27
votes
A startup allegedly ‘Hacked the World.’ Then came the censorship—and now the backlash
Link information
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- Authors
- Andy Greenberg, Matt Reynolds, Vittoria Elliott, Reece Rogers, Kate O'Flaherty
- Published
- Feb 1 2024
- Word count
- 1765 words
Relevant article from Techdirt:
Sorry Appin, We’re Not Taking Down Our Article About Your Attempts To Silence Reporters
Legal Threats
Despite receiving legal threats and demands from Appin Technologies, the author and owner of Techdirt (Mike Masnick) firmly refuses to let Appin Technologies silence his reporters.
Initial Censorship
Appin has used the Indian court system and various powerful global law firms to pressure numerous media outlets, such as Reuters*, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and SwissInfo** (alongside countless others), to take down or censor their stories about Appin and its co-founder Rajat Khare, who denies the allegations against him and his company.
*Reuters' article has been replaced with an editors note. Article republished by Distributed Denial of Secrets
**An aside regarding the SwissInfo article
The Swissinfo article is absolutely wild to read!
Qatar officials basically hired a private firm, Global Risk Advisors, to specifically target all sorts of people, ranging from World Cup officials, to World Cup critics, to the presidents of organisations of competing bid cities.
This firm used Appin to target their email accounts, computers, phones, etc., and even targeted their friends and family members.
Qatar World Cup critic and former German Football Association president, Theo Zwanziger, even had attackers build relationships with his friends, family, and associates. The firm created a "network of assets, sources, and contacts” who were active all over the world, working on influencing him, pressuring his to change his opinion. Despite being retired. Simply because his words had weight.
Uncensored Article (archive.org)
Swissinfo.ch Article (with references to Rajat Khare removed)
These removals or edits are an appalling abuse of the legal system. Particularly when considering the vital importance to the public interest and time-consuming nature of the in-depth investigative reporting these outlets were doing. These articles uncovered how these networks are being used, by who, on whom, for what reasons, with what outcomes. Exposing the global-spanning espionage networks used by corporations, hostile governments, the underworld, etc. to target businesspeople, journalists, politicians, officials, critics and individuals of interest.
This was especially egregious, as these articles primarily target audiences outside of India, where the dodgy court order didn't apply. Yet, faced with unfair and dubiously questionable legal pressure, and relentless compulsion from "powerhouse media assassin firms”, these outlets were forced to erase or adjust their articles for the whole world. Even the security research firm, SentinelOne, who analysed the data, withdrew their report "in light of a pending court order". Internet Archive took down their archive of the Reuters article. Legal analysis from Legal News site Lawfare was censored with any mention of Appin, rendering the analysis unreadable. The cybersecurity podcast Risky Biz removed their episode discussing this article.
(Rajat Khare also has a history of fraudulent (but successful) Google DMCA takedown claims, by forging evidence, metadata and other information).
Censorship about the Censorship
Soon, Appin started targeting those who simply reported on the removal or censorship of the initial articles. Appin claimed that merely quoting the Reuters article is a violation of the Indian court order (it isn't, and the court order doesn't apply outside India). But even if you didn't quote the article, many outlets, such as Techdirt, still received takedown notices. Similar demands were sent to their CDN provider, domain registrar, domain registry, and so on... Yeah... ouch
The Streisand Effect
Appin's attempts to silence reporters appears to have backfired on them. This has attracted more attention to the initial stories, as well as new ones by the Politico, Daily Beast, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Columbia Journalism Review, and the Wired article posted here. Distributed Denial of Secrets, a non-profit that preserves data in the public interest, has republished the original Reuters piece as part of its new Greenhouse Project to combat censorship. (I highly recommend reading the piece, linked earlier)
Rajat Khare and Appin could have simply been content with the original takedowns, which snuffed access to the Reuters investigation worldwide. Instead, there is now more attention on the underlying claims than there would have been otherwise. Talk about the Streisand Effect! (Interestingly, it was Mike Masnick of Techdirt who actually coined this phrase).
The Fight Against Chilling Effects
Thanks to support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Techdirt was able to rebuff Appin's legal threats, asserting their rights under US law (First Amendment and the SPEECH Act). They also helped do the same with MuckRock, who rehosted the primary source documents the Reuters reporters used in their investigative report.
EFF does good work, which is why I donate to them. Many smaller sites cannot afford to fight against the massive amounts of legal resources and pressure Appin has thrown at them, so I don't begrudge them for removing or censoring their works.
However, the whole situation has been particularly troubling. These attempts to abuse the legal system and stymie investigative reporting have left a colossal chilling effect on journalism. The fact that Reuters was forced to take down their article globally, not just in India, is concerning. At the very least, it's good Reuters is fighting this court order.
What's more concerning are the outlets who can afford to fight back but didn't. Those that don't have an India presence. Those that removed Khare’s name or their article completely without a public explanation. (*cough* The Times *cough*).
Incoming Rant about The Times
What the heck?!
Seriously, aren't they supposed to be one of UK's premier papers of record? How can they go censoring their own articles without any notice! They absolutely can afford to reject attempts to silence their reporters. Very disappointed.
Although I shouldn't be surprised, since it's owned by NewsCorp / Murdoch
Concluding Thoughts
The controversy has blown up large enough that sites and outlets without an India presence are safe
(presumably... hopefully Tildes doesn't face legal threats :)).
This controversy will continue to blow up. It really needs to. For the sake of quality journalism, in-depth investigative reporting, and the public interest, the industry cannot be marred by the coercion forced upon it by the like of Appin.
I remember reading that Reuters article when it came out. My favorite part of it was:
Nope, no hacking going on here. We're organic farmers! :P
Q: How was Reuters in Indian jurisdiction to begin with? Do they have a branch office there?
They have their South Asia bureau there. So they have assets, offices, employees and interests in India that would be jeopardised.
The Politico article actually delves into significant detail:
(emphasis mine)
It's really unfortunate that nowadays, since news is digital and global, legal constraints are able to transcend borders.
In the past, it didn't matter if you had global interests, newspaper printing / distribution was inherently a local affair. And once the countless copies were distributed, the works had permanence — no jurisdiction could alter or censor the printed words, or physically remove your access to the article. Everyone, from individuals to libraries and archives would all have copies.
Nowadays, as we've seen in this controversy, the canonical article can be deleted; the Internet Archive backup taken down; works, discussions, analyses, podcasts based off the article removed. It became well-nigh impossible to actually read this article.
And your distribution infrastructure: from the Google links DMCA'd; to your document clouds deleted; to your CDN, domain registry, and domain registrar threatened; etc. It's not just your article, but your whole distribution pipeline that are all vulnerable to such threats. Any infrastructure you rely on that has an India presence will also face this compulsion.
(See Also: Twitter deleting accounts and Tweets of critics worldwide due to single jurisdiction takedown orders — Local employees were threatened if global removal wasn't enacted)
In our interconnected digital era, the clash between journalistic freedom and legal constraints unconfined by geography have become a complex and delicate affair. I really don't know how we can resolve this tension. In the past, due to impracticality, foreign jurisdictions couldn't impact your local press and speech rights. But nowadays, there are increasing precedents that jurisdictions are using to silence speech across the globe.
An article about how Rajat Khare, an individual behind a shady hack-for-hire company, Appin, has been using legal threats to censor articles about him and his past.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/ut7Yt