In 1998, Bill Clinton, US president, spoke about the “revolutionary democratising potential” of the internet. This year his wife Hillary, secretary of state, gave a more downbeat speech on internet freedom. Standing in a museum that displays chunks of the Berlin Wall, she lamented: “Even as networks spread to nations around the globe, virtual walls are cropping up in place of visible walls.”
The young internet appealed to entrepreneurs and investors who wanted to be ethical as well as profitable. As the innocents at Google put it, “don’t be evil”. But the hope that the new technology would be an inherently liberal force has been shaken by the relative ease with which authoritarian governments have managed to control it.
Consider some recent examples. When Google left China (sort of) in protest at genuine government censorship and surveillance, its western peers did not follow. A journalist arrested and tortured in Iran is suing Nokia Siemens Networks in a US court over alleged provision of surveillance technology to the Iranian government. Threatened with a ban from India and some Gulf states, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is debating allowing those governments access to customers’ encrypted e-mails. Analyst downgrades have followed, in part from the fear that other countries may follow suit.