Battle lines for the future of the internet

When the late Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow penned his “Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace” in 1996, proclaiming “our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty,” he railed against “the great invertebrate in the White House” and the “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel.” So what would Barlow have thought when, on April 28, 2022, 60 governments, mostly from the industrial world, met (in person or in their virtual selves) at the White House to sign a “ Declaration on the Future of the Internet,” initiated by the United States along with Australia, Canada, the European Union, and the United Kingdom? Despite the irony, this international declaration articulated an optimistic and participatory vision under the heading “reclaiming the promise of the Internet.” It celebrated the Internet as “a single interconnected communications system for all of humanity” with benefits for innovation and entrepreneurship, for creators, and for every person. It reaffirmed long-standing principles, referring several times to an Internet that is “open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure” and to the importance of multistakeholder governance of the Internet rather than government fiat. Sovereignty may endure, but with a flavor of Barlow. Rather than simply a restatement of these policy principles, though, the Declaration of the Future of the Internet frames a global divide that presents “serious challenges” to this hopeful vision. In particular, it calls out “efforts to splinter the global Internet” and “some authoritarian governments,” as well as use of platforms and technology for repression, surveillance, and disinformation. It also adds to this list concentrations of market power, the “quantity and security of personal data collected,” and the role of platforms in spreading disinformation and other harmful content.

[Cameron Kerry is an Ann and Andrew Tisch Distinguished Visiting Fellow of Governance Studies at the Brookings Center for Technology Innovation.]