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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1401427
But lately, the U.S. federal government has been leveraging its jurisdiction more aggressively. In June, the DOJ used a court order to briefly seize an Iranian news site because the department said it was spreading disinformation. Due to interlocking dependencies on the web, such as content delivery networks, one misstep in applying this technique could take down a key piece of internet infrastructure, making a widespread outage more likely. Meanwhile, U.S.-based technology companies also risk wreaking havoc. Consider Australia’s recent spat with Facebook over paying news outlets for their content. At one point, Facebook blocked all news on its platform in Australia. One consequence was that many people in Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu temporarily lost a key news source because they rely on prepaid cellphone plans that feature discounted access to Facebook. As these skirmishes increase in frequency, countries worldwide are likely to suffer disruptions to their internet access. A Splinternet Naturally, not everyone is happy with this U.S.-led internet. Russia throttles Twitter traffic. China blocks access to Google. These domestic maneuvers certainly threaten localized meltdowns. India now regularly shuts down the internet regionally during civil unrest. But, in aggregate, they present a more global threat: internet frgamentation. A fragmented internet threatens speech, trade and global cooperation in science. It also increases the risk of cyberattacks on core internet infrastructure. In a global internet, attacks on infrastructure hurt everyone, but walled-off national internets would change that calculus. For example, Russia has the capacity to disconnect itself from the rest of the world’s internet while maintaining service domestically. With that capacity, it could attack core global internet infrastructure with less risk of upsetting its domestic population. A sophisticated attack against a U.S. company could trigger a large-scale internet outage. The Future of the Internet For much of its history, the internet has been imperfectly, but largely, open. Content could be accessed anywhere, across borders. Perhaps this openness is because, rather than in spite, of the U.S.‘s dominance over the internet. Whether or not that theory holds, the U.S.’s dominance over the internet is unlikely to persist. The status quo faces challenges from the U.S.’s adversaries, its historical allies and its own domestic tech companies. Absent action, the world will be left with some mixture of unchecked U.S. power and ad-hoc, decentralized skirmishes. In this environment, building a stable and transnational internet for future generations is a challenge. It requires delicacy and precision. That’s where work like ours comes into play. To make the internet more stable globally, people need measurements to understand its chokepoints and vulnerabilities. Just as central banks watch measures of inflation and employment when they decide how to set rates, internet governance, too, should rely on indicators, however imperfect.