Are we likely to see a 'splinternet'?

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I hope not.

Just noticed this story on BBC News:

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he wants a “clean” internet.

What he means by that is he wants to remove Chinese influence, and Chinese companies, from the internet in the US.

But critics believe this will bolster a worrying movement towards the breaking up of the global internet.

The so called “splinternet” is generally used when talking about China, and more recently Russia.

The idea is that there’s nothing inherent or pre-ordained about the internet being global.

For governments that want to control what people see on the internet, it makes sense to take ownership of it.

The Great Firewall of China is the best example of a nation putting up the internet equivalent of a wall around itself. You won’t find a Google search engine or Facebook in China.

What people didn’t expect was that the US might follow China’s lead.

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It already exists though. China is a separate internet entity by itself. Russia isolates parts of its infrastructure from the world as well. And there are various country-specific communities that have smaller local networks (united by using a single ISP).

But it does seem like the world more and more wants to have only local networks.

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