Alexander Reed Kelly — ‘The Net Is Finished as a Global Network’

To begin, there are three things we should be thinking about as a result of what we’ve learned so far, Naughton notes.
First, “the days of the internet as a truly global network are numbered.” Balkanization—the division of the Web into a number of geographical subnets separately governed by China, Russia, Iran, etc.—is a certainty with increasing state control over communication among residents.
Second, having been revealed as abusing their “privileged position in the global infrastructure” by using the Net to spy on foreign governments as well as foreign citizens, the U.S. and other Western powers have lost their claim to legitimacy as governors of the Internet as a whole.
Third, “the Obama administration’s ‘internet freedom agenda’ has been exposed as patronising cant.” “ ‘Today,’ ” Naughton writes, quoting Belarusian technology writer Evgeny Morozov, “ ‘the rhetoric of the ‘internet freedom agenda’ looks as trustworthy as George Bush’s ‘freedom agenda’ after Abu Ghraib.’ ”

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‘The Net Is Finished as a Global Network’
Alexander Reed Kelly