Who controls the Internet?

Introduction

The global computer network has become an encompassing part of everyday life. The major part of communication, decision-making and strategic discussion whether between states or among the people is now taking place on the Internet ground. With the Internet space acquiring a strategically important status as for the sovereign states as well as for the ordinary citizens, the question of managing the whole infrastructures has been raised. Moving from being exclusively a matter of a small technical group, the issues related to all layers of the Internet structure have acquired deeply political status. The sovereign states saw potential in the Internet ground along with large businesses which have the power to alter the Internet structure. Meanwhile, there are the ordinary citizens who raise their voices against the unilateral control over the infrastructure of the cyberspace and intergovernmental organisations like the United Nations which aim to fairly distribute power over the Internet space among all the interest groups. All these actors are involved in the governance of the Internet space. The multi-stakeholder approach is most commonly applied to explain the relationships the relevant actors who are involved in decision-making and control the Internet. This paper aims to explore the roles of the actors involved in the global governance of the Internet. Despite the dominance of the multi-stakeholder approach in the area of the Internet governance, the paper presents the argument that the governance of the international cyberspace is no more than just a projection of power of sovereign states. By looking at the case studies of two countries, Russia and China, as well as analysing the role of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the paper demonstrates that the sovereign states possess and influences the main share of decision-making power when it comes to the Internet governance. The analysis of the system established to coordinate the processes within the Internet supports the presented argument.

Main Body

The multi-stakeholder approach has been a model of the global Internet governance that “has emerged as the dominant approach to navigate the complex set of interest, agendas and implications” (Carr 2015, p. 640). The core concept of the approach is set around the practice of bringing along several relevant actors in the processes of decision-making to build a system which would enable to navigate through interests’ differences of the key actors (Weiss and Wilkinson 2014, p. 747). The idea of incorporating and designating a space for every actor whose interests might be involved in the process within the cyberspace has been widely supporters. Those who agree with the theory of sharing the governing matters argue that “it is essential that a wide range of stakeholders are involved in decision-making about the Internet technology because of its complexity and its broad implications” (Weiss and Wilkinson 2014, p. 748).

Even though the multi-stakeholder approach does acknowledge the importance of all the existing actors who are involved in the global governance of the Internet, this paper presents a piece of contradicting evidence. The structure of the Internet space is complex and multilayers. It is important to consider that governing the Internet is not revolved around a single-issue area. Rather, the global governance of the cyberspace is a matter of complex issue areas which varies from access to the Internet to setting of the functioning mechanism of the Internet. The variety of the sectors involved in the Internet governance thus entails that the state government should play a significant role. The nature of the cyberspace has “deeply political, economic and cultural implications” meaning that the coordinating decisions as well as negotiating among the interests of those who are involved creates an area of difficult (Carr 2015, p. 641). Although the multi-stakeholder approach which stands for the shared role among all the institutions involved in the Internet space, the governing of such platform is not equally shared. The global governance, in this case, the global governance of the Internet is “mired in politics, interests and contested legitimacy” (Carr 2015, p. 643).

Since the state government sees potential in the Internet space and its exploitation for the national interests, national governments aim to spread its power over the controlling mechanisms. The governments can exert their power through the establishment of regulating monitoring and planning accesses thus tailoring the accessing mechanism (Eriksson 2009, p. 208). The regulatory function of the national governments enables to tailor the environment where the operating Internet companies are settled down. To ensure that the national interests are preserved and not endangered within a widely uncontrolled Internet space, the states can modify the operating environment, thus exerting greater power over any other actors involved in the Internet governance. The Internet has been a matter of close attention of the Russian government. Since the transformation of the state’s regime to acquiring more authoritarian states, “Internet freedom has become increasingly circumscribed” (Pallin 2015, p. 17). The interest of those who are at the top of the national system, thus those who formulate the national interest saw a threat in uncontrolled Internet space. Russia’s authorities came with new initiatives for increased control over the operating environment of the Internet. With the direct involvement of the Russian government and official authorities such Duma deputies, the initiatives to closely regulate the Internet space had a potential to be developed into new laws and regulations (Pallin 2015, p. 8). However, it is important to note that in the case of the Russian government not all control over the Intern was managed through the establishment of new laws and rules. Instead, the control was achieved “through direct ownership of Internet resources” (Pallin 2015, p. 8). The infrastructure of the Internet is not exclusive to one actor who is involved in the governing mechanism. The government does not have a monopoly over the Internet, but it can alter its interest in the environment of the companies in the Internet business. Thus, the state government of the Russian state “has sought to gain control through ownership of domestic resources” as well as limiting the external influence of international companies. (Pallin 2015, p. 8). The companies which provide Internet access to the Russian people across the country became a clear target of the state. Owning a larger share of the company or restricting privatisation of large Internet providers such as “Rostelekom” enabled the government to have a deciding power. Apart from establishing overall control domestically, the pressure on the international providers to become official register and thereby turning into the subject to federal and regional legislation was placed. The changes in the infrastructure which in turn limited the possibility of free and uncontrolled access to the Internet can be made by a single sovereign state. The national interest and desire of a state’s government to preserve unchallenged positions and maintain overall control present a great challenge to the idea of the multi-stakeholder approach of Internet governance.

The civil society as a player in the governing process of the Internet also gets squeezed out from the decision-making mechanism by more powerful actor, sovereign state. The surrounding environment of the Internet is one of the direct and easy-accessing areas of the Internet. The government, especially more authoritarian states like Russia, possess great leverage to alter the system to the state’s interests. The idea of shared control over the decision-making within the Internet is mere of cover for the states to indirectly project own power. As the most dominant theory of Internet governance, the multi-stakeholder approach suggests that the governance of the Internet structure should be distributed and every involved actor can exert a clear power, the evidence shows a different side. It is fair to say that the government is a key actor involved in the governing process of the cyberspace as “they are the only institutions that can provide stability and a place for debate over what public values need to be protected” (Baird 2002, p. 16). The government has enough power to alter the surrounding structure of the Internet in a similar manner as in the case of private companies and businesses involved in governing of the Internet. Despite the calls for the greater involvement of the civil community in the Internet governance and their desire to create more open informational structure within the Internet platform, the sovereign states have the power to limit such arrangements.

Civil society as the multi-stakeholder approach suggests presents the diversity of views and interests which equally should be represented within the Internet space. However, more often the voice of the civil group is overwhelmed by the nation-states, especially when it comes to more authoritarian states which formulate the interest without consulting own people first. The national governments can influence the flow of information which is requested for through the Internet channels by the citizens by altering the infrastructure of the Internet governance or applying filtering methods. By turning to private companies which have the technical background to remove content, whether for “political reasons, law enforcement actions, or national security concerns”, the national government manage the access to the Internet as a platform as well as limiting ways to participate in decision-making over the Internet governance (DeNardis 2013, p. 42). The case of the Chinese internet is a clear example of eliminating the civil society out of the process of Internet governance. Apart from obscuring the influence of any international companies to operate within the borders of the Chinese Internet, the national government develops and implements a method to filter all the information resources which would enable better awareness of the people over the opportunities of the Internet.

The government can exert powerful force over the infrastructure of the Internet and how the government processes are managed. Although the government can project direct influence, civil society struggles to overcome the surrounding structure of Internet governance. Again, despite for the popular claims of the multi-stakeholder approach that civil society is an active actor in the global governance of the Internet and should continue to be so, the ordinary people have little or no power to influence decision-making in the process of the Internet governance (Carr 2015, p. 656). Apart from being overshadowed by national governments, the civil groups struggle to be effectively represented at the international meetings where the decision process is taken place due to “expensive and beyond the reach of all well-funded who tend to work for NGOs that promote a particular agenda” (Carr 2015, p. 657). Thus, the participation barrier as well as the emergence of those whose interests are more likely to be preserved make the civil society less evidence in the governing process of the Internet in comparison to the national states.

The Internet space is a large anarchical space which does not have any clear regulating structure. The realist theory would compare the Internet structure with the international arena which lacks any control or any policing structure, where the power is a means to survive. The Internet seems to reflect similar features. The global governance of the Internet, if considering the analogy with the anarchical system, is no more than a cover for those who have power and wish to legitimately remain at the control wheel. By popularly accepting the multi-stakeholder approach to overall Internet governance, powerful states legitimise their outlook on the international arena. At the same time, the multi-stakeholder approach is used as a mechanism for amplifying the state’s power, enabling to exert control over the Internet governing processes. The relationships between the US government and the ICANN demonstrate clear support to the argument. ICANN was created by the US government as a private, non-state corporation to regulate the Internet’s unique identifier systems such as the domain name system (DNS) (Baird 2002, p. 18). With the initial intention of transforming the ICANN into fully into private sector company, the company changed its focus. An idea to turn ICANN into a global regulatory institution which would provide a ground for multiple stakeholders as well as facilitate a ground for policy development over the Internet governance has been neglected due to conflicting interest of the powerful state. Being accountable to the US Department of Commerce, the US government played a disproportional role in changing the status of the ICANN. By restricting the transitions process, the global community started to see little or no accountability for the private corporation or adequate transparency. By publicly declaring that “the United States will continue to provide oversight” (cited in DeNardis 2014, p. 62), the ICANN has remained a subject of close interest of the US government which continue to exert its power over some areas. The case of ICANN is a clear demonstration that the Internet governance and anything related to the subject is controlled by a state. Therefore, the multi-stakeholder approach is nothing more than sheer coverage for the powerful states to project their power over Internet governance.

Conclusion

The global governance of the Internet is a continued subject of debate. The Internet space is a large area which incorporates many sectors which require an approach from multiple sides. The multi-stakeholder approach has been widely used to explain how Internet governance is managed. However, the paper clearly demonstrates the arguments that demonstrate the ineffectiveness of such an approach to global governance and clearly dispute multiple management of the Internet. The actors such as private companies, civil society and global institutions which claimed to equally manage the Internet space are all subjects of state’s control. The sovereign state possesses the power to alter the regulatory and legislative environment where private companies operate in order to satisfy national interests. Similarly, civil society is obscured from the participation in the Internet governances or denied access to cyber resources. The Internet has become a tool for the sovereign states to project their power and maintain its authority.

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