The Splintering of the Internet

By Helen Zhang and John Fowler

Washington v Silicon Valley

President Trump's final year in office brought the battle between Washington and Silicon Valley into clear focus.

Over the 2020 northern summer, Trump tried to force the sale of the Chinese-owned social media app, TikTok. His heavy-handed intrusions were roundly criticised, but we’ll go ahead and call that skirmish a stalemate.

The final fortnight of his presidency saw the Twitter v Trump showdown, and the Big Tech v Parler stoush.

Taken as a whole, the outcomes of these clashes made it easy to see where the future of political power lies. This was due in no small part to Congress ceding their political power by being slow to intervene.

Left unregulated, Big Tech executives will become political king-makers in a way 20th-century newspaper barons could never have dreamed.

Other nations have been watching, very closely

What do Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and India have in common?

Former-German Chancellor Angela Merkel said via her spokesman: [Freedom of speech] can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators, not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms. Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of Brazilian President Bolsonaro commented: A world where [Venezuelan president Nicolás] Maduro is on social media, but [President] Trump is suspended, cannot be normal.

Mexican President Obrador observed: Where is the law, where is the regulation, what are the norms? This is an issue of government, this is not an issue for private companies.

Finally, influential Indian politician Tejasvi Surya opined: If they can do this to POTUS, they can do this to anyone. The sooner India reviews intermediaries regulations, the better for our democracy.

We could include many more examples, but you're busy people. The point is, politicians from the far left, the far right, and everywhere in between are united on one thing: only government can regulate free speech, and reliance on U.S. ‘Big Tech’ for critical infrastructure and ecosystems like social media and web hosting is a serious threat to national security.

Perhaps we are cynics, but despite what world leaders might say, this is about power, not values. Social media, e-commerce, and the rise of remote work all suggest an increasingly online future. The internet is like the Iron Throne; whoever controls it, controls the country.

was former-Consul in Hong Kong, Second Secretary (Political/Economic) and Vice-Consul at the Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, from 20152018. During her diplomatic posting, Helen reported on international security issues such as the Syrian war, ISIS, foreign fighters, and the Iran nuclear deal. Helen also spearheaded the innovative ‘Ozraeli’ campaign to promote Australia in Israel through digital diplomacy. Helen's Fulbright Anne Wexler Scholarship took her to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she built on her expertise in international security and deepen her understanding of challenges facing democracies and the liberal international order. She currently works for Google, and has launched Intrigue Media, a media-tech startup focused on making geopolitics fun..

began his career as a lawyer after graduating university, working with the department of foreign affairs and trade. But after admittedly becoming disillusioned with that path, he leveraged his legal learnings as a diplomat for the Australian Foreign Service working on maritime law. His career has taken him all over the world, from Australia to China, and now John has pivoted again, having just finished his MBA in London. John’s experiences have given him an incredible perspective on all things geopolitics and global affairs, and this has culminated, somewhat recently in the launch of Intrigue Media, a media-tech startup focused on making geopolitics fun, which he co-founded with Helen Zhang.

The Chinese ‘sovereign internet’ model

China has long understood this dynamic. When technology of any kind threatens to usurp or displace the existing source of political power, autocracies are the canary in the coal mine. No leader is more finely tuned to potential threats to their power than the autocrat.

For around 24 years, China has effectively built a separate, sovereign internet behind its great firewall. The Chinese Communist Party’s control over social media is allencompassing. By some estimates, there are more than two million Chinese officials working across the various agencies responsible for censorship.

We still remember the first time we typed a forbidden Chinese phrase into a WeChat conversation, only to watch it disappear half a second later. (If only there was a ‘Drunk Text Censorship Bureau’.)

The Splinternet

China has been spruiking this alternative model of ‘internet sovereignty’ for a few years. Every country is now facing a very real choice: continue with the current 'open model' of the internet and accept Big Tech’s power, or; develop a national alternative which preserves political power internally.

American tech analyst Ben Thompson nails it; what is new is the increased splintering in the non-China Internet: the U.S. model is still the default for most of the world, but the European Union and India are increasingly pursuing their own paths.

But, just like a 20 year old on Savile Row, most countries can't afford to go bespoke. As a result, the future of the internet is fragmenting along geopolitical lines:

One last chance to save the open internet?

The events of the last year in the U.S. have dealt a blow to American soft power, even as President Biden moves to rally democratic countries with his ‘Democracy Summit’ via Zoom this month.

Countries are right to be worried; the fact that Silicon Valley has such political power over sovereign nations is problematic.

When it comes to the future of the internet, a splintered system of sovereign internet benefits only those who promote nationalism, isolationism and protectionism. An open internet is vital to the future of international business, accessible education, and global prosperity generally. Throughout the course of 2021, an offthe-shelf version of the Chinese sovereign model started to look a lot more attractive.

The world needs a credible alternative to China’s sovereign internet model. For that, innovative regulation that preserves the openness of the internet, while curtailing the power of Big Tech to make political decisions, is vital. An ‘open internet 2.0’.

The private sector should fight its natural instincts to resist government intrusion, and instead pro-actively help design a successful ‘open internet 2.0’.

Failure to do so might mean the end of the internet as we know it.