Opinion | The Age of internet sovereignty

By Tom Fowdy

When the internet began to boom and evolve into an inseparable part of everyday life, there was a distinctly liberal ideological assumption that it would endow the world with a bonanza of knowledge. As its theory of "rationalism" or "reason" goes, people would become more informed, intelligent, and therefore humanity would progress drastically, having a world of knowledge at their fingertips. In some ways of course such thinking is not unfounded, after all I can learn anything about anything, instantly without having to tediously go to a library or purchase books, whether it be about history, any location in the world, new languages, or other skills. Learning has never been so easy because of the internet.

However, the rise of the internet has also been a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to political and social knowledge. What "rationalists" never incorporated into their thinking is human knowledge and learning is in fact completely relative and subjective, than a uniform process, and thus the understanding or perception of it sits with the beholder. While "empirical truth" in the scientific sense absolutely exists, how human beings interpret and "understand" truth, and thus if they accept ir or not, is in fact completely subjective. In other words, people will believe what they want to believe.

It is on this note that the internet has not just been a bonanza of knowledge, but also a plethora of falsehoods in every way imaginable, simply put because it has always been human nature for false information to spread based on subjective and emotional factors, and moreover the rise of mass social media eroded the traditional hierarchy of information, allowing a "free for all" in terms of content. Thus, just because something is "scientifically correct" does not mean it will be believed or accepted, as rationalists assumed, which is why for example medical experts and scientists were subject to extreme abuse and denialism concerning the pandemic.

But more to the point, the rise of the internet and mass social media has been an aggravator for political instability, polarisation, and toxicity in western countries, particularly because false information is allowed to spread online and moreover the system of social media algorithms and echo chambers are designed to reinforce existing belief systems, than challenge them with new information. This is why for example, the tragic killing of three young girls in Southport, England, was quickly linked to Islam, which in turn quickly fuelled an online movement of protests and violent riots which spread throughout the country, or how false information about Haitian immigrants "eating cats" led to mass hysteria in America.

The challenges posed by mass social media is leading to a new concept of "digital sovereignty" whereby governments are pressing for more power to regulate the information space and thus consolidate their "official narratives" especially as the international environment deteriorates. This is a concept which first in fact started in China, which of course is most fearful about political instability and unrest. Yet, for all western countries have condemned Beijing's use of censorship, one can ultimately see that other countries are moving in the same direction. For example, arguments about Putin and his motivations aside, the comprehensive banning and deplatforming of Russia Today in western countries, its total deplatforming from Google in the EU and UK, and its outright ban on Facebook can only be described as censorship, while the US government and Congress have decided they do not like TikTok precisely because they cannot exert sovereign control over its content, accusing it of pushing "propaganda."

If it was not obvious already, censorship is on the rise worldwide and the "liberal" dream of the internet is over. It is an irony that China's "influence" is opposed yet western countries are effectively adopting Beijing's position that a country has a right of sovereignty over the internet in its own jurisdiction and territory, and moreover that a government can exert more control over what narratives are acceptable and what aren't, hence while misinformation driven through "subjective knowledge" is a real problem, such a definition is also itself subjective to the extent the government's verdict on what narrative is approved or not for distribution isitselfa political choice.

Thus, in tandem with internet regulation, media co-opting and thus broader efforts at "narrative control" have also substantially expanded throughout the 21stcentury in the name of national security. China is not an exception, but it was oddly enough the trendsetter. Thus, we are now living in the age of internet sovereignty, which in the broader geopolitical sense is also more aggravated by the disintegration of US unipolarity and the shift to a more uncertain multipolar environment, with geopolitical competition and insecurity being a huge driver of the strengthening of national security states.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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