
Is the US about to split the internet? - dijksterhuis
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53686390
======
msandford
Hasn't China already gone halfway to that by putting up the Great Firewall and
strongly funding local "copycats" of many companies that were founded and
based in the US?

I'm not suggesting that what the US is planning is good! I think it's not
great. But it doesn't seem to be a pre-emptive thing that's being done.

~~~
erklik
From a non-developed world viewpoint, is it even possible for China/India etc
to have there companies grow to such a massive size to rival Facebook,
Micrisoft etc without protecting them from multi-nationals with way more
immense power and the capacity to simply buy companies?

Ala, Facebook bought Instagram. If there was no such restriction, could they
not have just bought Tencent in its infancy?

Essentially ensuring that currently countries that have not developed will
continually never develop.

~~~
dragonelite
Just look at the EU and you have your answer about protecting your young
markets.

~~~
f6v
And the answer is that there’s nothing to rival Facebook, Google, etc. in
Europe. Save for Yandex in Russia.

~~~
czottmann
You're ignoring the fact of FB, Google et al opening offices all over
Germany/EU and paying ludicrous salaries to even junior devs. It is a form of
resource theft IMHO.

They have the deep coffers to lure young people who otherwise might've started
their own businesses. As a result, the IT and developer market is entirely
fucked up here in Southern Germany. Yes, yes, "software eating the World" and
all that — but the big players (US corps, mostly) are not just by buying up
most of the talent but _they create unhealty expectations for the rest of the
crowd_.

_"I know where to put a semicolon in JS, I expect a starting salary of €100k"_
etc.

~~~
jfengel
If they actually truly know where semicolons go in JS, then they may be worth
€100k. That's some deep magic, which has bitten this very, very experienced
developer in the ass more than once.

Getting it right in Java or C is no special feat. Getting it 100% correct in
Javascript... that's an accomplishment.

------
DarkWiiPlayer
Over the years I've come to believe that an overwhelming amount of people
would actually prefer a censored internet. Some might want "obscene" material
gone, others would love to eradicate "fake news" and a few people might still
be around that would instantly jump at any chance to purge the internet of
blasphemy against their sky-daddy of choice.

I used to think censorship was really just an instrument of the few to control
the masses, but I'm starting to believe that we who just don't want a censored
internet are the minority.

~~~
dannyw
I support the tiktok ban because it’s about economic fairness. American tech
companies can’t fairly compete in China. But until now, Chinese tech companies
_can_. This gives inherent advantages to Chinese tech companies.

~~~
xvector
> American tech companies can’t fairly compete in China.

They absolutely can if they adhere to the law. LinkedIn and GitHub are
thriving in China. Google and Facebook voluntarily pulled out.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
China doesn’t have rule of law. They have rule by law, but that’s quite
different: as long as google or Facebook can’t impress the official class, the
officials will find a law to keep them out. They can’t actually go to court
and dispute the decision (which doesn’t officially exist anyways), and I’m
sure Tiktok and Tencent are going to court over this (and they even have a
good chance of even winning).

Let’s put it this way: the Chinese Constitution makes strong guarantees about
freedom of speech and press. But it doesn’t matter since there is no court to
enforce any of that, China lacks any checks and balances and officials mostly
rule by fiat and hierarchy.

~~~
gorgoiler
You could just as well be describing DC, except FAANG have 100x more power
_Inside The Beltway_ than inside First Ring Road.

------
Crazyontap
I just wonder if the source of the problem are these "App stores" of the
world.

If I could just download these apps like I download software for linux, it
would be very difficult for the govt to enforce anything like this.

Tik-tok banned in India too and by ban it merely meant that the govt. forced
Google / Apple to remove it from the play store. There is complete ban on
torrent / porn sites in India but that doesn't stop anyone from visiting those
either.

I think this is just one more argument against these central repos that are
aiding censorship and political propagandas.

~~~
kevincox
I think you are right that "app stores" are the most convenient place to
enforce this. They get a fairly good effectiveness with low effort.

However I doubt that not having them would stop the bans, it would take a bit
more motivation, and a lot more effort but unless we have a truly censor-
resistant solution I suspect the government would still put in the effort.

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
Take a look at how that worked out for attempts to suppress the DVD/CSS
ripping algorithm.

When software is source code, not just binary blobs, it starts to enjoy
(some|more) protection under the 1st amendment.

------
sschueller
This is exactly why we don't want walled gardens. You can quickly loose your
freedoms for the sake of "security".

~~~
readarticle
I agree in a philosophical sense, but I’m not sure how a separate method of
distribution would affect this particular situation. Unless the argument is
just against gatekeepers in general, like the state.

~~~
Mindwipe
I would say it's that any centralised code signing source will inevitably be
unleashed in a geopolitical fight at some point, and setting them up in the
name of security should always bear that in mind.

------
DoctorNick
"We don't want Chinese companies spying on Americans, that's OUR gig!"

~~~
Galanwe
As a European, all I see is US spying on everyone through their US
companies/apps, and bullying other countries that try to so the same...

Europe standing clueless in the middle, European council with an average age
of 70ish not understanding what all the fuss is about.

~~~
theredlion
Governments and companies are going to be spying on everybody either way
thanks to technology.

If asked, given the current state of these two entities, I would choose being
spied on by the US government 100 out of 100 times over being spied on by the
Chinese government.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
As a Canadian, and one employed by a US HQ'd company, the US gov't has the
power to mess with my life in more ways than the Chinese government does. So,
no, if forced to I don't accept your choice. You might prefer being spied on
by your own gov't, but I don't accept your gov't spying on me.

I'm not going to China any time soon, but I need to cross the border to the US
for work sometimes, and for pleasure sometimes, too. Since 9/11 that border
has been an aggressive and hostile place marked by frequent highly
authoritarian interventions and it has escalated even more under Trump. And
its reach extends now onto our phones and thus into our private lives and this
spying now extends online and profiles are being made of all sorts of people
without them knowing. This has always happened, but its reach is far wider
than before.

Being flagged by the US gov't hurts me directly, China only indirectly. I
don't trust the US federal regime, and neither should (most) Americans.

EDIT: love being downvoted along with the other (European) comment. It's clear
many Americans still don't get how their government behaves to its so-called
allies. Ask Angela Merkel how she felt about having her phone tapped. Maybe
the EU and other allies need to start randomly detaining US citizens with
"strange names" or "suspicious profiles" and keeping them in rooms for hours,
interrogate them, search their phones, then let them go with a smirk and a
"have a nice day." Maybe then US citizens will understand how odious this is.

------
chvid
The bans will be blocked by courts and the administration knows that. It
pushes the orders forward anyways for purpose of political communication.

It is not in the US strategic interest to "balkanise" the internet; as it is
now the US has enormous influence over the global internet. Why replace that
with something much smaller?

~~~
magicsmoke
From the state department publication: [https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-
expansion-of-the-clean-...](https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-
the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/)

"Momentum for the Clean Network program is growing. More than thirty countries
and territories are now Clean Countries, and many of the world’s biggest
telecommunications companies are Clean Telcos. All have committed to
exclusively using trusted vendors in their Clean Networks."

Looks like the goal isn't to balkanise the global internet. Rather, to create
a zone where Chinese companies are banned from accessing it at all by
integrating other countries into the Clean Netwok program starting with the
US. Unlike China's great firewall which is purely domestic in scope, the Clean
Network has global ambitions.

------
ecmascript
I don't know.. it seems like just another country adding restrictions like
most countries have.

The idea of an open internet doesn't really work when you have countries that
are not abiding by the "rules" like China that censor and utilize every chance
they have to monitor user activity.

It is a sign not that the US is splitting the internet, but that work towards
decentralizing stuff and evolve the web in such a way that it cannot be
censored should be implemented.

Of course, countries can always "cut the cable" but that is too much of an
economic hit I believe.

------
GnarfGnarf
What's to stop Chinese agents from setting up shop in the US or Europe, and
disseminating rogue apps from their "trusted" base?

~~~
dangerface
What's to stop Chinese agents doing what the NSA does to spy on Americans?

I think it would be better to just let china spy on the 12 year olds that use
tictok and encourage Americans to use strong encryption / security by default.

Following the Chinese lead of censorship just encourages them to hack American
companies like the Americans do.

~~~
miketery
> let china spy on the 12 year olds

That's a ton of kompromat. Even if irrelevant on average and on the whole,
it'll impact enough individuals. Why give that kind of leverage away for free?

Though agreed regardless, we need to move towards E2E encryption, local
storage, and local key management (i.e. no password resets... or complex
recovery schemes).

~~~
Nasrudith
There is an easy solution to kompromat - stop being judgemental shitheads for
12 year olds or caring what morons think. Seriously - kompromat is defined in
terms of tbe cultural norms and not intrinsic. The LGBT community learned this
well before the fucking CIA by being out and proud to tell the mafia
blackmailers to go fuck themselves.

------
ppf
If you want to avoid foreign "misinformation" (spin that as you will), this is
the only sensible thing to do. Arguably, the citizens of the "free" world are
incredibly vulnerable to misinformation campaigns run by foreign agents.

~~~
dangerface
All people are vulnerable to misinformation campaigns, the problem is every
one has lost interest in accurate information. The only solution people
provide is that we need to get rid of the bad information instead of changing
peoples motives.

~~~
chillacy
I hope this is satire. Every totalitarian government says that censorship is
for the people's protection. Then the government gets to decide what is or
isn't misinformation.

A population with good critical thinking skills is necessary in a democracy.
Conversely if you don't give people the right to vote for their leaders or
policies, you don't need them to think critically (or politically) either.

~~~
dangerface
> Every totalitarian government says that censorship is for the people's
> protection.

Because this is the messaging the people will accept, a dictator could just
say that's the way it is deal with it but they don't, they use the narrative
the people will accept.

> Then the government gets to decide what is or isn't misinformation. >> The
> only solution people provide is that we need to get rid of the bad
> information

There is no "the government" its just people, two factions the red flag and
the blue flag both get their information from their own isolated sources of
what is accurate. The truth is somewhere in the middle ground with both sides
deciding that whatever doesn't fit their current clic is misinformation.
Democracy is great at giving us two flags instead of one but I don't really
give a fuck about flags I care about individual freedom.

> A population with good critical thinking skills is necessary in a democracy.

100% and I feel our democracy is failing because people are just not motivated
toward critical thinking, its difficult and calls yourself into question, what
if you are wrong? or supported something you no longer believe in? in a world
with cancel culture and mob justice? Fascism is a low effort alternative for
many. Simple problem: all the other flag wavers, simple solution: get rid of
them.

If democratic countries want to remain that way we need to give up our tyranny
and flag waving in support of real freedom. People won't do it naturally we
need to change the system to encourage people to think by rewarding them for
doing so. Change peoples motives toward critical thinking and democracy and
away from fascism and tyranny.

~~~
chillacy
Worth noting that plenty of democracies aren't as dysfunctional as the US and
have more than 2 viable political parties.

------
Normille
>>Mr Pompeo's reasons for "cleaning" the US network of Chinese companies is
very different to authoritarian government's desire to control what is said
online.

Good to see the BBC [AKA Radio Free America] continuing to uphold its [mostly
self-awarded] reputation for unbiased reporting.

PS: in the above context, it should be: authoritarian governments'

These days, the standard of literacy ain't much to write home about either.

------
kgersen
it's already split for the average users (>90% of total users)

Some countries (like France for instance) impose DNS censorship on ISP to
block some domains.

~~~
linschn
This censorship is so easily circumvented that it's laughable. Firefox's dns
over https or 'echo 8.8.8.8 > /etc/resolv.conf' will do.

~~~
Qwertious
"C:\ doesn't have an etc folder"

~Most people.

The problem here isn't any one person circumventing the 'censorship', it's
influencing mass movements to prevent mass data-grabbing. If every tech-savvy
Linux user uses TikTok, it's probably not _that_ big of a deal as it's less
than one percent of the population (and arguably the group most well-equipped
to deal with the potential spying).

~~~
xaqfox
Technically it does. It should be in c:\windows\system32\drivers

------
sneak
Is this a sign that the web is now irrelevant, wholly replaced by easily-
store-censored (thanks, Apple and Google) apps?

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
Part of me thinks this is good. Not for others, but for me at least. After
all, if you can censor 98% of users by focussin on apps, why would you bother
implementing technology to censor the lower levels of the internet? Who knows,
we might even reach a point where new censorship mechanisms won't even bother
with "low-level" traffic like HTTP(S) anymore.

~~~
jiofih
That is the most naive comment I’ve read in years.

More like they would block all network traffic that is not from apps,
authenticated via one of the approved cloud providers.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
More naive than hoping that there won't be any authoritarian censoring in the
first place? Not by much, I'd say, but maybe I'm just being very pessimistic.
Honestly I'm just kinda disillusioned. I know most people would gladly go
along with this kind of BS and the rest of us would just get dragged along, as
has happened countless times already. (Or do you really think we're in a
better position now than east Germany was right after whitnessing the horrors
of the Nazi dictatorship?)

------
csense
Requiring certain walled gardens to not publish certain apps is a form of
censorship. But it's not exactly "splitting the Internet." Everything's still
connected together, it's just that certain sites aren't allowed to host
certain material.

I have a few questions. Would this apply only to Apple and Google app stores?
Would jailbroken phones still legally be able to install the apps? Would
third-party app stores legally be able to distribute them?

If the government tells an app store not to sell a specific program, isn't
that similar to telling a bookstore not to sell a specific book? How does the
government argue that the free speech protections of the Constitution don't
apply?

------
agumonkey
Sociology will have a field day with this era.

A field century even.

~~~
magicsmoke
TBF the last 1.5 centuries aren't slouches either in terms of sociological
field experiments.

~~~
agumonkey
I'm not sure what you mean, beside the overall technological progress. If so
this is why I'm stumped by the recent international degradation. I'd hoped
sanity would be stronger but actually the modern world may not be a lot
stabler than previous centuries. Or at least not a lot wiser.

------
tmaly
I think all these walled gardens both foreign and domestic have split the
internet.

Look at what happened to Usenet, its still there, but many major ISPs don't
offer access to it to my knowledge.

Larger email providers mark all email from self hosted servers as spam in most
cases.

Chat is mostly on proprietary apps. The majority of the population does not
use open standards for chat.

------
dangerface
Censorship by another name is still censorship.

------
jefftk
state department version: [https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-
the-clean-...](https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-
network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/)

------
ISL
The internet would be split if the simplest requests -- TCP, HTTP, and email
-- cannot cross borders without inspection/censorship. If people everywhere
cannot communicate, we would move toward the stark borders of the Cold War,
where simple acts of cross-border communication were notable.

One can readily argue that China has already split the internet, to an extent.
In the best case, one can imagine that the US is stumbling-toward/leading-the-
way into a world where free expression and freedom from monitoring is
requisite for unfettered access to the predominant global communications
network. I hope that is the ultimate destination.

The Trump administration is unlikely to be able to finish that work, but a
line in the sand to state that outright monitoring of global citizens is
unacceptable seems like a good place to start. To make this work, the United
States must also refrain from deeply monitoring the speech and actions of
citizens of other countries. It is reasonable to expect the EU to require
local hosting of a lot more US cloud services in the coming year.

If the world is to balkanize, it may also mean that cross-border interactions
are dominated by open-source software and open protocols. A silver lining in a
dark cloud.

~~~
superkuh
> The internet would be split if the simplest requests -- TCP, HTTP, and email
> -- cannot cross borders without inspection/censorship.

This is Cloudflare's endgame. It's not just authoritarian nationstates. It's
also (in the US at least) authoritarian corporations.

------
cblconfederate
If we end up with a balkanized internet and people start using proper
decentralized programs, then let's go.

------
JoshuaMulliken
China already did this. These are just tariffs for the digital age

------
andor
Please don't derail the discussion by talking about apps.

This is not just about TikTok or other apps, and not just about app stores. As
the title says, it's about whether we will have open networks in the future.

 _" Clean Carrier: To ensure untrusted People’s Republic of China (PRC)
carriers are not connected with U.S. telecommunications networks. Such
companies pose a danger to U.S. national security and should not provide
international telecommunications services to and from the United States."_

[https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-
clean-...](https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-
network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/)

Note that it's also not just about the CCP, but "malign actors, such as the
Chinese Communist Party".

Do you think the US administration has enough integrity to be trusted with
such matters?

~~~
Nasrudith
If they say "national security" as the reason you should never trust them
period. They are trying to brain hack you.

------
barryrandall
(edited for tone)

It's not just the US. Countries around the world are slowly coming to the
realization that they can really only regulate the portions of the internet
housed within their legal jurisdictions, and that data sovereignty matters.

Is the US splitting the internet? That's debatable. I think we started the
process with the Patriot Act. That led to multiple countries passing new
privacy and data localization laws (GDPR in Europe, Data Localization in
Russia). I believe that the current proposals coming out of State are best
characterized as a (clumsy) attempt at data localization through executive
fiat.

Of course, this could also just be revenge for a bunch of TikTok users
trolling the president pretty hard.

------
cat199
as much as i'm afraid of internet balkanization, this is alarmist - noone is
proposing blocking all traffic to china, they are proposing blocking
individual foreign organizations suspected of criminal activity, which is
already what has been happening and what happens in every other sphere.

------
ldoughty
With GDPR, Great Firewall, Apple and Facebook's heavy handed gardens... Most
of the internet is splintered.

I don't have the legal team to negotiate GDPR, so I can't make my website
legal in Europe (it probably is, I collect practically nothing, but I can't be
sure since IANAL.

I don't have an apple product, so my app can't be tested or converted to work
in Apple devices and put in their App store.. so if you like what I made, and
you don't have an Android device, you can't use it on mobile...

If you want to use my web interface, if it's Chromium, you now need to go
through an extra step to unblock cookies to jump from one of my sites to
another, because the subdomain changes and that's "a different website" now..

Seems like everyone is already splintering the Internet... Most of it is the
US's fault, but it's not just TikTok..

~~~
mantas
Neither GDPR, nor Great Firewall are US fault...

~~~
barryrandall
GDPR was a direct reaction to the USA Patriot act and the Snowden leaks.

------
scoot_718
No reason to do that, just block their routes. Finish their wall for them.

------
cmurf
This is old style propaganda: clean

The alternative network, what we have, is dirty, soiled, unhealthy, blemished
- because of Chinese influence. By removing China from the connection, the
network is cleansed.

It's transparently racist. It is not necessary to use words like this if you
have a persuasive argument based upon facts. This is an appeal to ignorance
and fear of things that are filthy.

~~~
Qwertious
>It's transparently racist.

Bullshit. China a geopolitical entity (notably, one of the "authoritarian
dictatorship" variety) and explicitly don't support democracy.

------
giancarlostoro
This would of been a great opportunity for Apple to crack down on abusive API
calls to ensure far less spying on mobile apps. The issues with TikTok are
basically only working so long as the OS allows them to continue to occur.
Mobile apps should be significantly more transparent whenver they do more than
just show something on a screen. If they access the network, your location,
etc it should be logged somewhere, and you should always be able to go into
the app settings (even if it's hidden for "advanced users") and block apps
from accessing specified API calls completely.

Not sure if Google will do it, or if they do, they might take their sweet
time.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
More than preventing access, OSes should allow spoofing information just to
make it harder for apps to be like "but I want want waaaaant your GPS
coordinates or I won't let you use this calculator app"

~~~
Nasrudith
It would be harder but from a User experience perspective just booting their
asses from the store for doing this would be better.

