As the world gets deeper in dramatic structural changes, the one universal tool – the internet – has become a new kind of trench warfare
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/authors/matthieu-buge/
By Matthieu Buge, who has worked on Russia for the magazine l’Histoire, the Russian film magazine Séance, and as a columnist for Le Courrier de Russie. He is the author of the book Le Cauchemar russe (‘The Russian Nightmare’)
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/authors/matthieu-buge/
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/authors/matthieu-buge/
© Getty Images/Leonid Sorokin
[RT] A
few years after the beginning of the French Revolution, France
underwent the ‘thermidorian reaction’. Policies became more moderate,
the bourgeoisie came back to power. But nowadays, most historians use
the expression to describe the moment when a radical revolutionary
regime is replaced by a more conservative one, almost heading back to
the pre-revolutionary period.
The internet has been a revolution
in every country of our increasingly cyberized planet. Information is
coming in from all over the world, communication is instant, new
business models emerge almost daily, a nobody can become an influential
personality in an instant (whether through intelligent podcasts or
platforms like OnlyFans), access to books and ideas is unlimited, etc.
And every country underwent (or is currently undergoing) its
cyber-thermidorian moment. However, one shouldn’t forget that, not
surprisingly, reports on internet censorship are written by Western
organizations, such as Freedom House with its dubious links to the US
State Department. Thus, the most famous internet censorship system is
the Great Firewall of China, which is regularly criticized by the
so-called liberal democracies. Iran’s temporary internet blackouts and
Russia’s sovereign internet laws are also common targets of the West.
What
is important is to look at the timeline. China is certainly the country
that experienced the strongest and swiftest thermidorian reaction,
creating basically a closed but coherent ‘Chinese internet’. The Chinese
authorities seem to have quickly abided by Deng Xiaoping’s saying: “If you open the window, both fresh air and flies will be blown in.”
They launched the Great Firewall project as far back as 1998. Iran
organizes blackouts during social troubles. Russia’s laws were passed
accordingly along with the growing tensions with the West.
Liberal
democracies, skating along on their undeserved ‘free countries’
reputation and thanks to their mastery of propaganda, have been able for
decades now to denounce online censorship. Because their system is
extremely sophisticated and in order to maintain their public image,
they had to be cautious. However, their own thermidorian reaction really
appeared during the last five years. Gradually, certainly, but they
definitely tightened the screw each time their ideal world was shaken:
Reactions to the Covid crisis management, shifting climate change
theories, the Twitter Files revelations, Hunter Biden’s computer, woke
ideology being challenged, Russia’s operation in Ukraine being explained
(one can only think about RT being banned from absolutely everywhere in
the West), discussions about the physical makeup of Brigitte Macron’s
nether regions, and now, the outraged caused by the Epstein files.
The two key moments are certainly the Covid crisis and the Epstein
scandal. The Covid policies appeared to many (not the majority, indeed,
but dissent was real) to be just a vast manipulation to put populations
under constant and total surveillance. And it could have lasted for
years if Russia didn’t flip the script when it entered Ukraine. It’s
just my humble opinion, but Russia deserves a Nobel Prize in medicine
for ending this madness. The crisis shifted from dystopian to more
traditional. The Covid management experience failed.
The Epstein
scandal exposes the Western elites as a bunch of corrupt degenerates –
another nail in the coffin of their populations’ faith in their system.
Now, most liberal democracies, especially in Europe, are fostering
tighter regulations of social media networks (the main argument being
the fight against pedophilia). There has been for two years a verbal
fight between Elon Musk and Brussels, but now Paris even raided the
French offices of X and summoned Musk to appear at hearings.
All
countries, not just China, Iran, and Russia, have their own reasons to
implement internet censorship. Political, geopolitical, but also
ideological. The means are also specific to each country. For example,
while there’s been a rise in people being arrested for politically
incorrect online speech in the UK, the French specialty is a bit
different: Tax audits targeting people who speak their mind on social
media. In all countries, harsh policies are being implemented against
social media, VPNs, and so on. Since the First Amendment is king in the
US, Americans are certainly the people who enjoy the greatest freedom
online. But we always need to keep in mind that the Overton window
concept works anyway, always, everywhere, unconsciously. An astonishing
poll by YouGov recently showed that the vast majority of Europeans are
in favor of a ban on X if the platform doesn’t follow the EU’s rules.
Self-censorship seems to play a tremendous role in the
cyber-thermidorian reaction.
While our generation grew up with a
relatively free internet, the next one will apparently grow up among
cyber-clusters, with their own social media networks (think about
China’s WeChat, Japan’s Line, Russia’s MAX… the EU’s nothing so far as
they are behaving like children), no VPNs, and where reality is depicted
in completely different ways according to the geographic sphere of
influence they move through. Without any way to get nuances and fathom a
balanced understanding of their environment. The internet unchained
people in some way. Until this tool stopped being the main promoter of
Western ‘values’. Now, like it or not, the unipolar world is being
challenged, and the internet is getting chained. Everywhere. That’s
trench warfare all right.