Digital Content

The ordinary laws no longer govern. Every day, new rules are being written to deal with the crisis. We are living under an emergency constitution invoked by Facebook, Google, and other major tech platforms. In normal times, these companies are loath to pass judgment about what’s true and what’s false. But lately they have been taking unusually bold steps to keep misinformation about COVID-19 from circulating. As a matter of public health, these moves are entirely prudent.

April 20 was originally the deadline by which ICANN, which oversees the internet's address system, would issue its decision on whether to stop or allow the transfer of the dot-org (.org) domain registry to a private equity firm. The proposed deal — which would turn over a part of the internet typically used by nonprofits to a for-profit enterprise, Ethos Capital — has for months raised alarm among charities worried they might see the cost of their sites skyrocket.

The impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the daily lives of billions of people — including elites in nearly every country — has set the stage for many profound changes that will take place when the current pandemic is over. High on the list of things that will look different to almost everyone is the internet. For billions of people in dozens of countries, the internet will no longer be an exotic medium of interest to some people. It was their lifeline for weeks or months.

The next version of the Internet is often described as the Metaverse, a term borne from science fiction, describing a shared, virtual space that’s persistently online and active, even without people logging in. It will have its own economy, complete with jobs, shopping areas and media to consume. The Metaverse is inevitable, many believe, and the Silicon Valley C-suite has been obsessed with the idea — as has a video game company in Cary, North Carolina. In recent years, there’s been serious talk about how to build the Metaverse, and who will build it first.

The industry's pre-coronavirus agenda isn't vanishing — but its priorities have already been reshuffled. These agenda items have jumped to the top of the list: 1) Transforming healthcare, 2) Distance learning and the digital divide, 3) Network bandwidth and resilience, and 4) Misinformation and media polarization. 

When it comes to the Internet, the COVID-19 crisis is teaching us that we’re so much better off than we could have been, but not as good as we need to be. COVID-19 is a stress test for many systems in the United States, most critically in our health, government, education, media, retail and financial services sectors. All of them are now depending more than ever on the Internet to serve their users. The current health crisis will likely peak some time this year, but our intensified reliance on digital technology will not.

In addition to the increase in traffic, sheltering in place strains the internet in two more ways. First, last-mile connections—the ones that run from local exchanges or data centers to your home—are typically the weakest links in a network. Many run over outdated cables. When broadband was rolled out in the US, for example, it often piggybacked on cables originally installed for TV. These cables were designed to pipe data into a home and not out of it, which is why uploading video from a home internet connection can be flaky.

There are millions of small, digitally enabled ventures across America.

A New York Times analysis of internet usage in the US from SimilarWeb and Apptopia, two online data providers, reveals that our behaviors shifted, sometimes starkly, as the virus spread and pushed us to our devices for work, play and connecting.