One Step Ahead-Internet

Introduction

One Step Ahead — Internet

The government’s role in internet governance can be viewed on a spectrum. The future of internet governance is dependent upon the region, the culture, and the stimuli that have shaped public policy. United States’ approach to internet governance is buy-in from multi-lateral stakeholders (Denardis). US governance of the internet is built on input from multiple partners like internet organizations, public sectors, and private sectors (Denardis). While there are outliers of this philosophy, the multilateral stakeholder approach to internet governance allows for the populations to use internet tools to pressure public policy to shape politics. The US has had the ability to set the tone on internet communications largely because it was the first HUB of internet companies that spread globally (Heaven). The United States has exploited their home-field advantage with the reveal of state sponsored surveillance programs like UPSTREAM and STELLARWIND (Gellman). The United States effectively had surveillance of overall internet traffic (Gellman). In response to these allegations, a “balkanization” has occurred within the internet governance of revisionist powers. China has developed their “Great Firewall” and Russia has enacted the “Sovereign Internet Law,” partitioning itself off from the rest of the internet (Denardis). With the Chinese and Russian approaches, their internet governance is done centrally and through coercion of market access and populations. Their focus is on preventing distrust of the government from spreading and restricting freedom of expression or organization. The future of the internet is uncertain, but using today as a case study, closed systems appear to be reactionary, slow, and circumvented due to today’s innovations and populations. Innovative tools stay one step ahead of closed internet governments. The Geopolitical balkanization of the internet will produce a lower return on investment in an increasingly connected world. The future of internet governance will not be balkanization, but security provided by multi-lateral stakeholders working to protect citizens’ rights within a smart regulatory environment.

There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi.

A Connected Future
The purpose of the internet has evolved and has become a way for communities to organize, internationalize ideas, and influence shape geopolitics. Internet’s future is an increase in the connection of communities across borders. In response to an increasingly connected world, countries fearful of outside and inside influence have started a “Balkanization” of internet governance to prevent dissent. While they have multiple economic and national security challenges that led them to a closed internet, a key distinction between political principles is that Russia and China have used internet tools to provide state control over users’ online expression. This applies domestically and abroad. Russia and China have worked for the past couple of decades on gaining control over digital zeitgeists. They have procured infrastructure, services, and internet laws that limit online users’ freedom of speech and organization. Based on their current trajectory, these states will continue to invest in internet governance that is suppressive.

The United States does not have constitutional authority in restricting dissent. Future tools of expression are protected by the freedom of speech. The USA must work with partners to disrupt misinformation and cannot directly coerce the messaging of private citizens. This is not the same of all European countries, which have engaged in some form of Balkanization like enacting GDPR (Roberts). However, GDPR provides the EU with the authority to require innovations in technology to protect and dispose of the private data of EU citizens (Roberts). It is not on the path to using internet tools to prevent political dissent. The advantage of the multilateral approach to internet governance is the development of regulation that is non-restrictive in developmental creativity, but protective of IP and consumers.

The Tech Mongolians — Great Firewall
During the start of internet governance, China in 1997 criminalized online postings that are perceived to challenge the interest and national security of the state. China has developed a “Great Firewall” to administratively control the messaging and organization of its citizens on social media. It combines coercion of tech companies and criminality within internet governance.

For the state to have hegemony on digital forces in a balkanized network, future states would have to coerce private companies to comply with state-backed requests. China has been in a feud with Silicon Valley’s tech companies. Google since 2000 operated in China for a Chinese market (Scott). It functioned under open principles and Google is the parent company of Youtube (Scott). When a YouTube video features Chinese security forces attacking Tibetans who were protesting, China closed the Chinese Google website (Scott). Google retaliated by redirecting all search inquiries from Beijing to a friendlier network, the Hong Kong network of Google.hk which was free of censorship (Nakashima et al.).

In response to the national security law in 2020, Google, Facebook and Twitter have stopped reviewing requests for user data from Hong Kong (Scott). China’s future is an endless effort for the public sector trying to prevent technology from being used as a medium of expression for their citizens. Even with these closed and restrictive systems, innovations have challenged government control of the internet. Since the beginning of the internet age, the Chinese have challenged Beijing.

• 1998, 30,000 Chinese email addresses were sent to a US-based pro-democracy magazine. The organizer was sent to prison (Laris)
• 1999, Falun Gong used email and mobile phones to organise 10,000 dissidents to protest religious prohibition (Laris)
• 2002 Beijing blocked Google China (Laris)
• 2017 The Chinese population shared memes of Winnie the Pooh to show dissidents of their federal government. Resulting in the ban of Winnie the Pooh movie and the removal of memes, HBO, and images (China bans Winnie the Pooh Film after comparisons to president Xi).

Russia v Russian Citizens — Ukraine Fight
An unexpected result of balkanization is geopolitical enmity from NATO countries. Ukraine and Russia Crisis of 2022 is an example of how closed internet systems foment external dissent and internal confusion. During the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Russia sought to quell their internal dissidents by slowing internet access, restricting media outlets, and coercing tech companies (Big Tech grapples with Russian state media, propaganda). Russia requested that Facebook stop fact-checking any content posted by the government (Big Tech grapples with Russian state media, propaganda). When denied, Moscow restricted the services of Facebook in Russia (Big Tech grapples with Russian state media, propaganda). Russia requested that any private media outlets be required to use data received by only official Russian sources approved by the state (Big Tech grapples with Russian state media, propaganda). The result of their actions is that the Russian military is out of the loop on what is happening in Ukraine. Many of the soldiers thought they were doing a training exercise and ended up in Ukraine (Greenberg). Russia has tried to deceive their population. Bypassing the law that their conscript army is only to be used defensively. The result is a popular protest fermenting with thousands of arrests happening in the past four days (Greenberg).

Transcript of Russian Soldier’s Text Before Death

· “Mom I’m no longer in Crimea,’ they began. ‘I’m not in training sessions…We were told that they would welcome us and they are falling under our armoured vehicles, throwing themselves under the wheels and not allowing us to pass. I’m scared, we’re hitting everyone, even civilians,” (Greenberg)

· “We had been told that people would welcome us here but they jump under our vehicles, not letting us pass. They call us fascists. Mom, it’s so hard.” (Greenberg)

The future of a Balkanized internet is filled with bypasses, confusion of the domestic population, and inevitably the whole free world working against it.

The World Against Closed Internet
Russia’s actions of balkanizing their internet and lying to the world and their population have created an insurgency of dissidents across the world to attack the Russian network. Anonymous declared cyberwar against Russia (Anonymous: The hacker collective that has declared cyberwar on Russia). The group has been responsible for several cyber-attacks that have brought down government websites and Russian state media (Anonymous: The hacker collective that has declared cyberwar on Russia). The website for the Kremlin and Ministry of Defense is still inaccessible. Internet Balkanization vs a free and open internet can be evaluated at how a weaker power like Ukraine, was able to galvanize the world with viral videos and an enigmatic leader. If the future of the internet is open, states can see the benefit of having wider access to communities. A multilateral approach to internet governance allows a weaker nation to have global influence. Through social media, Ukraine was able to recruit volunteer armies and receive private support from tech billionaires to jumpstart satellite internet in their country (Anonymous: The hacker collective that has declared cyberwar on Russia).

Internet Governance — Volunteer Armies
Coercion without consent has a reactionary effect. People of the free world is at odds with Moscow’s led efforts. The Ukrainians, when faced with Russia’s cyber-attacks have developed a multi-lateral hacker underground working with private citizens and companies to hack-back Russia. Ukraine announced an “IT army” and provided via telegram a list of major Russian businesses and state organizations to attack (Ukraine to launch new ‘it Army’ to fight off Russian cyberattacks).

Governance in satellite
When the internet connectivity of Ukraine was disrupted by Russia during the invasion, the Ukrainian government tweeted to Elon Musk on Twitter to deploy satellite internet technology to assist in connectivity and allow Ukrainians to continue their messaging (Elon Musk says Starlink Internet Service ‘active’ in Ukraine). Satellite governance is an innovation, where fibre optics and cell phone towers can be physically attacked with ease, satellites require more sophisticated approaches. Musk announced that Starlink is active now in Ukraine. (Elon Musk says Starlink Internet Service ‘active’ in Ukraine). Ukraine currently, does not have a space force or spy satellites. It is reliant on NATO and commercial satellites for intelligence imagery. Russia will likely respond to both Starlink and commercial satellites with cyberattacks to disrupt imagery, but if it does so, it will be one step behind (Iyengar) .

Conclusion
The American approach of the internet, in its idealistic form, is for users to freely access information, free of manipulation and modification (The idealized internet vs. internet realities version 1.0). Even in a philosophically free system, governments may still veer on the spectrum of balkanizations with forms of regulation. The Ukrainian government has pushed towards an even stronger multi-lateral governance structure for its internet. They have successfully used an open form of the internet. Using a global web to recruit support from foreign governments to ensure their networks are resilient during times of crisis. A free system relies on the private sector to moderate and filter the information on applications and protect critical infrastructure. As opposed to the government-centric approach taken by authoritarians whose insecurity has led them to confuse their own population on what is appropriate. Russian and Chinese governments monitor and coerce stakeholders. It is not working, nor is it the future of internet governance. Russia is faced currently with an escalating protest movement, where even under the threat of 20 years in prison for defying the state, oligarch’s kids, city folk, and communities stand against the war effort (More than 2,000 arrested at anti-war protests in Russia). The future of the internet is dynamic, with populations able to organize and provide dissent with a step ahead of their governments. While balkanization may appear effective on paper, the result is a closed system, always a step behind new viral content and novel ways of expression. Internet governance’s future, is a mesh of different entities, providing forms of self-governance, with states working diplomatically with private sectors to regulate (What is internet governance?). Nations with free and open cyberspaces are at odds with the “Balkanization” of the internet seen in authoritarian regimes. It is here, in that grey zone that unhindered emerging technologies can shape human history. The future of human history is a move towards a free and open internet governance, not balkanization.

Worked Cited

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