CITIZEN LAB RESEARCH REPORT NO.151 5 and the practice continues to grow. Transnational repression is increasingly seen as “a common and institutionalized practice used by dozens of regimes” to control millions of people worldwide.16 The threat of transnational repression has grown across the following three dimensions: (1) states’ perception of the threat posed by exiles, (2) availability of resources and capacity for suppression by states, and (3) cost-benefit calculations for exercising suppression with benefits surpassing costs.17 While physical or in-person transnational repression is perhaps the most visible tactic (and, even then, much of this activity likely occurs in the shadows), it is only the tip of the iceberg. The tactics of “everyday transnational repression”—particularly acts of digital transnational repression—are simultaneously much less visible and understood but much more widespread.18 One major impact of transnational repression is a global chilling of political and social speech and activity (for example, silencing activists who are living abroad through self-censorship and self-restraint to avoid punishment).19 Canadian Chinese community members, for instance, have reported that they do not ask questions at public events or attend protests or other events in Canada out of fear that Chinese government agents are watching them.20 Some testified to a Canadian Senate Committee that they were “threatened with rape or even death” if they kept “speaking out against [human rights] violations committed by China.”21 One study with Iranian journalists and activists in exile observed how the Iranian government sought to disable the dissidents’ “voice.”22 This silencing effort was easily delivered through digital tactics, which activists interpreted as a message from Iranian security agencies that they were being surveilled.23 While these tactics may not always stop the 16 Ibid at 2. 17 Ibid at 5. 18 Ibid at 2. 19 Marcus Michaelsen (2020), “Silencing Across Borders: Transnational Repression and Digital Threats Against Exiled Activists from Egypt, Syria, and Iran,” Hivos <https://hivos.org/assets/2020/02/ SILENCING-ACROSS-BORDERS-Marcus-Michaelsen-Hivos-Report.pdf> [Michaelsen, “Silencing Across Borders”]. 20 Yaqiu Wang (2019), “Why Some Chinese Immigrants Living in Canada Live in Silent Fear,” The Globe and Mail (25 February 2019) <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-why-some-chineseimmigrants-living-in-canada-live-in-silent-fear/>. 21 Charles Burton (2020), “China Threatens and Intimidates People Within Canada as Ottawa Remains Silent,” The Toronto Star (8 September 2020) <https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/09/08/ china-threatens-and-intimidates-people-within-canada-as-ottawa-remains-silent.html>. 22 Marcus Michaelsen (2017), “Far Away, So Close: Transnational Activism, Digital Surveillance and Authoritarian Control in Iran,” Surveillance & Society 15(3/4) at 467 <https://doi.org/10.24908/ ss.v15i3/4.6635> [Michaelsen, “Far Away, So Close”]. 23 Marcus Michaelsen (2016), “Exit and Voice in a Digital Age: Iran’s Exiled Activists and the Authoritarian State,” Globalizations 15(2) at 256 <https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2016.1263078> [Michaelsen, “Exit and Voice”].