The Dream of a Global Internet Is Dead
By: Will Oremus
Tags: Trump, Pattern Matching, Tiktok, Apps

The Dream of a Global Internet Is Dead

Trump’s ban on Chinese apps is part of a tide of digital nationalism

Welcome back to Pattern Matching, OneZero’s weekly newsletter that puts the week’s most compelling tech stories in context.

“The dream behind the Web,” wrote the person who invented it, “is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished.”

That was Tim Berners-Lee, writing in 1997, eight years after he proposed the idea that would become the World Wide Web. He went on: “There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our interactions was on line, we could then use computers to help us analyse it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together.”

At the time, Berners-Lee felt that the first part of his dream — a common global information space — had been largely realized. The second part — that much of real life would move online, such that computers could analyze and reshape it — had “yet to happen,” he conceded, though there were “signs and plans that make us confident.”

Today, we know that the second part of his dream was realized as well, though not necessarily in the ways he had hoped. Distinctions between real life and the internet have collapsed, especially since the pandemic, and as a result our interactions have become more trackable and analyzable. That tracking and analysis, however, has turned out to be more often a tool of manipulation, division, and exploitation than of cooperation for the greater good.

Meanwhile, the first part of Berners-Lee’s dream has quietly eroded even as the second has come to dark fruition. The open Web, as a universal venue for interaction, has been gradually supplanted by self-contained platforms controlled by giant corporations, like iOS, Android, Facebook, Amazon.

While those platforms were never quite universal, until recently they offered roughly the same experience to users across much of the globe, with China and to a lesser extent Russia as glaring exceptions, among a few others. Now, even that semblance of common ground is rapidly fracturing, as nationalist political movements around the world begin to stake out their own digital territories and erect barriers to foreign platforms. For the first time, that includes the United States.

The Pattern

Digital nationalism hits home.

Undercurrents

Under-the-radar trends, stories, and random anecdotes worth your time

TikTok proved that a social app can transcend cultural barriers, tech veteran Eugene Wei argued in his blog Remains of the Day, even as it ran up against governmental ones. After all, it wouldn’t have drawn such scrutiny in the United States if it hadn’t been the first Chinese-owned app to crack the market in the first place. Wei’s in-depth post is a fascinating dive into TikTok’s history from a product standpoint, and shows how the same interest-based algorithm can transcend disparate cultural contexts. Related, and also worthwhile, is Eva Dou’s Washington Post piece on why a TikTok backlash was inevitable. And for a more critical look at TikTok’s cultural influence, read Jason Parham in Wired on the particular brand of “digital blackface” that the platform seems to foster, or Tatiana Walk-Morris’s February piece on the same problem for OneZero.

tech veteran Eugene Wei argued in his blog Remains of the Day, even as it ran up against governmental ones. After all, it wouldn’t have drawn such scrutiny in the United States if it hadn’t been the first Chinese-owned app to crack the market in the first place. Wei’s in-depth post is a fascinating dive into TikTok’s history from a product standpoint, and shows how the same interest-based algorithm can transcend disparate cultural contexts. Related, and also worthwhile, is Eva Dou’s Washington Post piece on why a TikTok backlash was inevitable. And for a more critical look at TikTok’s cultural influence, read Jason Parham in Wired on the particular brand of “digital blackface” that the platform seems to foster, or Tatiana Walk-Morris’s February piece on the same problem for OneZero. Google’s smart speakers were secretly listening for smoke alarms and other “critical sounds” for some users who hadn’t signed up for any such service, the company admitted after a Reddit post exposed the practice. While the O.P. found it “pretty rad,” Google told Protocol’s Janko Roettgers that the feature — recently developed for its Nest Aware home-security subscription service — was accidentally enabled in a software update for some non-subscribers and has since been retracted. Google recently took a 6% state in the home security company ADT, and as Roettgers notes, this hints at how Google could use its Home speakers to gain an edge in that market. It is also, as the Guardian’s Alex Hern observed, a bit disconcerting to know that “Google Home can be silently updated to turn the mic on based on undisclosed auditory cues.” Cue the conspiracy theories, and while we’re on the topic…

and other “critical sounds” for some users who hadn’t signed up for any such service, the company admitted after a Reddit post exposed the practice. While the O.P. found it “pretty rad,” Google told Protocol’s Janko Roettgers that the feature — recently developed for its Nest Aware home-security subscription service — was accidentally enabled in a software update for some non-subscribers and has since been retracted. Google recently took a 6% state in the home security company ADT, and as Roettgers notes, this hints at how Google could use its Home speakers to gain an edge in that market. It is also, as the Guardian’s Alex Hern observed, a bit disconcerting to know that “Google Home can be silently updated to turn the mic on based on undisclosed auditory cues.” Cue the conspiracy theories, and while we’re on the topic… People who share misinformation and conspiracy theories actually do care about the truth, according to a report from the nonprofit First Draft. In fact, they’re hyper-concerned with truth — they just think it’s being hidden from them. The report highlights the different results surfaced by searching for “coronavirus facts,” which turns up official sites from authoritative sources, and “coronavirus truth,” which leads down conspiratorial rabbit holes. Understanding the different ways that people seek information, and the assumptions they bring to that search, is crucial to any effort to address the spread of misinformation online, the report concludes.

Headlines of the Week

For Whom the Tok Ticks

— Ian Bogost, The Atlantic

Scientists rename human genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates

— James Vincent, The Verge

New bill would prohibit the president from nuking a hurricane

— Maddie Stone, Washington Post

Don’t push your slower friends down in an attempt to save yourself from a bear, advises National Parks Service

— County 10 (Fremont County, Wy.)

Thanks for reading Pattern Matching. Reach me with tips and feedback by responding to this post on the web, via Twitter direct message at @WillOremus, or by email at oremus@medium.com.