Re:Beijing Wants to Rewrite the Rules of the Internet
by BLKNSLVR on Tuesday June 19, 2018 @09:59PM
(#17351911)
There's nothing mentioned in this article that's either a new type of strategy or anything limited to China.
Three objectives:
1. legitimate desire to address substantial cybersecurity challenges, like defending against cyber attacks and keeping stolen personal data off the black market
2. support domestic industry, in order to wean the government off its dependence on foreign technology components for certain IT products deemed essential to economic and national security
3. expand Beijing’s power to surveil and control the dissemination of economic, social, and political information online
Replace Beijing with <country's capital city> in #3 and all of those points sound like what Western countries are doing. There's nothing noteworthy in those three points. What's noteworthy is that #3 is becoming prevalent in countries that consider themselves 'free'.
Other things listed, such as employing people to manipulate content, is done elsewhere, but it's done by private companies rather than 'the state'. Not new, but the singular direction makes this stand out in a 1984 way. The Tanzania example is just a modernised version of the US' manifest destiny behaviour in Central America and other 'strategic' nations (cough Ukraine cough).
Where China is a leader, others are (often hypocritically) following. Where they're a follower, the leading has been done by the West.
"China’s control-driven model defies international openness, interoperability, and collaboration, the foundations of global internet governance and, ultimately, of the internet itself."
Replace China with "Facebook" or "Google" or even "Apple" or "Microsoft" and the sentence still rings true. Singularly calling China out smells like fairly blatant propaganda.
Openness, interoperability, and collaboration are utopian ideals of the Internet that were achieved when the Internet was a network of universities and scientific institutions back in the late 80's, up until "view your trolley / Checkout" was a thing. Profit is what's re-written the Rules of the Internet. Why else would it be so full of ads?
Three objectives:
1. legitimate desire to address substantial cybersecurity challenges, like defending against cyber attacks and keeping stolen personal data off the black market
2. support domestic industry, in order to wean the government off its dependence on foreign technology components for certain IT products deemed essential to economic and national security
3. expand Beijing’s power to surveil and control the dissemination of economic, social, and political information online
Replace Beijing with <country's capital city> in #3 and all of those points sound like what Western countries are doing. There's nothing noteworthy in those three points. What's noteworthy is that #3 is becoming prevalent in countries that consider themselves 'free'.
Other things listed, such as employing people to manipulate content, is done elsewhere, but it's done by private companies rather than 'the state'. Not new, but the singular direction makes this stand out in a 1984 way. The Tanzania example is just a modernised version of the US' manifest destiny behaviour in Central America and other 'strategic' nations (cough Ukraine cough).
Where China is a leader, others are (often hypocritically) following. Where they're a follower, the leading has been done by the West.
"China’s control-driven model defies international openness, interoperability, and collaboration, the foundations of global internet governance and, ultimately, of the internet itself."
Replace China with "Facebook" or "Google" or even "Apple" or "Microsoft" and the sentence still rings true. Singularly calling China out smells like fairly blatant propaganda.
Openness, interoperability, and collaboration are utopian ideals of the Internet that were achieved when the Internet was a network of universities and scientific institutions back in the late 80's, up until "view your trolley / Checkout" was a thing. Profit is what's re-written the Rules of the Internet. Why else would it be so full of ads?
The nation states have just followed the money.