Abstract
AbstractMost authoritarian countries censor the press. As a response, many opposition and independent news outlets have found refuge on the Internet. Despite the global character of the Internet, news outlets are vulnerable to censorship in cyberspace. This study investigates Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks on news websites in Venezuela and details how news reporting is related to DoS attacks in an attempt to censor content. For this empirical test, I monitored 19 Venezuelan news websites from November 2017 until June 2018 and continuously retrieved their content and status codes to infer DoS attacks. Statistical analyses show that news content correlates to DoS attacks. In the Venezuelan context, these news topics appear to be not only on protest and repression but also on opposition actors or other topics that question the legitimacy of the regime. By establishing these relationships, this study deepens our understanding of how modern technologies are used as censorship tools.
Highlights
Most authoritarian governments censor the press (Stier, 2015)
I restricted the sample to websites that are not clearly associated with the state as the goal of this paper is to explore the use of DoS attacks as a censorship tool against private, independent, or opposition outlets
By monitoring Venezuelan news outlets for seven months from November 2017 until June 2018, this paper offers new insights for the use of DoS attacks on news outlets in autocracies
Summary
Most authoritarian governments censor the press (Stier, 2015). In the past, it was quite difficult for media outlets to evade press censorship. With the help of the Internet, this appears to be more feasible. The Internet can provide news outlets with a way to circumvent censorship and still reach domestic and global audiences. Even in this global network outlets are vulnerable to censorship and repression. While previous studies describe how governments use legal and technical means to censor online (e.g., Deibert et al, 2008), the use of cyberattacks for this purpose has received relatively little academic attention
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
