Russia & China Are Taking Steps To Block The Internet And This Is Why It Should Matter To You

What may seem to you to be a country's internal policies right now, is actually the subtle beginnings of a dark future.

Gwyn D'MelloUpdated: Jul 31, 2017, 16:23 IST

The Internet is so valuable to us not just because of how convenient it makes everything. But how open and free it is, where we can access anything from across the world.

Unfortunately, that may not be the case in the future.

Vladimir Putin

Courtesy - Berlin Policy Journal

In Russia, for instance, President Vladimir Putin has just signed a law that will ban VPN (virtual private network) and proxy services starting November 1, and internet providers will be forced to block said services.

The Internet¡¯s Iron Curtain

The Putin government says the measure is supposedly to clamp down on extremist content, by stopping users from circumventing location and content restrictions. However, Russia has a history of passing laws to block both real-life and Internet content that¡¯s critical of Putin, as well as services that could let people communicate in confidence.

Additionally, Putin has signed another law that comes into effect January 1, where chat apps will be forced to identify users through their phone numbers. And this isn¡¯t just about registering users by their phone number, as apps like WhatsApp do. This is a mandatory order, meaning the government will know who you are when you use any chat app in the country. The order also extends to these service providers blocking user access if they¡¯re attempting to spread ¡°illegal material¡±.

While the move isn¡¯t too far off from Russia¡¯s usual tactics, the timing is crucial here. Russia is holding another presidential election in March, and banning VPNs blocks any voters from catching news from Western media, which is usually critical of the Russian president¡¯s policies. Similarly, the idea is that you¡¯re not going to be able to organise a protest if the police can track you based on the phone number registered to the chat account you use.

The Great Firewall

But there¡¯s another country that¡¯s cracking down on VPN, for similar reasons. China has just forced Apple to take down all its VPN apps from its store, allegedly for providing ¡°content that is illegal¡± on the platform. It¡¯s not yet a full-blown purge, as some apps remain online, while other at least continue to exist on other platforms. However, it¡¯s a strong push towards the country¡¯s 2018 deadline for eliminating VPN services.

china censorship

REUTERS

China has three telecom providers, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, all of which are state-owned. In a recent order, all three have been instructed to block access to VPN and proxy services by February 2018. Like Russia, China is also in the grips of a political power, the Communist Party, that refuses to tolerate dissent or criticism of its leaders.

But there¡¯s other reasons for the clampdown here too. China¡¯s Internet is closer to an intranet; it¡¯s a walled-off garden of the Internet we know where only Chinese services are allowed to play. As such, there¡¯s no Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or others. Instead, you have Sina Weibo, Youku Tudou, and other Chinese clones. The government has long-since made it apparent that it¡¯s willing to go to extreme lengths to favour home-grown companies and services. Just ask Apple how many cases it¡¯s won in China against its many hardware clones and you¡¯ll know the truth.

The question here is, if China and Russia want to wall off their own sections of the Internet, why should those of us outside it care?

Control the information, and you control the public opinion

Well you should care, and that¡¯s because all these changes elsewhere impact how we access the Internet ourselves. Firstly, China has moved on from being a copycat, to being a tech pioneer. A lot of its apps and hardware are drawing attention for being the first to do what Western companies haven¡¯t yet. But there¡¯s another bigger problem.

Access Denied

Access Denied

When Apple is being forced to ban VPN apps from its store, it has to toe the line. The company has an established monopoly over its platform that the government is manipulating. Apple can¡¯t afford to piss off Chinese authorities by saying no, and it certainly can¡¯t pull out of its largest growing market. So, of course, it complies. But that means that Tim Cook now has no answer when the US government back home makes demands for VPNs to be banned or for its encryption method to be disclosed.

Apple¡¯s acquiescence in China sets dangerous precedent for a world where governments can demand the ¡°right¡± to spy on their citizens, or limit the flow of information they receive. If China can do it, then why not at home in the US? And if the US can, then why not everywhere else? After all, India is one of Apple's largest growing markets too, behind China. The company just can¡¯t afford to bluff that it doesn¡¯t need the business.

More importantly, when governments are allowed to wall off their own little pieces of the Internet, it stops being the world wide web. Instead, what we now have are little islands each blocked off from each other. We stop being connected, then we stop being informed.

23/11/2024 8:45:4
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