RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin recently signed into law the so-called “sovereign internet” bill. This new law will allow the Russian government to isolate Russia’s internet, so as to protect Russia’s online infrastructure from foreign aggressors (i.e. the United States).
Naturally, critics of the law claim that it is only a tool for Putin to control Russia’s online infrastructure. They argue that the purpose of the new law is to censor all or most online criticism against Putin and his administration. Supporters of the law argue that the “sovereign internet” is a tool for maintaining national security.
The truth is probably a little bit of both. Putin wants to protect Russia’s internet infrastructure against potential foreign attacks, but at the same time, he also wants the option to shut it down, in the event the opposition groups get a little too active online. Hey, this sort of thing is true almost everywhere.
This new Russian law is nothing new. China already has its Great Big Beautiful Firewall, and most countries all over the world probably have secret contingency plans for isolating their own internet infrastructure. If major countries like China and Russia decide to close off their little slices of the internet then countries like Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, the Gulf States and various others will be emboldened to follow their lead.
Will this change the nature of the internet? It’s hard to say.
On the one hand, we have the idea of “The Internet,” a global medium for communication and knowledge transfer. However, if Russia, China and their allies decide to isolate their internet infrastructure even further then the end result will be several “internets,” divided along national or regional lines. This new and fragmented version of the internet will operate differently from the internet we’re used to now. There will be more control; more limits. There will also be more monitoring to prevent external threats.
Here’s the thing though.
The internet was probably going to revert to this condition anyway. The internet is the medium of globalization and the international order. China and Russia, in contrast, value their political interests above either of these concepts. So when given the choice between an ‘open’ and ‘free’ internet that’s vulnerable to external threats, or a closed off internet that their governments control, they opted for the latter.
By closing off their internet infrastructure, the Russians (and the Chinese) are signaling to the rest of the world that they don’t need a global internet; that they are fine with a Russian (or Chinese) internet fenced off from the rest of the world. And you know what?
There’s nothing wrong with that.
The internet was originally envisioned as global platform when it started to become popular in the nineties, but it was also a voluntary platform. If you don’t like it then you can take your ball and go home, which is what the Russians (and Chinese) have done. Over time, the other parts of the internet will do their own thing./PN
