There has recently been some suggestion of governments attempting to control their citizens’ access to the Internet. In Russia, the government is reportedly planning to create a web that operates in the Cyrillic alphabet and is independent from the rest of the Internet and the Japanese communications ministry is recommending that their government starts regulating the internet by 2010, in response to concerns over libellous flaming on forums.
The situation in Russia illustrates the complex issues surrounding the implementation of internationalised domain names. The transition to the widespread use of non-ASCII domain names combined with a majority of users operating non-ASCII keyboards could result in a situation where citizens find themselves restricted to a single language Internet and cut off from the rest of the world wide web.
There is also speculation that in some territories citizens will need a password authorised by government agencies in order to use the global internet, thus giving governments the ability to control what communication individuals have with the outside world. One of the key arguments in defence of this practice is that it helps monitor cybercrime. However, this stance does not convince security experts who have suggested that such a move would make it very difficult to track cybercrime as it would put a wall between the criminals and their victims.
Elsewhere there have been further moves towards web censorship in response to concern over citizens using the Internet to launch critical attacks. In countries where the media is heavily regulated and subject to a lot of self-censorship, the Internet has represented an oasis of freedom where citizens can openly criticise people without fear of personal reprisal, thanks to the protection provided by anonymous posting. There are however, an increasing number of stories about web sites that have caused sufficient uproar to have been closed down and placed on government lists of sites that are apparently “unacceptable and harmful to Society”. Some see that these heavy-handed shutdowns may be the first step to introducing filtering software to control what appears on the Internet in countries where governments are keen to eradicate vitriolic protests in the public arena. Such powers of censorship would most likely be held by governments alone without the buffer of any independent watchdog to arbitrate on what constitutes ‘unacceptable’ content.
All of this activity seems a world away from the wide-ranging Internet freedom we are used to in the UK. Nevertheless, it is a debate that has been running for some time on a global level at the Internet Governance Forum which has been discussing access and openness as two of its key themes. Whilst progress is being made in some aspects, these recent developments highlight the political complexities involved and give credence to those who espouse the theory that fragmentation of the global Internet is inevitable.