The next step of Internet freedom
- Xiaotong Liu
- Apr 23, 2018
- 10 min read
With the new printing press, ten million copies of religious pamphlets translated by Luther flooded Germany and much of Europe in the 16th century. Luther strengthened his attacks on Rome by depicting a "good" against "bad" church on the pamphlets. From there, it became clear that print could be used for propaganda in the Reformation for particular agendas. Moreover, the success of Reformation also proved that the importance of using the effective method to spread the idea. In the new digital area, the social media is as crucial as the printing skill in the 16th century. It empowers millions of people and gives a voice to those who before had none.
Social media, however, can be used for a multitude of purposes. Now, the international community is facing new threats. In recent years, the main establishment opposition --- Islamist political parties and movements --- have found an effective way to entrenched power structures by reaching out to the masses through the increasingly influential online public space. As the terrorism, represented by ISIS, lose more ground on the physical battlefield, they have to alter and accelerate their messaging tactics to ensure they can maintain influence on the battlefield of ideas. As Haroon K. Ullah proofs in his book Digital World War, the terrorism’s brands are shifting from that of an ideological organization seeking territory to an umbrella faction united by grievance, psychopathy, and a warped hatred. (Ullah, 2017)
It becomes a necessity to ensure the information security for nations, or in other words, not to lose the information war. The security task, however, is very tough because of the new characters brought by the new tactics from the terrorism.
First, the foreign terrorist fighters are seeking to escape the battlefield and return to their home countries, from where they can develop local networks and launch attacks, rather than come to the training camps in the Middle East. The terrorist groups tell supporters more and more, for example, "Stay where you are. Wage war in ISIS name wherever you live. "
Second, the target audience of the terrorism is no longer the group, but the individual. Thus, though the terrorism is reaching fewer people, their calls are more personalized, and therefore more persuasive, easier to heed.
Third, according to what Ullah finds in the digital war, the dark web is often the preferred medium for terrorist groups because it is difficult to navigate and can make certain accounts nearly impossible to access. It is also completely anonymous and allows users to hide their IP address, even as they are accessing a worldwide network of computers. These challenges increase the difficulty in identifying and tracking the inspired, self-radicalized attackers.
How to counter these violent extremists’ anonymous use of the internet is a core focus in the fight to defeat terrorism and become critical to the safety of the nations around the world. In nowadays, it is because of the decentralization, personalized transmission way and the difficulty of navigation, the terrorism, generally, take an attack position, and the nations are usually the defenders.
The understanding of this danger makes the leaders of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states get together and find an approach to counteract cyber terrorism. As a result, they signed the Agreement on Cooperation in Ensuring International Information Security between the Member States of the SCO at the summit in Yekaterinburg in 2009. At that time, the agreement had already been ratified by four of the SCO members - China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - and it came into force on June 2, 2011. On Sep. 12, 2011, the four members of the SCO submitted a Draft International Code of Conduct for Information Security to the United Nations General Assembly. “to push forward the international debate on international norms on information security and help forge an early consensus on this issue.” (UNODA, n.d.)
These actions started a debate about whether the nations should use information censorship to protect national security. The dilemma is if we want to protect freedom of speech and user privacy, we would never know who the fake accounts are and where the noxious information comes from. If we are going to protect national security, we will give up our freedom to some extent, such as authorizing the government to collect personal information of our social media accounts.
Russia and China try to push more strict information censorship domestically. As for Russia, according to the report by the Agora international human rights group, there were over 115,000 recorded cases of Internet censorship in 2017. Out of the cases, Agora said 110,000 were related to blocked websites, with an average 244 web pages being blocked per day by the authorities. Besides, under the "Yarovaya Law," Russian telecom and internet providers will be forced to store all user communication data for three years. (Vedyashkin, 2018)
Similarly, in the past year in China, Tencent and other Internet-oriented companies were told to close the websites that hosted discussions on the military, history, and international affairs; telecoms were told to crack down on "illegal" VPNs; the Cyberspace Administration of China announced new regulations, which is known as the Cybersecurity Law. This law broadly demands that multinational companies make data accessible to the Chinese government while strengthening the regime’s control over content found inappropriate. The government even censored photos in one-to-one WeChat discussions and disrupting WhatsApp. (Segal, 2018)
The interesting thing is, there are not as much terrorism attacks in Russia and China as other nations. Though we cannot say there is a significant causality between cyberspace controlling and terrorist attacks, from this perspective, the “internet sovereignty” is seen as a possible step for nations to protect themselves from cyber-attacks.
Internet freedom has guided U.S. policy to support individual rights in online activities, achieve internet economic innovation and prosperity, spread democratic politics, and defend this agenda against authoritarian resistance. However, the U.S.’ internet freedom now confronts two threats.
First, the threat of being attacked by the terrorism, criminal organizations and Russia on the Internet. The enlargement of terrorism, as mentioned in the beginning, and other criminal organizations are becoming a potential threat. It is hard to know when and where the terrorist will set an attack, but if we leave them alone, the terrorism will take advantage of the U.S.’ internet freedom policies and grow freely on the internet. Russia comes to the U.S.’ social media with not only propaganda but also meddling the public opinion. Russian cyber operations threaten U.S. elections and self-government. In an interview with Radio Free Europe (RFE), a former Russian troll revealed how ‘thousands of fake accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and VKontakte’ were created to sustain and promote Moscow’s position on several issues as well as to create the impression of a plurality of opinions in the information space. (Iona Allan, 2014)
Second, China and Russia’s authoritarian governments have advanced the concept of “internet sovereignty” and give pressure to the U.S. by collaborating other nations. Two significant events happened after the SCO submitted the first draft in 2011, the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) meeting in December 2012 and the Snowden disclosures in June 2013. Accusations that the US exploit their “dominant position in the information space” have gained credibility. (McKune, 2015) The matters of equitable internet governance and prevention of cyber-attack and intrusion are one of the most concerns to all nations.
Thus, this initial group of the Code of Conduct expanded to six members in 2015 and submitted a new draft to the UN General Assembly, though the substance of the document does not change much from that of the previous report. Both versions endorsed the view that “policy authority for Internet-related public issues is the sovereign right of States.” However, the 2015 version goes further, pointing that “states must play the same role in, and carry equal responsibility for, international governance of the Internet, its security, continuity, and stability of operation, and its development.” (United Nations, 2015) We call the core idea of the Code of Conduct as “internet sovereignty.”
China and Russia are the leading champions of “internet sovereignty,” the belief that states should exercise control over their cyberspace just as they do over physical space. Just as other nations respect China and Russia’s sovereignty over their physical territory, they should respect their control over the internet within their borders. Inherent in the “internet sovereignty,” nevertheless, is not only counter-terrorism but most of the notion that currently, much of the internet is dominated by the west and their democratic values. Building “internet sovereignty” is more like a political purpose rather than security necessary.
The U.S. public rejects the concept of “internet sovereignty” from the Code of Conduct, mainly for three reasons:
First, the American enjoys an advantage in the field of internet communication technology, and the current environment has suited the U.S. well. The U.S. argued that internet policy should not be exclusively state-determined; rather, it should rely upon a multi-stakeholder model of internet governance. Divided internet marketplaces and protectionism on the grounds of “public order” and “foreign interference,” which become more likely if a concept of internet sovereignty is established, will only hamper the exploitation of this advantage.
Second, accept the concept could be construed as legitimizing the human rights violations of SCO member states in cyberspace, especially the restricting of free speech. This would give those repressive regimes more standing to continue their actions. The U.S., with its traditionally strong advocacy for civil liberties, applies liberties fully to the online world. In 2011, Secretary Clinton’s Senior Adviser for Innovation Alec Ross said: “The president and the secretary of state have made it clear where they stand on this (Internet freedom). For openness, with an open Internet at its core.” (Howard, 2011) The use of technology to overcome censorship and empower individuals in exercising their human rights online is a forward-leaning aspect of U.S. policy that views human rights online the same as it does in the physical world.
Third, adopt the Code of Conduct would give China a leadership role in developing a significant global norm. Given substantial divergences from the U.S. democratic values and competition in security and economic spheres, the prospect of China dictating global norms is undesirable.
However, the situation becomes more challenge to the U.S. Recently, the private data leaked by Facebook has weakened the U.S.’ brand of supporting freedom and human rights in the cyber domain. In 2017, massive data breaches, such as the Equifax incident, threaten individual privacy. The National Security Agency got hacked. Domestic politicians and interest groups compete to spread misinformation in American society through social media.
These foreign and domestic threats indicate that internet freedom is failing as an antiquated idea, which raises the question that whether internet freedom should continue to guide U.S. policy. This question is a difficult one because internet freedom has been the fundamental value for so many years. Today, the U.S. must rethink strategically for the challenges it now confronts at home and abroad.
Should the U.S. accept the “internet sovereignty” concept and take action to protect the information security of the nation? “The wild west days of an unregulated internet, where anyone could post what they wish, are ending,” says James Lewis, a Senior Vice President and Program Director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), “Governments extend sovereignty to protect the public good, and governments will eventually agree on how to cooperate in doing this.” (Maxey, 2017)
The U.S.’ further action on “internet sovereignty” will bring a significant impact to the world. I will narrow down the impact to public diplomacy area.
If the U.S. makes a regulation about “internet sovereignty,” the rest of the world might change their policy too. One of the possible scenarios is every country starts to block or censor the information from foreign countries. This information wall will build a huge barrier to public diplomacy works because the core for public diplomacy is to create person-to-person’s communication.
In addition, social media has surged and becomes a vital platform for people to connect with each other, resulting in dramatic cases of cultural communication and public comment on political, economic and social issues. Social media has a stronger influence than any other media nowadays. It is an essential tool for public diplomacy. Once there is a block of information on social media, public diplomacy officer will lose the crucial way to understand foreign public and reach the audience.
Considering that China has already built their “internet sovereignty,” the U.S. can find a model of how to build public diplomacy communication with a country that has “internet sovereignty.” There is much paper discussing China’s propaganda, but scholars seldom mention U.S.’ public diplomacy strategies toward China, especially strategy on social media.
Indeed, Chinese government blocks Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other main social media platforms. Nevertheless, China has Chinese version social media: Renren (counterpart of Facebook, but already out of date, only a few people use this platform), Weibo (counterpart of Twitter), Bilibili (counterpart of YouTube), Wechat and so on. In addition, the American students and scholars is a huge group of people in China. The U.S. government can try to lead and organize the Americans to create their own social media account and introduce the U.S. to Chinese.
In fact, some foreign students group already made a process on China’s social media. Raz Galor, an Israelize student at Peking University, started “Ychina” on Weibo with his friends in 2017. On “Ychina”, Raz and his friends published videos about foreign students’ opinion toward China’s culture, for example, “what products you will buy on Nov. 11 (Chinese version of “Black Friday”)?” and “Which Chinese TV show is your favorite one?” and foreign students’ home countries’ culture, for example, “How do you think about the Chinese restaurants in your home country?” Raz can discuss with Chinese under his posts on Weibo, know Chinese people’s opinions about the topic and what do Chinese people want to know from them. Now, “Ychina” has 2.22 million followers on Weibo, most of them are Chinese college students. “Ychina” is a brand of foreign students and has a strong influence on Weibo. Usually, there are 2,000 to 6,000 comments under “Ychina”’s videos. “Ychina” also have YouTube channel and Facebook account. The students put English subtitles in the video to help the foreign audience understand the video. (The international students speak Chinese in this video.) “Ychina” has nearly 41 thousand subscribers on YouTube and 210 thousand followers on Facebook.
Raz has built a bridge between Chinese and outside world. If the U.S. government can learn from Raz and organize some American students to create similar social media account, the U.S. could build a path that starts from another side of the information wall and achieves the “two-way communication” with the Chinese public.
The next step of internet freedom might be “internet sovereignty” era. However, we can always find a way for public diplomacy on “foreign internet sovereignty.”
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