ISOC's Andrew Sullivan sounds alarm against weakening Russia's Internet access; warns of broader consequences
by Dr. Piyush Mathur
Amid calls for, and actual attempts at, interfering with Russia’s Internet access citing its invasion of Ukraine, Andrew Sullivan—the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Society (ISOC)—has outlined in an online essay why these activities constitute a terrible line of action. In the essay, posted on the ISOC website on March 2, Sullivan lists the three key ways that Russian access to the Internet has been sought to be undermined: by pressuring ‘global social media giants to block Russian content’; by blocking Russia’s Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) announcements; and by cutting off Internet cables to and out of Russia. He stresses that no matter what the method, interfering with the Internet would inevitably prevent truth, dissent, and cries for help—and not just lies—from coming out of Russia.
Hinting at the interlinkages between authoritarianism and attacks on free Internet access, the essay notes the fact that, with little success, Russia itself ‘has been trying’ for more than 10 years to cut itself out of the Internet—and that there are also other governments in the world that stifle their citizens’ Internet access for the sake of ‘social control’. Sullivan argues that cutting off Russia’s access to the Internet from the outside would not be even technically feasible—given that ‘[t]here is no hope that every single network in the world will refuse traffic from networks originating in Russia.’ In fact, putting external controls on Russia’s Internet access would not only fail to prevent Russian government’s propaganda from seeping out but it would also make it more difficult than previously to ascertain the origins of a particular piece of propaganda, he points out.
But the essay contains a grimmer warning concerning the broader consequences of (the calls for) geopolitical curbs on the Internet; this warning draws a frightening picture of what a geopolitically vulnerable Internet ecology might look like:
Once large network operators start demonstrating an ability to make routing decisions on political grounds, other governments will notice. This will attract regulatory requirements to shape network interconnection in real time along political lines. If we travel that path, in short order the network of networks will not exist. In its place we would have a different network design built around national gateways, broken up on geopolitical lines, and just as dynamic and robust as other multilateral, regulation-based systems.
In contrast from those other over-regulated systems, the Internet, Sullivan argues, has been ‘more efficient and effective’—and that it would lose those advantages if access to it were altered in accordance with geopolitical pressures. Indirectly rejecting Ukraine’s prior call for blocking Russia’s Internet access, he states the following: ‘People invaded by a foreign power deserve the Internet. But we cannot be selective about who has access.’
Sullivan’s warning, though, is not only against outright blockages of Internet in one region or another but also against selective political restrictions on access to it. His essay thus ends with the following sentence typed in oversize font: ‘The Internet is for everyone.’
The day Sullivan posted his essay also happened to be the day the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) refused Ukraine’s request to (basically) block Russia’s internet access. However, calls for imposing restrictions on Russia’s access to the Internet have not stopped since—and nor has the activism against such calls. While Facebook, Google, Twitter, Spotify, Netflix and others have been putting restrictions on Russian content—and Russia has announced its own blockage of Facebook and Instagram—Lumen Technologies and Cogent Communications have also started blocking out Russia-based consumers (who have increasingly been turning to Virtual Private Networks since the onset of Russian invasion).
ISOC is a US-based nonprofit advocacy group that was founded in 1992; it has chapters worldwide and is committed to Internet access for all and the betterment of the global Internet system. Sullivan’s essay, titled ‘Why the World Must Resist Calls to Undermine the Internet’, can be accessed here: https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2022/03/why-the-world-must-resist-calls-to-undermine-the-internet/
Dr. Piyush Mathur, a member of the Internet Society, is the author of Technological Forms and Ecological Communication: A Theoretical Heuristic (Lexington Books, 2017). His other academic publications could be accessed here. If you wish to contact him as a technology policy consultant or for any other reason, send a message to Thoughtfox via this form.
Background material
Bouza, Kat & Noah Shachtman (March 1, 2022) ‘Ukraine pushes to unplug Russia from the Internet’ Rolling Stone (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ukraine-icann-russia-internet-runet-disconnection-1314278/)
Fung, Brian (March 5, 2022) ‘Russia says it's blocking access to Facebook’ (https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/04/tech/russia-blocks-facebook/index.html)
Iyengar, Rishi (March 11, 2022) “'This is different': Why internet backbone services are cutting off Russia’” CNN (https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/11/tech/russia-internet-backbone-cogent-lumen/index.html)
Sullivan, Andrew (March 2, 2022) ‘Why the World Must Resist Calls to Undermine the Internet’ Internet Society https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2022/03/why-the-world-must-resist-calls-to-undermine-the-internet/
Timberg, Craig (March 10, 2022) ‘Internet experts suggest ways to selectively block Russian military and propaganda sites’ The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/10/internet-russia-sanctions-proposal/)
Warwick, Stephen (5 March, 2022) ‘How Russians are flocking to VPN apps as state censorship tightens’ iMore (https://www.imore.com/russians-flocks-vpn-apps-state-censorship-tightens)