The censoring of the Global Network is becoming increasingly widespread and is becoming a serious challenge to the freedom to disseminate information. And who better to know about this, as not to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the global search service Google, Eric Schmidt? The other day, he and his colleague Jared Cohen dedicated an article to the issue in the Guardian newspaper, the content of which we would like to convey to you.
Every state in the world has its own laws, cultural norms and permissible types of behavior. Over the next decade, billions of people will start using the Internet, and for many of them, this will allow them to gain independence, which will be a test for these restrictions. Each state will try to regulate the Internet and give it the form that they themselves would like to see.
Most Internet users around the world are confronted with some form of censorship, for which the softer designation “filtering” has been chosen. The latter mainly depends on the policies implemented in the country and the available infrastructure. Not in all cases, and perhaps in a minority of them, it is a question of political censorship: in progressive countries, many sites are regularly blocked, for example, which contain child pornography.
In some states there are several points of entry into the Internet, and they are controlled by a number of telecommunication companies, partially regulated by the government. In other countries, this is only one point - the national Internet service provider, through which all traffic passes. In the first case, filtering is more complicated, in the second - much easier.
When technology experts began to notice that states began to regulate the Network and spread their influence to online, some of them warned of a possible "Internet balkanization". This phenomenon will lead to the fact that government filtering and other restrictions transform what was once a single global network into interconnected national networks. The Internet will be fragmented and fragmented: there will be such things as “Russian Internet”, “American Internet” and so on. All of them will be interconnected, layered on each other and intersect with each other, but each of these networks will still exist separately. Information will mainly circulate within countries, not between countries: and all this is due to filtering, language barriers and even simple user preferences. At first, for ordinary people, this process will not be particularly noticeable, but over time it will certainly transform the Internet.
It is very likely that the above scenario will indeed be implemented, but to what extent and limits it will depend on how the states behave in the coming decade. In particular, the question is how they will choose the path and whether they will be ready to coexist on the web together.
At the moment, the first stage of this process is observed - aggressive and explicit filtration. This approach is most actively used in China, where the government has blocked a number of world-famous platforms: Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Google. At the same time, the authorities openly advocate such a policy. In its communiqué, published in 2010, the Chinese leadership calls the Internet "crystallization of human wisdom" and at the same time notes that Chinese "laws prohibit the dissemination of information that could lead to undermining the integrity of the state and contrary to national interests."
The next possible step will be collective editing, in which the Allied states will exercise joint control of the Internet based on common views on geopolitics. For larger countries, such an approach will allow to legitimize filtering and eliminate the slanting views of the world community: “Look, others do the same, too.” For smaller states, this will be an easy and inexpensive way to gain the trust and support of large allies and acquire technical skills that they themselves may lack. For example, the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which are tired of Moscow’s desire to impose the Russian language in this region, can unite to censor all Russian-language content in their networks and thus limit Russia's influence on its population.
The most tough version of the filter will be what technology experts call the “fenced garden”. On the Internet, this term means a closed environment in which control is exercised over user access to information and online services. To achieve these goals, states can regulate the activities of providers and force them to prohibit users from gaining access to resources outside the designated fairway. Thus, if the authorities want one click of a switch, the whole country can disappear from the Internet map.
In fact, such a model is currently being implemented. In 2011, it was reported that the Iranian government plans to create a “halal Internet”, which in essence will be a local network extending throughout the country. Government and affiliate structures will create and deliver content for this network, selecting materials on the global Internet or creating them on their own. It is expected that all activities in such a network will be monitored closely. The Iranian Economy Minister said in an interview with a state news agency that they hope that this type of Internet will later replace the uncontrolled Global Network in other Muslim countries. Pakistan has recently announced a similar project.
It is possible that the threat of Iran is a simple bluff and deception: how the country intends to do this is unclear from a technical and political point of view. However, if this idea is implemented, the “halal Internet” will bypass the “great Chinese firewall” and become the most tightly controlled information environment in the world. And this will be the beginning of the end of the Internet in the form in which we know it today.
The article is based on materials .
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