Information Seeking Behaviour in Censored Online Environments

• In Event: Surveillance Technologies in Democracies and Autocracies

Abstract

In this project, we explore the factors that motivate citizens to access censored online content in authoritarian regimes. We conduct a multi-country survey that includes a conjoint experiment in five fully authoritarian countries covering all world regions, including Russia, China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe as well as India as a semi-democratic country. In the experiment, we explore the factors that make citizens more likely to access censored websites, focusing on the websites’ type, importance, and blocking reasons. Additionally, using different informational treatments, we test whether these preferences change depending on changes of domestic factors such as mass protests or a nation-wide crisis. Finally, we generate descriptive evidence on the actual use and preferred properties of circumvention technologies which allow access to censored websites in autocracies.

Authors

• Vilde Lunnan Djuve, University of Oslo

• Philipp Lutscher, University of Oslo