Dividing Up the Internet

The global internet we know today grew out of the desire of scientists and government agencies to freely share information amongst each other. Small networks linked together to form larger networks, and large networks soon connected to form one giant network that connected every nation on the planet. Unfortunately, things are now moving in the opposite direction.

Governments, tech companies, and other organizations are increasingly trying to carve their own little fiefdoms out of the internet, which is bad news for the people who end up stuck in their little bubbles. We’re going to walk you through the details and discuss what you can do to stop it.

Welcome to the splinternet

There are several forces that are currently fracturing the internet, including politics, technology, and culture. The resulting fragmentation in the global internet is often referred to as the “splinternet.”

Politics

When talking about the fracturing of the internet, the easiest things to point at are government restrictions in countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. These systems typically monitor communication lines crossing the border and inspect data packets looking for prohibited information. The connection can then be surveilled or blocked by government agencies.

This decisive control over internet access also gives these governments immense leverage over tech companies. With the threat of being locked out of lucrative markets, governments can pressure these companies to censor material, modify their policies, and much, much, more.

In 2006, Google created Google.cn, which complied with the Chinese government’s censorship policy. In 2018, whistleblowers revealed that Google was working to create a version of its search engine that would hide this censorship from its users, making it look like the information had never existed at all.

Although citizens in the U.S. and many other countries have laws protecting their speech and expression, these protections have also been eroded in recent years. Net neutrality is the principle that all information moving across the internet should be treated equally and that no data packets should be slowed or blocked due to their content. While net neutrality laws in the U.S. prevented the kind of censorship that occurs in China, those rules were repealed in 2018, and despite attempts to reinstate them, there are still no federal laws protecting net neutrality in the U.S.

Carving up the internet along national boundaries has undone much of the good that the internet brought to the world. It allows oppressive regimes to silence dissent. It prevents people from making connections with those in other countries. And it makes it much harder to access media or products from those countries.

Technology

The internet was built through the creation of open standards and protocols. Separate networks, like ARPANET in the U.S., NPL in the U.K., and  CYCLADES in France, used to each operate using their own protocols. In order to connect with one another, new shared protocols like TCP and IP (which the modern internet still uses) were created.

Other important web technologies, like HTML, operated on a similar logic. Anyone can make a website using HTML. You don’t need to pay a subscription fee or buy specific software. Likewise, if you follow these standards, anyone can use the browser of their choice to view your webpage, and they’ll all get the same experience.

Nowadays, a lot of our internet use occurs outside of a web browser. Instead, we connect through apps on our phones, TVs, and other devices. Apps like TikTok and YouTube only allow us to connect with content on those companies’ servers, and they have the final say on what kinds of content they want to host or promote.

This, on its own, tends to isolate certain parts of the internet. If someone tried to talk to their parents, who only use Facebook, and their kids, who only use TikTok, about the same topic, it might seem like they live on completely different planets. Tech companies often have an economic incentive to exacerbate this divide. If you can keep users locked into your ecosystem, you can serve them ads, sell them products, or charge them subscriptions.

This has led many tech companies to anti-competitive practices that make life more difficult for their customers, and everyone else. Apple famously made it unnecessarily difficult for iPhone users to text with Android users and only stopped after it was sued by the Department of Justice for abusing its monopoly on the smartphone market.

Culture

While governments and tech monopolies are constantly trying to break us apart, sometimes we do it to ourselves. The internet made it possible for us to connect with people who share our interests and values that we might never have been able to meet in real life. Unfortunately, when we spend most of our time talking with people who are very similar to us, this can lead to communities growing more insular and losing connection to those outside the group.

There are obvious downsides to living in a media bubble, like confirmation bias and news blind spots, but these groupings also attract bad actors. Insular communities are more vulnerable to disinformation and scams. Snake oil salesmen and propagandists thrive in such spaces, and with no outside perspectives to shed light on the problem, it can be difficult for people to realize when they’re being manipulated.

With money and influence to be gained from these polarized online spaces, they’re not going away anytime soon. So what can you do about it?

How to fight internet fragmentation

Since there are several different forces driving the fragmentation of the internet, there are different approaches needed to fight back. These include using technical tools like VPNs, choosing open standards, and advocating for online rights.

VPNs

Virtual private networks, or VPNs, are some of the most powerful tools in circumventing internet censorship and regional lockouts. A VPN works by creating an encrypted connection to a remote server and then handling all of your internet use from that location. This hides information like your IP address and location, since, to most observers, it looks like you’re browsing the internet from the location of the VPN server.

Most VPN services have servers in multiple locations around the world, which is helpful if you want to access content that isn’t available in your region. The encrypted connection also makes it impossible for ISPs or other organizations to snoop on the data being passed between your computer and the VPN server.

VPNs won’t make you completely anonymous or protect you from all types of online attacks, but they’re a valuable tool to have. Whether you’re reporting on news events in Myanmar or you just want to watch Wang Yibo in Exploring the Unknown, a VPN can help you do it.

Choosing open standards and open-source software

Since much of the splintering of the internet is caused by tech companies trying to force you to use their products, the software you choose is important. When trying to avoid this vendor lock-in, it’s important to look for software that is open source or uses open standards.

An open standard is a specification that is publicly available for anyone to use. For example, if you buy a Wi-Fi 7 router, all your devices will still connect whether you get your router from NETGEAR or TP-Link. That’s because Wi-Fi 7 is an open standard that any manufacturer can use. The opposite would be a proprietary standard, like Apple’s Lightning cables, which don’t work with any non-Apple devices.

Open standards are usually defined by standardization bodies like the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) or the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These organizations are made up of professionals in a field who come together to make guidelines through broad consensus.

Open-source software is software that can be freely distributed and modified. Since it’s developed by a community of volunteers and not controlled by a single company, you don’t have to worry about your software going up in price, losing important features, or simply disappearing. Some examples of open-source alternatives for proprietary software include Open Office instead of Microsoft Office, GIMP instead of Adobe Photoshop, and Inkscape instead of Adobe Illustrator.

Choosing open-source software and software that follows open standards prevents tech companies from taking advantage of you and makes it easier for you to switch to a different product if they try. It also encourages companies to follow standards, which encourages market competition, promotes innovation, and improves software quality for everyone.

Advocating for online rights

Although we can make a big influence on tech companies by voting with our wallets, a lot of our online rights and protections depend on laws and regulations. Strong regulations can protect consumers against anti-competitive practices that would force them into specific software ecosystems. This leads to more consumer options, higher quality products, and lower prices.

There are lots of ways to get involved in online rights advocacy. You can support organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that fight for digital rights. You can speak up online against government overreach and corporate misconduct. You can contact your local representatives and submit official comments on proposed legislation.

Perhaps most importantly, you can vote for politicians who support principles like net neutrality and help bring these issues to the forefront of political discussions.

The bottom line: A free and open internet benefits us all

It’s easy to take the internet for granted, especially if you grew up using it your whole life. But the internet and the principles on which it was founded really are an amazing achievement. So much of the prosperity we enjoy today came because of the free and open internet we enjoyed in the 90s and 2000s. As such, it can be disheartening to see those who benefited the most from the open internet now trying to create their own closed-off bubbles within it.

It’s important to remember that the real value of the internet is in us, its users. It’s our attention, labor, and money that tech companies want, and we still have a lot of power in determining the shape of our online future. If we want a free and open internet, we need to fight for it.