# Cybercrime law criminalized broadly defined online speech

Date: 2020

Nicaragua's Special Cybercrimes Law criminalized dissemination of broadly defined "false" or "distorted" online information, with prison penalties. Human Rights Watch warned that undefined concepts such as anxiety, public order and national security created substantial scope for punishment of critical expression; it later documented threats and prosecutions involving the law. [Human Rights Watch](https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/08/nicaragua-ortega-tightening-authoritarian-grip?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

## Drivers

- Ortega–Murillo family autocracy: https://factrail.ai/drivers/ortega-family-autocracy

## Sources

- https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/nicaragua
- https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/08/nicaragua-ortega-tightening-authoritarian-grip

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/cybercrime-law-2020