{"id":579,"date":"2025-02-15T11:43:57","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T11:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/?p=579"},"modified":"2025-02-15T11:43:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T11:43:58","slug":"digital-cyber-revolution-authoritarianism-cyber-sovereignty-and-reassertion-of-state-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/2025\/02\/15\/digital-cyber-revolution-authoritarianism-cyber-sovereignty-and-reassertion-of-state-control\/","title":{"rendered":"DIGITAL CYBER REVOLUTION: AUTHORITARIANISM, CYBER SOVEREIGNTY AND REASSERTION OF STATE CONTROL<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

International law has generally recognized that, \u201c sovereignty is perhaps the most fundamental [principle]. From [which] emerges, inter alia, notions of non-intervention; prescriptive, enforcement, and adjudicative jurisdiction; sovereign immunity; due diligence; and territorial integrity.\u201d A sovereign state thus maintains the right \u201cto conduct its affairs without outside interference. Between independent states , respect for territorial sovereignty is an essential foundation of international relations.\u201d Extending this principal of independent sovereign control to the ephemeral territory of cyber space, Russia and China have actively advocated for cyber sovereignty\u2014\u201cthe idea that states should be permitted to manage and contain their own Internet without external interference.\u201d Advocates of cyber sovereignty seek to control cyberspace within their perceived territoriality because they too understand \u201cinformation as a weapon . . . [thereby making] censorship . . . a legitimate matter of national security . . . [and] [d]igital information warfare . . . a legible threat.\u201d However, this is much easier said than done\u2014\u201c[w]hereas sovereignty is an inherently territorial concept, cyberspace connects states in ways that seem to dilute territoriality,\u201d making it difficult to draw boundaries on where one state\u2019s control should end and where another\u2019s begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States\u2019 stance on sovereignty in international law has been traditionally weak\u2014 holding that sovereignty, rather than being a primary rule of international law, is a foundational principal upheld through other codified rules of international law, such as non-intervention or the prohibition on use of force. In a similar vein, it has refrained from applying sovereignty to cyberspace. Rather, as cyber territory has blurred borders, the United States has capitalized on its position as a technological superpower in order to export its political norms and maintain its position as a global hegemony. The United States\u2019 refusal to impose international limits on cyberspace has been motivated in large part by what some have dubbed the proliferation of \u201c\u2018data colonialism\u2019 by Western companies and governments.\u201d Furthermore, the United States and its global allies have taken a strong ideological stance against cyber sovereignty on the grounds that \u201c[t]hese advances in authoritarian innovation should provoke concerns for democracies for reasons of security, human rights, and overall competitiveness.\u201d However, this characterization of cyber sovereignty, or a lack thereof, makes it incredibly difficult to find a State guilty of violating another\u2019s sovereignty through cyber activity because it requires an internationally wrongful act to occur in violation of a more stringent primary rules. Internationally wrongful acts are even more difficult to prove when respecting sovereignty is not deemed a primary rule in and of itself, as they consist of two elements: \u201c[f]irst, there must be a breach of a State\u2019s legal obligation through either commission or omission. Second, the act in question must be attributable to the State concerned pursuant to the law of State responsibility.\u201d The cyber sphere complicates both the notion of obligation and attribution where the domain of the sovereign is unclear and the anonymization and complexity of cyber attacks allows attribution of actions to be obfuscated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the criticality of the cyber sphere to national infrastructure becomes more evident, however, the majority of U.N. Member States have moved away from the United States\u2019 point of view \u201cgenerally agree[ing] that cyberspace is subject to the principles of sovereignty and jurisdiction as well as prohibitions on intervention in the affairs of other States and the use of force.\u201d China was the first to champion cyber sovereignty in 2010, releasing a White Paper explaining the need to control the information exchanged within its borders as \u201can issue that concerns national economic prosperity and development, state security and social harmony, state sovereignty and dignity, and the basic interests of the people.\u201d In large part, this was a response to U.S. dominance in cyberspace. As home to many of the largest tech corporations and the leader in developing new information technology, the United States has long been the most dominant power, utilizing \u201cinternational law to maintain [its] superior position and to prevent other states from engagingin what it perceives to be disruptive activities. . . . The [United States] has consistently [sought] to resist the creation of new legal constraints\u2014such as those proposed by the Chinese and the Russians\u2014that [might] limit American cyber capabilities.\u201d The United States has staunchly opposed the Sino-Russian view of cyber sovereignty, arguing that it is merely, \u201caway to justify practices deemed unacceptable in many democracies, such as tight control of [I]nternet gateways or the censorship of political content online .\u201d The debate over cyber sovereignty thus ultimately evolved to represent \u201cnot merely an academic exercise in legal interpretation but also\u2014if not primarily\u2014about trying to reconcile colliding strategic interests and clashing ideological interests and clashing ideological worldview.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia and China have reinforced this dichotomy, maintaining that the debate around cyber sovereignty is the result of \u201cbalancing the benefits of globalization and the digital revolution between the developed and developing countries.\u201d Their fear is that without the acceptance of cyber sovereignty as an international legal norm, nations with \u201cthe most advanced and original technology,\u201d such as the United States, are likely to, \u201cintervene and control the cyber-territory of any other nation . . . [because they have] establish[ed] a more advanced electronic \/ cyber \/ virtual national sovereignty than . . . other, less-advanced nations.\u201d As a result, \u201c[t]he sovereignty debate has been most active in the realm of national security, where United Nations member states have for years debated norms governing cyber espionage and cyber warfare.\u201d Recognition of cyber sovereignty, as proposed by Russia and China, would thus require states to \u201c refrain from using information and communication networks \u2018to interfere in the internal affairs of other States\u2019 . . . [to] ensure that other states cannot exploit a dominant position . . . [and] to undermine States\u2019 right to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

independent control of information and communications technology goods and services, or to threaten their political, economic and social security,\u201d and recognize that it may be deemed necessary by any state under its own mandate of sovereignty \u201cto make certain restrictions . . . for the protection of national security or of public order . . . or of public health or morals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sino-Russian approach to cyber sovereignty provides a flexible solution to states seeking to assert control; \u201cthey argue that countries should be exercising [cyber sovereignty] but do not present a specific plan for how to do so . . . allow[ing] countries to pick a repressive toolbox that suits them best\u2014ranging from draconian censorship laws to network shutdowns.\u201d \u201cIn places like Russia, China and in many states in the Middle East, [where] an open cyberspace is (rightly) considered a threat to existing governing structures,\u201d such a broad based approach to cyber sovereignty is often characterized as an opportunity for abuse aimed at the political opposition, however, the sole motivation of the movement should not be equated with these repressive tendencies. Although cyber sovereignty does in fact pose concerns of human rights violations with regards to freedom of expression, it also provides nations with the ability to combat the chaos arising within their borders as a result of social media and new information technologies. India provides one of the most notorious examples, where rumors spread through services such as WhatsApp and Facebook led to public lynchings and acts of extreme violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To execute cyber sovereignty, China has put in place several laws restricting freedom of speech which are or may be subject to human rights offences and even notoriously blocking tech giants such as Facebook from accessing users in its territory. Where social media companies have sought to successfully enter the Chinese market, they have been forced to comply with the state\u2019s standards of conduct. LinkedIn, for example, was only able to gain tacit approval from the government by demonstrating willingness to \u201cplay by Chinese rules on expression . . . [and] relinquishing 7 percent of its local operation to two well-connected Chinese venture capital firms.\u201d In 2015, China\u2019s National Security Law was adopted, \u201csetting an expansive definition of national security that outlaw[ed] threats to China\u2019s government, sovereignty and national unity as well as its economy, society and cyber and space interests.\u201d Soon after, it adopted a controversial counterterrorism law restricting \u201cthe right of media to report on details of terror attacks, including a provision that media and social media cannot report on details of terror activities that might lead to imitation nor show scenes that are \u2018cruel and inhuman.\u2019\u201d The law went so far as to impose additional proactive obligations \u201con telecommunications and Internet service operators . . . [requiring that] they . . . proactively monitor their networks for terrorism information and disclose such information to the authorities.\u201d More recently, the Cyber Security Law adopted in 2017 expanded the institutions and legal tools at the government\u2019s disposal \u201cto monitor and control information disseminated online.\u201d In essence, the Chinese government has sought to ensure its domestic sovereignty against foreign actors by restricting access and censoring information wherever it is deemed to pose a threat\u2014\u201cno website or social media account is allowed to provide news service on the internet without the Cyberspace Administration of China\u2019s permission[and] internet users are blocked from foreign search engines, news websites, and social media platforms by the Great Firewall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia in turn has expanded formal Internet censorship in the past few years, requiring \u201cRussian Internet service providers (ISPs) . . . to store six months of metadata and [imposing] laws forcing international companies to store Russian users data on Russian servers, so the government can have access to it if needed.\u201d Some have gone so far as to say that, \u201cRussia has actively mimicked China in its implementation of cyber sovereignty.\u201d Similar to China, Russia has provided for an oversight body, Roskomnadzor, to actively monitor and block media content that it finds disruptive as well as that regarded as demonstrating\u201c \u2018blatant disrespect\u2019 for the state, the authorities, the public, the Russian flag or the constitution.\u201d In 2019, Russia further formalized its desire for censorship by putting in place a \u201cfake news\u201d and \u201cInternet insults\u201d law that would \u201callow it to target individuals and websites for such nondescript crimes as spreading \u2018fake news\u2019 and \u2018disrespecting\u2019 state symbols or figures.\u201d Later that year, the Kremlin put in place a Sovereign Internet law as well, \u201ctightening state control over the global network . . . [and] aim[ing] to route Russian web traffic and data through points controlled by state authorities and to build a national Domain Name System to allow the Internet to continue working even if Russia [were to be] cut off from foreign infrastructure.\u201d Most recently, the overbearing nature of Russia\u2019s expanding cyber controls has been felt in Moscow as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. In response to threats of an exponential epidemic, the Kremlin imposed a digital tracking system that requires all residents of Moscow, fourteen years and older, to \u201cregister on a government website, download an app on their smartphones . . . declare a route and a purpose [if they want to go anywhere] and then [wait for] a QR code, which authorities can track . . . the app has access to the user\u2019s mobile information . . . includ[ing] calls, location, storage, camera, and network details.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing nations, particularly those with authoritarian regimes, have largely followed in Russia and China\u2019s footsteps, imposing their own cyber governance measures in an attempt to regain control from foreign private actors in this domain. Even smaller countries such as Kazakhstan have passed legislation as a part of their National Security laws that allow \u201cthe government to shut down internet access and mobile connection during mass riots or anti-terrorist operations held in the country.\u201d Additionally, this legislation \u201cforce[s] Internet service providers and mobile operators to block their services when an official order is issued.\u201d India, which leads the world in the number of Internet shutdowns, has done so in large part because disinformation and fake news has led to public hysteria resulting in violence or riots in the country. As a result, the government has \u201ctemporarily shut down mobile networks or blocked social media apps during riots and protests, claiming that the measures were necessary to halt the flow of disinformation and incitement to violence.\u201d Sri Lanka similarly followed India\u2019s lead in March 2018 when \u201conline rumors that Muslims were trying to sterilize Sinhalese Buddhists, led a group of Buddhist men to beat a Muslim man and set fire to his shop.Extremists used Facebook to implore followers to \u2018rape without leaving an iota behind\u2019 and \u2018kill all Muslims\u2019 . . . .\u201d The Sri Lankan \u201cauthorities reacted by blocking four social media platforms that they said were amplifying hate speech.\u201d In Vietnam, the government\u2019s new cybercrime legislation requires big tech \u201cto store at least 36 months of local users\u2019 data in the country [and] bans the use of social networks to organize anti-state activities, spread false information or create difficulties for authorities.\u201d In Egypt, the government has sought to repress fake news by not only passing legislation that allows the shutdown of website \u201cdeemed to constitute a threat to national security or the economy,\u201d but will also consider, \u201csocial media accounts and blogs with over 5,000 followers . . . [as] media companies [that are] subject to stricter censorship requirements,\u201d and punish individuals found in violation of the law with jail time and monetary fines. Where the government does not itself possess the ability to impose censorship, it may enlist the help of tech giants by enacting domestic laws that require them to remove certain content as a matter of compliance. For example, Facebook released a transparency report that denotes the number of items it censors in a given country where required by law, notably restricting access to \u201citems in the UAE, all reported by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, a federal UAE government entity responsible for information technology.\u201d The restricted content was \u201creported for hate speech and was attacking members of the royal family, which is against local laws.\u201d However, many countries feel either that these companies do not go far enough in censoring and policing for false information, or take issue with the outsourcing of regulation of speech to a foreign private actor. Thus, increasingly, countries such as Singapore are considering \u201clegislation to ensure technology companies rein in online fake news and [hold] those responsible\u201d criminally liable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The need for cyber sovereignty as a means of national security and independence has even gained popularity in the West; \u201cremarkably, technological sovereignty is also of great appeal to countries that fashion themselves as cosmopolitan and internationalist alternatives to Trump\u2019s nationalist project [such as] France and Germany.\u201d Faced with growing internal and external threats online, \u201cWestern democracies are, like their authoritarian peers, seeking more control . . . merely converging with China and Russia on common fears. This leads to a shared affinity for something like . . . [a] \u2018paternalistic [I]nternet\u2019 . . . [a]nd of course, paternalism appeals to everybody.\u201d The sudden rise of populist parties and hate speech in Europe led, \u201cthe French defence minister [to announce that] she want[ed] to \u2018lower [France\u2019s] exposure to [U.S.] components\u2019 . . .[and] and Member Of Parliament (MP) from President Macron\u2019s centrist party [asked] the government if it would establish a commission on digital sovereignty.\u201d In Germany, content regulations went into effect with the NetzDG Regulation, passed in 2017, requiring ISPs to implement notice-and-action complaint procedures such that \u201cobviously illegal\u201d content would be deleted within twenty-four hours of notification. Europe, as a whole, is now considering the passage of an EU-wide Digital Services Act that would force ISP providers to take on a more active role as intermediaries and assume some degree of liability and editorial responsibility to help minimize the spread of fake news. In India, where the Constitution guarantees its citizens freedom of speech, the government has struggled to strike a balance of preserving such rights and enacting regulations that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

can preserve both the integrity of their elections and public order. At its core, \u201csovereignty conveys rights on two distinct planes or spheres . . . first in [the State\u2019s] capacity as the entity entitled to exercise control over its territory and second in its capacity to act on the international plane, representing that territory and its people.\u201d Although the Russian-Chinese push for cyber sovereignty likely originated in the states\u2019 desire to convey its rights with regards to the former capacity, as the threat to the latter has become clear through misinformation campaigns and cyber espionage, their coalition to advance such goals on an international stage has grown tremendously. As cyber speech and activities continue to echo even more loudly in real world actions, we are likely to see this call for state regulation to grow. While private actors, such as social media companies, have begun to regulate speech and monitor for misinformation to address the current gap, such entities are neither proper nor prepared to take on such a momentous task. Those that previously advocated against cyber sovereignty did so on the basis of promoting \u201cglobalization and open trade. Today, however, there are no governments that can convincingly preach further liberalization of trade in data, software or hardware. All governments, thus, are forced to choose between two options: reasserting technological sovereignty\u2014or doing nothing.\u201d As it has become abundantly clear that, for the sake of public order, action will be taken by those states that feel their national security is threatened, states that choose to do nothing risk abdicating their cyber sovereignty. Those that fail to govern themselves, will thus likely fall prey to foreign powers or private actors that step in to dictate the rules of the cyber space in their absence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an increasingly technologically driven world, the war of global political influence has moved from the real world to online. Rather than having to invade a foreign nation in order to drastically alter its social or political landscape, such goals are now capable of being accomplished subtly through disinformation campaigns, cyber interference, and strategic investments. Over the course of the last decade, the proliferation of cyber legislation around the world has sought to enhance technological sovereignty and control, both by way of regulation and infrastructural capacity, in order to insulate States from the potential harms caused by both the internal and external threats. Although the United States still houses some of the world\u2019s most influential tech giants, its brand of democracy has been threatened by the innovations that they have introduced to the world. Just as Freedom House documented a decline inglobal freedom online, Pew Research Polls found that across the majority of the twenty-seven countries they surveyed, dissatisfaction with democracy and democratic institutions was on the rise. Furthermore, the unavoidable realization that online speech unrestrained can easily result in real world harms has only furthered the cause of authoritarian regimes likeChina and Russia in leading \u201ca cohort of countries [to move] toward digital authoritarianism by embracing . . . extensive censorship and automated surveillance systems.\u201d While human rights groups have raised concerns that \u201cefforts to control speech and information are accelerating, by both governments and private actors in the form of censorship, restrictions on access, and violent acts directed against those whose views or queries are seen as somehow dangerous or wrong,\u201d few, if any, better alternatives have been proposed by democratic governments. The decline of freedom online has been acknowledged as a threat, yet the solutions proposed by democratic governments have thus far been relatively vague and ineffectual, such as that proposed by Sweden\u2014\u201cthe solutions can only be found in discussions between all stakeholders\u2014 states, civil society and companies, as well as everyone who is dependent on the internet in their everyday lives and their work.\u201d While such proposals may sound ideal, they are just that\u2014idealistic, rather than pragmatic or capable of implementation. The emphasis in democracy on extensive deliberation and public input requires time and consideration, a luxury that the quick and dirty nature of the cyber sphere does not afford. Rather threats on the Internet require decisive action, speed, and flexibility in decision making\u2014all attributes not characteristic of democratic society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without the expansive governmental powers of their authoritarian counterparts, democratic nations like the United States will not be able to maintain their position of global dominance much longer. Their attempts to compete thus far have threatened to erode the very foundations of their governing institutions\u2014freedom of speech, a capitalist economy, and balance of powers. As democracy seeks to evolve in time with the digital revolution, it is beginning to turn on itself\u2014\u201cthe irony is that more democracy\u2014ushered in by social media and the Internet, where information flows more freely than ever before\u2014is what has unmoored [democratic ] politics, and is leading us towards authoritarianism.\u201d While some have described the erosion of trust in democratic institutions as a function of the rise of populism against elite institutions, others have deemed it a function of online manipulation and misconduct. Either way, the trend against democratic governance in the digital age is clear. Whether in response to domestic shortcomings or an inability to defend against foreign foes, democratic governments must either undergo serious change or bow out of the race for global hegemony, because without a strong cyber governance structure they will soon become obsolete in the digital age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

International law has generally recognized that, \u201c sovereignty is perhaps the most fundamental [principle]. From [which] emerges, inter alia, notions of non-intervention; prescriptive, enforcement, and adjudicative jurisdiction; sovereign immunity; due diligence; and territorial integrity.\u201d A sovereign state thus maintains the right \u201cto conduct its affairs without outside interference. Between independent states , respect for territorial sovereignty is an essential foundation of international relations.\u201d Extending this principal of independent sovereign control to the ephemeral territory of cyber space, Russia and China have actively advocated for cyber sovereignty\u2014\u201cthe idea that states should…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4,7,16,12,5,9,19,18,20,3],"tags":[],"gutentor_comment":757,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observertimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}