What Does Global Internet Freedom Truly Stand for?

Demonstrations opposing Hosni Mubarak’s rule occurred throughout Egypt on January 25, 2011. As an astounding 2 million protesters gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the authorities attempted to control the discourse by first censoring Twitter and then Facebook. Egypt’s telecommunications services were offline in a matter of days. As per estimates at that time, “the closure resulted in a 90% decline in internet traffic to/from Egypt, disabling a crucial communications tool in use by anti-government demonstrators and their sympathizers to coordinate and propagate their argument.”

Egypt’s internet blackout sent ripples throughout the world, causing some to conclude that internet democracy was in jeopardy. In a speech, the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that online freedom “is about whether people live on a globe with one web, one world society, and a common body of information that helps and integrates all of us, or a segmented world where the availability of information and opportunity is reliant on where we reside and the inclinations of moderators.” A decade later, the picture has shifted considerably, owing to major changes in both global activity and the web.

In 2011, Facebook was lauded for hastening Egypt’s awakening; in 2021, Facebook was chastised for appearing to do little to filter postings in the world’s most dangerous nations, or for its attempts to restrict insurrectionists’ messages. Today’s web is more concerned with safety rather than with freedom, and governments are willing to intervene, as proven by privacy-invading laws in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Since the Renaissance, public safety has been regarded as the primary responsibility of the state.

Fighting disinformation and violent propaganda, exposing child molesters who utilize online services of these concerns readily fit under the category of “public safety,” and will provide the government with grounds for action. If independence is contingent on the sovereign’s capacity to protect the security as well as safety of its citizens, then the government should be free to act on any of these matters. Nevertheless, in practice, internet safety is prioritized above the internet’s most fundamental benefits, such as empowering individuals, global connectivity, and opening up new opportunities for innovation. Whereas we originally desired a more global and accessible internet, online security symbolizes an inward-looking, segmented, sometimes dangerously misguided movement.