We all know the story. In the beginning, the US Department of Defense encouraged the development of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), seeking increased redundancy for the command and control systems of the US nuclear deterrent. ARPANET's packet networking was a great way to send and receive information across a network. With help from Tim Berners-Lee and friends, this spawned the web and triggered the internet age.
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The US military played a key role in the internet's origins, but its development was also influenced by scientists in the western hemisphere, using packet switching to exchange messages and data. So western values were baked into the system as the web's architects prioritised their ability to share information.
As the internet's economic and commercial power developed, the nations from which this technology originated found themselves guardians of a network imbued with many western values, not least the freedoms of speech and to associate. The US, by this point a lone superpower, found that the infrastructure of this new century was also overwhelmingly American, as were many of its commercial powerhouses.
Working for the British government, I was involved in work to formalise, through policy, some of the ideals upon which the internet had been built. Of course, this initiative was both enlightened and self-interested, as it sought to render universal principles that were largely western in origin, and which also delivered a significant competitive advantage to people, businesses and nations most familiar and comfortable with them as the world moved online.
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So, maybe we shouldn't be surprised to find that the nations whose beliefs and interests are less reliant upon these principles have, in the second decade of this century, staged a counter-attack against them via the very infrastructure on which freedom flourished. Bots, troll armies, hacks, the dissemination of fake news and cyberattacks of multiple varieties ensued; the people and organisations responsible for these phenomena have exploited the freedom to connect to sow confusion, challenge norms built on liberal values and undermine support for institutions, particularly in those nations where freedom of expression is most valued and respected. The finger of suspicion often points towards Russia, though it is far from the only culprit. The battle for the soul of the internet has well and truly begun.
Ordinarily, one would feel confident about the odds in this fight. But, whether influenced by the counter-offensive or not, there has clearly been a shift in some western democracies, most notably the US, towards populism and nationalism, and a change in emphasis on the liberal values of the postwar western consensus. And so, while a battle is already raging, it may fall to non-governmental organisations, to citizens, and to businesses operating globally and headquartered in market economies, and in whose interest it remains, to defend the values which enabled the digital revolution.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
