Segment and rule: Modern censorship in authoritarian regimes

Abstract

We analyze the incentives of authoritarian regimes to segment access to censored content through technology. Citizens choose whether to pay to access censored online content at a cost fixed by the regime: the firewall. A low firewall segments access and generates more compliance than full censorship – a high firewall – ever could. Regime opponents self-select into consuming censored content, and comply conditional on positive independent reporting. Regime supporters exclusively consume state propaganda, which secures their compliance. This segment-and-rule strategy can be engineered by making local news outlets uninformative, or by affecting the intrinsic benefit from access.