Most of us have lived with the internet, through its most common application, the worldwide web, for a quarter of a century. It seems as reliable as electricity or drinking water, and it is recognised as critical infrastructure. But the internet isn’t as substantial as it appears — it depends on a precarious balancing act behind the scenes, where technical problems are addressed in the midst of political squalls.
Although some commentators have started talking about a “splinternet” that carves up the online world into US and Chinese spheres of influence, I would argue that this understates the divisions. In fact, viewed through a geopolitical lens, the monolithic, unchanging internet dissolves into at least four.
As my colleague, Kieron O’Hara, and I describe in a recent paper, the internet is a delicate and elaborate arrangement of hardware, software, protocols, standards, organisations, databases, security, telecommunications and more. The internet is not just a technical system — it is also social, a massive, tangled interaction involving half the world’s population. These people are often erroneously called users; rather, they are participants in this conversation. The internet influences society, and society influences the internet.