States are primary duty-bearers and major threats to free internet access. The chapter sets out the second meaning of ‘free’ internet access as ‘free from arbitrary interference’. Most internet users live in states where internet access and use is unfree. Autocratic states use the internet to monitor, manipulate, and control their citizens by what has become known as ‘digital authoritarianism’. The chapter uses the examples of Russia and China to show that, when they disrespect free internet access, states turn the internet into a repression technology. Examples include Russia’s technological and legal control of cyberspace and China’s Golden Shield Project, its Great Firewall, and its emerging social credit system. Democratic states also misuse the internet to spy unjustly on their citizens, as was revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013. The chapter explains why indiscriminate mass surveillance practices of democratic states are unjustifiable and harm people’s human right to privacy. It also sets out a list of moral obligations states have as part of the human right to free internet access: that they must respect, protect, and not undermine internet freedom.

The electronics revolution was assumed to help democratization around the world. Enormous changes were expected to come about, opening up societies as people gained access to more and more information. The electronics revolution was supposed to open the world and open minds and societies around the world. In this sense, it was assumed that political plasticity would increase through electronic communications. However, as discussed in this chapter, the impact of the electronics revolution has been mixed and far more complex. First, dictators have learned to limit and censor electronic communications within their own borders (e.g., the Great Firewall of China). Second, dictatorships such as Russia and China have used electronic communications to influence events in countries around the world, working to strengthen dictatorships and weaken democracies. Third, the masses in democracies do not have the critical thinking skills needed to avoid being influenced by conspiracy theories and false information, spread by authoritarian strongmen (such as Donald Trump) and their supporters. Consequently, political plasticity has not been changed much through the electronic revolution. For example, mass participation in decision-making has not happened.