Brussels The emancipatory hopes that were once associated with the Internet have almost fallen into oblivion. The spread of freedom via Twitter and Facebook, the digital dreams of the Arab Spring, has been a thing of the past for a long time. On the contrary: the focus today is on disinformation that destroys democracy, cyber attacks and the use of digital technologies for mass surveillance.
Authoritarian regimes are not becoming more democratic in the course of digitization, they are only reinventing the Internet for themselves – as a state control instrument. The pioneer is China, which has created a high-tech dictatorship on the basis of big data, face recognition and omnipresent propaganda and is supplying its know-how to like-minded countries. Russia, which does not tolerate any contradiction domestically in the war against Ukraine, is emulating the Chinese example.
The USA, the EU and partner countries such as Canada, Korea, Japan and Australia now want to join forces to counter this trend – with a kind of internet alliance of democracies. On Thursday, the US government’s National Security Council intends to publish a joint “Declaration on the Future of the Internet” formulated after months of negotiations. The document and an internal assessment by the EU are available to the Handelsblatt.
The paper describes the Internet as a “communication system for all of humanity” that has set in motion an “innovation spurt” and helped “breakthrough new digital products and services that now permeate every aspect of our daily lives”.
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“However, over the past two decades, we have seen this vision come under serious questioning,” it said. “Access to the open Internet is being restricted by some authoritarian governments, and online platforms and digital tools are increasingly being used to repress free speech and deny other human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
US President Biden wants to create a digital “Magna Carta”.
Work on the declaration was pushed by the United States last December. “The Internet Alliance is an important element of US President Joe Biden’s democracy agenda,” explains Tyson Barker, technology expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
A kind of “digital Magna Charta” is planned: “It’s about making it clear internationally that an open Internet is a pillar of the liberal world order that Washington wants to preserve,” says Barker. For years, the United States has believed itself to be in a new systemic conflict in which the democratic world faces aggressive challengers in the form of China and Russia.
China has been using the latest Internet technology for years to control its own population and enforce the dictatorship online.
(Photo: AP)
The EU initially hesitated to join the US internet initiative – mainly because, from a European perspective, the market dominance of American tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon poses a problem just as big as the rise of authoritarian states to digital powers.
But Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the strategic alliance between Moscow and Beijing were the decisive factors in the EU warming to the Washington proposal.
“The current situation in Ukraine dramatically shows the risk of a serious disruption to the Internet (…), as Russia threatens to completely or partially cut the connection to the global Internet,” writes the EU Commission in its internal assessment. Brussels also emphasizes the need to act against the “abuse of the internet through the current increase in cyber attacks, online censorship and disinformation”.
EU Commission insists on protecting privacy
At the same time, the Commission emphasizes that it has succeeded in validating the “European vision” for the digital world in the declaration. “The final text of the declaration reflects our high standards for the protection of fundamental rights,” writes the Commission, citing the protection of privacy as an example. The next step is to find as many international signatories as possible for the declaration.
The declaration is a political document, not a legal one; it is therefore not binding for the EU and its member states. However, the declaration will feed into the work of the Transatlantic Trade and Technology Council (TTC), which the EU wants to make the main forum for cooperation with the US. The next TTC meeting is scheduled for mid-May.
The Internet initiative received additional explosiveness through the takeover of the short message service Twitter by the US billionaire Elon Musk, who presented himself as a champion of freedom of expression. The deal is fueling concern in Europe that the tentative reforms that Twitter has launched to combat fake news are now being reversed.
In the past few weeks, the EU has passed two laws to tame the power of the network companies and counteract the spread of content that is harmful to democracy: the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act. EU Commissioner Thierry Breton immediately reminded Musk in a tweet that “any company that wants to do business in Europe must follow our rules”.
The EU is also taking a tougher stance towards authoritarian states. As part of their Russia sanctions, the Europeans have banned the Russian propaganda organs RT and Sputnik. Close advisers to Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen consider the vulnerability to disinformation to be one of the biggest weaknesses in the EU.
There is still a lot to be done to strengthen Europe’s digital defenses, warns Felix Kartte of Reset, an organization that advocates online regulation: “Platforms like Facebook and YouTube make it far too easy for the Russian propaganda machine to circumvent blocks and spread disinformation about the to spread the Ukraine war. Despite the EU sanctions, the Kremlin reaches millions of people in Europe every day with its war propaganda.” This has real consequences, as can be seen, for example, from the pro-Russian motorcades in German cities.
The USA and the EU also want to tackle this problem together in the future. The internet statement states: “Online platforms have enabled an increasing distribution of illegal or harmful content that can threaten the safety of citizens and contribute to radicalization and violence.”
More: Fear of tech dictatorships: EU is looking to close ranks with the USA and is planning an embassy in Silicon Valley