GLOBAL CYBERPOLITICS – IN YOUR LIVING ROOM

text: Mirva Salminen - Researcher Arctic Centre University of Lapland

The idea of the neutrality of technology in the face of global power struggles has been questioned for some time. Nonetheless, the ordinariness of cyberpolitics remains less understood. Yes, it involves high-profile cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure, online terrorist recruitment and fiery exchange of words between world leaders on Twitter, but also your everyday interactions on social media, ability to use digital services when needed and choice of technology and its manufacturers.

Global cyberpolitics takes place in your living room, but did you notice?

As digitalisation is intruding the structures of society ever deeper, the criticality of information and communication technologies for the functioning of society has been recognised. Cyberspace has been securitised as an object of state level security decisions, policies and administrative arrangements. It has become internationally accepted that the digital actions of a state’s opponents may justify the recourse to exceptional measures to return the balance of power. At the same time, global cyberpolitics has generally become understood as relations between states and their representatives. While the United States and China dispute over particular corporations and the actions of each other and Russia questions the effective principles of internet governance, news articles your friend shared on social media about Covid-19 only infecting particular ethnic groups may easily pass as an apolitical fact. The existence of fake news, deepfakes, troll factories and intensifying strategic influence are known facts, but may not feel like an everyday issue.

However, political influence targeting everyone in cyberspace is not restricted to the times of elections, but shapes our perceptions and actions on a daily basis.

For long, technology corporations denied their role in cyberpolitics in the name of the neutrality of technology and/ or freedom of speech. It was stated that technology in itself was not good or bad, but what people chose to do with it. Yet, by deciding not to intervene in hate speech, dissemination of disinformation or denial of historical facts, global social media giants took a political decision for which they are gradually becoming accountable for. Freedom of speech is not an absolute right but needs to be balanced against the realisation of other human rights. Similarly, non-governmental organisations and consumers are gradually picking up the questions of corporate social and environmental responsibility related to the extraction of raw materials for ICT and the use of developing countries as disposal sites for electronics. Consumer decisions are political decisions alike.

At the supranational level, and alongside becoming a cybersecurity actor, the European Union is creating itself room in cyberpolitics as a regulator of the single market, a facilitator of responsible digital innovations, as well as a patron of privacy and other fundamental rights. However, it also reaffirms the contract as the primary means to constitute the relationship between a consumer and a service provider with particular legal effects. Thus, it cannot affect what you choose to share, opt in for or opt out from. At the international level, the United Nations has been investigating digitalisation and cybersecurity for over two decades, but only last year corporations and civil society representatives entered the discussion in the General Assembly’s First Committee and highlighted the importance of human aspects of cybersecurity. The human aspects entail political influence, both from top-down and from bottom-up. #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements serve as prime examples of the latter. Pressing the like button may not have much instant influence, but channelling support through a number of channels at best empowers actors to act against injustice in the long run.

In global cyberpolitics, you are not merely an object whose perceptions and opinions can be affected through information campaigns or whose ability to act can be restricted through a denial of service attack or ransomware.

You are a political actor and influencer alongside states, corporations, NGOs and other actors – whether you recognise this role or not.

The intensifying responsiblisation of individuals for cybersecurity, for example, in discourse on digital skills as civic skills highlights the importance of acknowledging this role. Sharing a video clip online may seem harmless, but still lead to liability if causing a detriment.

Mirva Salminen - Researcher Arctic Centre University of Lapland