Perspective: Authoritarian challengeThe Internet Freedom League: How to Push Back Against the Authoritarian Assault on the Web
The early days of the Internet inspired a lofty dream: authoritarian states, faced with the prospect of either connecting to a new system of global communication or being left out of it, would choose to connect. According to this line of utopian thinking, once those countries connected, the flow of new information and ideas from the outside world would inexorably pull them toward economic openness and political liberalization. In reality, something quite different has happened. Instead of spreading democratic values and liberal ideals, the Internet has become the backbone of authoritarian surveillance states all over the world.
The early days of the Internet inspired a lofty dream: authoritarian states, faced with the prospect of either connecting to a new system of global communication or being left out of it, would choose to connect. According to this line of utopian thinking, once those countries connected, the flow of new information and ideas from the outside world would inexorably pull them toward economic openness and political liberalization.
Richard A. Clarke and Rob Knake write in Foreign Affairs that in reality, something quite different has happened.
“Instead of spreading democratic values and liberal ideals, the Internet has become the backbone of authoritarian surveillance states all over the world. Regimes in China, Russia and elsewhere have used the Internet’s infrastructure to build their own national networks. At the same time, they have installed technical and legal barriers to prevent their citizens from reaching the wider Internet and to limit Western companies from entering their digital markets.”
Clarke and Knake add: “But despite handwringing in Washington and Brussels about authoritarian schemes to split the Internet, the last thing Beijing and Moscow want is to find themselves relegated to their own networks and cut off from the global Internet. … China and Russia would ideally like to re-create the Internet in their own images and force the world to play by their repressive rules. … In the long term, China and Russia would still like to exert influence on the global Internet. But they see more value in building their closed networks and exploiting the West’s openness for their own gain.”
The writers propose the creation of an Internet Freedom League as a bulwark against authoritarian exploitation of the internet.. They explain: “An Internet Freedom League modeled on the Schengen area is the only way to secure Internet freedom from the threats posed by authoritarian states and other bad actors. Such a system would admittedly be less global than today’s more freewheeling Internet. But only by raising the costs of malicious behavior can the United States and its friends hope to reduce the scourge of cybercrime and limit the damage that regimes such as those in Beijing and Moscow can do to the Internet.”
