Internet Freedom or Death: Translating the Concept of Freedom in the Transnational Protest Against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

During the 2012 protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Bulgaria a protester waved a big flag with the mask of the hacktivist group Anonymous on its front side and the slogan “Freedom or Death” on its reverse side. “Freedom or Death” is a key historical phrase from the 19th century struggles for national liberation, which has been recently rediscovered by the radical right in Bulgaria. In my paper I explore how the concept of Internet freedom has been translated and appropriated during the transnational anti-ACTA protests, with focus on the mobilizations in Bulgaria, Germany and Poland. I try to understand how the principles of non-censorship of the Internet, privacy rights and universal access to fast and affordable networks have been associated with freedom from foreign oppressors and from communist or Nazi censorship. First, I analyze the emerging ideology of Internet freedom as expressed in the strategic communication of digital rights NGOs at the European level such as the 'European Digital Rights Initiative' and 'La Quadrature du Net', more specifically in the videos, press releases and images they produced in the campaign against ACTA. Second, I trace the different historical layers of the concept of freedom in the political contexts of Bulgaria, Poland and Germany. Third, I analyze how protest organizers in each country strategically invoked different layers of the concept of freedom and combined them with arguments by Brussels’ NGOs to attract popular support and forge unexpected alliances. Protesters in the anti-ACTA mobilizations in Bulgaria, Germany and Poland talked about freedom while often meaning very different things. Yet the common identity of the protest was established by the use of shared basic arguments and images. Finally, I check how the ideology of Internet freedom with its emphasis on participation, direct democracy and openness has led to a reinterpretation of key events from the past. A crucial example in this respect is Todor Hristov’s masterful analysis of the 1876 April Rebellion in Bulgaria in which he compares the rebellion against the Ottoman Empire with contemporary protest movements who fight for direct democracy and freedom without state sovereignty (Hristov, 2013). To sum up, I show how the challenges of digital technologies have enriched and expanded our understanding of freedom. My claim, however, is that without paying attention to the complex, multi-layered nature of this concept, we cannot explain why Internet freedom has become a cause both for the nationalist far right and for the anarchist left, both for Brussels NGOs and for anti-European local mobilizations. The promises of new technologies are often articulated with the help of old concepts. This is the reason both for their appeal and for the inherent contradictions they come with.