Digitalisation and Human Rights In the shadow of COVID19, China seeks to change the internet Online Article (16 April 2020) As Liberal International has previously pointed out, decisions that risk re-shaping the internet as we know it are progressing while the world is preoccupied with containing the spread of the coronavirus. LI has previously raised the issue of the sale of the domain .org, which would risk the communications channels of human rights organisations and NGO’s from around the world. However, this is unfortunately not the only process underway to change communications. In cooperation with Huawei and a few other states, China is developing an alternative model of the internet as we know it. The regulation and governance of the internet today is global and based on a multilateral, loose model where no one actor has complete control. It is an interaction between international organisations, governments, companies, and civil society. China, and several other countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia, have long worked to change this into a governance structure that is easier for them to control. The model currently being developed by China and Huawei, called New IP, would instead build on so-called cyber sovereignty. This would give governments much larger control, not only over content online but also to who gets network access in the first place. This would allow them to stop dissidents and activists from accessing the internet at all, instead of censoring their content retroactively. Instead of the global internet, we see today, we would see several national internets under the control of their respective governments. The decision on the future of the internet is ultimately taken by governments at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Liberals, and others who value the internet as a medium where individuals can reach out and information be spread despite the wishes of autocratic governments, must take action to ensure it is not abandoned. We see governments today taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to extend surveillance and control over their citizens’ lives. In China’s vision of the future internet, this is the default, not the exception.
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