The internet revolution

Back in the heady days of the late-1990s, when the internet was going to take over the world (even if you had to dial-up to access it and could only ‘surf ’ at an anaemic 56 kilobits per second) idealists claimed that it would break down national and ideological barriers, bring an end to authoritarianism and provide sundry other liberty-enhancing benefits.

By now, therefore, we should have witnessed great people’s revolutions in North Korea, Turkmenistan, Burma/Myanmar, Equatorial Guinea and many other places where debate on anything more controversial than the merits of the local teenage music celebrities is carried out in whispers, if at all, rather than in public squares or online forums.

In those countries, most people still lack even limited internet access: their governments prefer to maintain control the old-fashioned way by restricting access to all information. Allowing people to use the internet is therefore a major policy no-no.

Yet even in many countries that have embraced the information revolution, many governments only want it to go so far and have sought different ways to impose controls – often with technology supplied by companies in the ‘free world’. Sometimes, their aims are legitimate; when the internet is used to plan or perpetrate major crimes, for example.

But often the action seems to reflect governmental self-interest. In liberal Malaysia, for example, if you are deemed to have insulted the King or the national religion online the authorities have indicated that anti-terror legislation could be invoked against the perpetrator. That may result in indefinite detention without trial.

And there’s nothing unique about Malaysia.

China has its ‘great firewall’ (albeit one with many holes) while in America and Europe, there is recurring pressure to step up monitoring and control, too. For example, in regulations stipulating how long internet service providers must keep information on their customers’ browsing habits – information that may be used in evidence at a later date, perhaps.

Far from heralding a utopian new era, governments of all hues have sought different ways to restrict the power and influence of the internet. They may be fighting a losing battle, but it will be some time before a victor can be declared.

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