Biden’s Uphill Battle to Hold the Internet Together
The U.S. and China pitch the rest of the world on very different visions of the web.
Almost a decade ago as vice president, Joe Biden believed that the internet was at an inflection point. In a 2011 speech he warned other countries that they wouldn’t be able to reap the internet’s economic benefits if they undermined its openness by imposing national-level censorship rules and other technical roadblocks. “There isn’t a separate economic internet, political internet, and social internet,” he said. “They are all one.”
When Biden becomes president in January, he’ll confront the reality that some key nations haven’t heeded his warning. National policies in various countries have reduced the range of globally shared websites and platforms while adding obstacles to online communication and commerce. Officials who served with Biden in the Obama administration expect that he will push the vision he laid out then, but some experts who track the internet believe it may already be too late.