cible est constituée de jeunes adultes de toutes sortes de milieux, je préfère autant que possible limiter mes cours en mode synchrone à des séances de feedback sur les devoirs pour ne pas pénaliser les moins privilégiés. Je préfère donner du matériel à lire et des devoirs analytiques ou créatifs qui s’appuient sur des questions liées à la crise actuelle lorsque c’est possible, afin qu’ils puissent gérer leur apprentissage selon leur propre rythme.

Est-ce que cela signifie une remise en question partielle de l’enseignement ‘traditionnel’ ?
Certainement, car il y a une réalisation que l’enseignement à distance est possible, pas nécessairement en remplacement total de l’enseignement en face à face, mais en tout cas comme outil complémentaire. On pourrait réduire le nombre de séances en face à face et donc les inconvénients liés aux déplacements, à la logistique et à l’infrastructure.

Cela dit, je peux imaginer que certains enseignants se sont tout simplement contentés de transposer leurs cours traditionnels sur une plateforme vidéo. Mais, ce serait dommage de se limiter à cela.

Quelles doivent être les conditions nécessaires pour une bonne alternative – si cela s’avère- entre l’enseignement à distance et celui dit traditionnel et est-ce que les deux peuvent-ils cohabiter ?
Je pense que les deux peuvent cohabiter. On ne peut remplacer totalement le mode présentiel dans le modèle d’éducation massive. Il est aussi important de se connaître au préalable, de se voir, d’obtenir des feedbacks immédiats dans la salle de classe avant de pouvoir passer aux plateformes numériques. De plus, rien ne remplace les présentations orales devant une audience pour développer les compétences en communication orale formelle. Les travaux de groupe sont aussi importants pour développer l’habitude du collaboratif si important dans le monde d’aujourd’hui. Ce qui requiert un minimum de rencontres en face à face.

De leur côté, les plateformes numériques pour l’enseignement à distance offrent de nombreux avantages. Par exemple, cela signifie un accès à des ressources élargies et une nécessité de sortir des sentiers battus pour l’enseignant qui ne se pose plus en source unique mais en guide à travers le labyrinthe des connaissances. Aussi, les plateformes numériques permettent de rassembler le matériel pédagogique en un seul lieu ainsi que les devoirs. Ils peuvent aussi faciliter la correction pour les devoirs de base et le calcul des notes peut être automatisé.

Bien sûr, nous ne sommes pas tous égaux devant l’enseignement à distance. Les plus jeunes enseignants, les plus dynamiques sont ceux qui s’adaptent plus facilement, de même que certaines disciplines.

Est-ce l’enseignement à distance signifie-t-il moins de dépendance aux livres papier ?
Oui dans une certaine mesure, si tant est que les livres prescrits sont disponibles en version numérique. De nombreux auteurs de matériel pédagogique ont préféré éviter la version numérique qui sape les revenus en raison de la facilité à les partager gratuitement.

Il y a déjà énormément de ressources valables en ligne qui peuvent suppléer aux livres papiers. Ce qui est positif pour qui sait faire le tri.

Il faut souligner que l’éducation de masse s’appuie justement sur du matériel standard pour assurer une base relativement égalitaire à tous les apprenants, d’où l’utilisation de livres prescrits.

Est-ce qu’il nécessite également la formation à l’informatique des enseignants ?
Tout dépend du type de formation. La formation à l’utilisation des outils pour l’enseignement à distance est certes nécessaire pour une partie des enseignants. Pour d’autres, ils savent apprendre tout seul et leur demander de suivre une formation au même rythme que les autres serait une perte de temps. Peut-être qu’il faudrait encourager le ‘peerlearning’ aussi, c’est-à-dire que ceux qui ont appris à utiliser les outils technologiques tout seuls aident les moins débrouillards. Mais il faudrait que le système administratif le permette et le mette en valeur car c’est un effort qui doit être reconnu.

Est-ce que cette méthode implique-t-elle le réagencement de l’ensemble des activités des individus ?
Si l’enseignement à distance entre dans la politique d’éducation de masse, certainement. Non seulement dans la façon d’appréhender la classe, de permettre des rythmes d’apprentissage flexibles et de l’ouverture des ressources, mais aussi dans la façon de concevoir les évaluations des apprenants. Le concept d’épreuve écrite finale individuelle peut par exemple être revu pour intégrer la notion de progrès individuel dans les travaux et une plus grande prise en compte des contrôles continus dans les notes finales. Cela nécessite bien sûr une approche moins mécanique de l’évaluation, plus créative et analytique qui pérennise la connaissance. On n’apprendrait pas juste pour passer un examen mais pour comprendre et résoudre des vrais problèmes. Ce qui est le but ultime de l’éducation.

Petit pays mais grande histoire de la presse

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Article paru dans l’édition spéciale Business Yearbook 2020 de Business Magazine de mars 2020
Texte écrit à la demande de la journaliste Dooshani Seewoolall


La place du journalisme est centrale dans toute société dite démocratique. Ses objectifs sont multiples: informer les citoyens des décisions politiques et économiques qui peuvent affecter leur vie, agir comme chien de garde contre les abus, sensibiliser aux grands enjeux et participer à l’édification de la population. L’histoire de la presse mauricienne est longue et variée. Notre presse a souvent fait honneur à ces nobles missions et a aussi parfois failli à la tâche.

Elle peut en tout cas se targuer d’avoir un statut de pionnière. Elle a été le lieu de naissance du plus ancien journal de l’hémisphère sud et du continent africain. Le journal Affiches, Annonces et Avis Divers, lancé par Nicolas Lambert en 1773, publie surtout des annonces de l’administration coloniale, y compris pour la vente des esclaves fraîchement débarqués au port.

Ce n’est que sous la période d’occupation anglaise que la presse entame sa marche vers la liberté avec les démarches du controversé Adrien d’Epinay envoyé en 1831 au Royaume Uni pour négocier une compensation financière suivant l’abolition de l’esclavage. D’Epinay fonde d’ailleurs le journal Le Cernéen en 1832 pour défendre les intérêts de l’oligarchie. Le journal Le Mauricien lancé en 1833 par Jules Eugène Leclézio lui emboîte le pas.

La liberté de la presse bénéficie donc d’abord aux élites économique et intellectuelle de l’île. Mais, elle s’élargira par la suite. Berquin est le premier homme de couleur dans la presse avec son journal La Balance qui paraît de 1832 à 1835. En 1843, Rémy Ollier, un métis, fils d’un capitaine français et d’une esclave, créé La Sentinelle pour publier sa réponse à une critique parue dans les deux journaux anti-abolitionnistes contre une pièce d’Alexandre Dumas, un métis tout comme Ollier. La Sentinelle dénonce le racisme et devient une publication régulière en faveur des “gens de couleur”.

Quelques décennies plus tard, d’autres communautés ethniques et linguistiques lancent leurs publications telles que Anjuman Islam Maurice en 1883, The Hindustani, créé en 1909 par Manilall Doctor, et le Chinese Daily, lancé en 1932. L’élargissement de l’espace médiatique s’opère aussi sur le plan politique. Le Parti Travailliste crée Advance en 1940 pour répercuter les revendications des militants pro-indépendance, au grand dam du Cernéen qui redoute le ‘péril hindou’. Le Mauricien, sous la houlette de Raoul Rivet, est d’abord anti-indépendance mais se ravise par la suite. Malgré leurs divergences, les trois journaux principaux de l’île, publient ensemble la Feuille Commune (Le Cernéen, Le Mauricien et Advance) pour surmonter les restrictions imposées par la deuxième guerre mondiale. L’express est, lui, créé en 1963 par Guy Forget, membre du PTr, mais il se démarque comme un produit plus professionnel.

Cette effervescence de la presse sera étouffée pendant une sombre période de répression entre 1971 et 1972 qui voit la censure de l’Etat, l’interdiction des rassemblements, de multiples arrestations politiques et la confiscation du pouvoir. Une multitude de journaux associés aux partis politiques surgissent à la fin de cette répression: Le Populaire pour le PMSD, The Sun pour le Mouvement Socialiste Mauricien (MSM), et Le Militant pour le MMM.

Le Newspaper and Periodicals (Amendment) Bill de 1984 veut enrayer la machine. Les journalistes protestent devant le Parlement et 44 d’entre eux sont mis en cellule policière pendant quelques heures. L’amendement est abandonné et une dizaine d’années plus tard, le Media Trust est créé pour soutenir la formation continue de la presse en guise de compensation. Depuis, les nouvelles publications n’ont cessé de foisonner avec des fortunes diverses. 5Plus Dimanche et Le Défi Plus sont de ceux qui se sont pérennisés en sus de L’express et du Mauricien alors que Le Mag et Le Matinal font partie de ceux qui n’ont pas survécu.

Pour la presse parlée, il faut attendre 2002 pour voir la libéralisation des ondes avec l’arrivée de trois stations privées, soit Radio One, Radio Plus et Top FM, qui viennent concurrencer la station de diffusion publique. Quant à la télévision locale privée, elle n’existe toujours pas même si elle est légalement possible sous le Independent Broadcasting Act. Cette lacune arrange d’ailleurs tous les partis qui se sont succédés au pouvoir. Sur une note positive surprenante, on peut signaler la création de la chaîne parlementaire en 2017 qui couvre les débats parlementaires en direct.

Avec une si longue et riche histoire, on peut se demander alors ce qui empêche donc les médias de bien mener leurs nobles missions d’informer, de prévenir et d’éduquer? Les contraintes sont multiples. On peut citer pêle-mêle les modèles de revenus avec une forte dépendance sur la publicité, les interférences politiques et la création de ‘pseudo-événements’ par le monde du marketing qui sont autant d’interférences. Sans compter les défis posés par le monde technologique avec la fragmentation des audiences et la polarisation accrue.

Enfin, la vieille législation relative aux médias demande une révision profonde concernant la diffamation, la sédition et la publication de fausses nouvelles, entre autres. Il n’y a ni loi sur la liberté d’accès à l’information, ni code d’éthique pour toute la profession, encore moins de système d’auto-régulation par la presse malgré les recommandations des consultants Morgan et Robertson.

Paradoxalement, Maurice affiche une performance honorable dans les classements sur la liberté démocratique et la liberté de la presse. De plus en plus de citoyens participent aux débats dans la sphère publique, même si la qualité n’y est pas toujours. On peut globalement qualifier cette situation de ‘joyeux désordre’ avec aussi une grande pluralité de titres de presse virtuels ou non.

Pour compliquer les choses, Internet et les réseaux sociaux ont tout bouleversé. Tout le monde est un média en puissance. Les médias professionnels doivent alors lutter pour garder leur crédibilité auprès d’une audience de plus en plus ingrate et infidèle.

Mais tout le monde s’accorde à dire que la place du journalisme est centrale dans toute société dite démocratique. Si toute la presse disparaissait demain, s’ouvrirait alors un abîme qui engloutirait la liberté d’information et la démocratie. Il faut donc consolider cette presse pour qu’elle continue de nous permettre de vivre dans une société réellement libre.

Making sense of complexity during the Covid-19 pandemic

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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.