Gathering together the comments of the ISOC CEO.
If You Think It’s Not a Problem in the West—Think Again
In July, actions by the Irish Data Protection Commission threatened to disconnect users from social media platforms for their own privacy protection. In both Brussels and London, draft legislation is pending that would effectively give governments and third parties access to private communications under the nebulous umbrella of “dangerous content.”
European telecommunications interests are pressing for new telecoms rules that will make the fragmentation worse, by requiring tech companies to share the costs of infrastructure with the telecom operators. Users will only be able to access online services that have specifically contracted with a telecom provider, which means what parts of the Internet a user can see will depend on what contracts the user’s Internet Service Provider has. Of course, extra costs will undoubtedly be passed onto end users. …
In all of these cases, the networks generally will use the same names and protocols as the global Internet. But the ability to access all the resources on the Internet will be at best incomplete, with access to those resources depending on who and where you are and what contracts your Internet Service Provider has signed. Different versions of the “same information” might be made available depending on approval or sanction by a particular government or company. Some companies, of course, will withdraw service from this or that jurisdiction to avoid costs or legal liabilities. People might still call whatever emerges “the Internet”–but it will no longer be the real thing: accessible to all, built on an open architecture, decentralized, scalable, technology-neutral, simple, and adaptable.
Allowing this to happen to the greatest innovation of the present age would be criminal. The Internet allows us to connect, communicate, collaborate, and create with anyone, anywhere. It has become the backbone of the world economy. It saw us through the pandemic. It is an indispensable lifeline for so many who are isolated or marginalized. It’s bad enough we haven’t connected everyone. Now we seem to want to disconnect those already connected.