Last week we noted how telecom backbone provider Cogent had decided to “punish Putin” for slaughtering Ukrainian civilians by severing the company’s transit routes to Russia. Cogent insisted that sanctions and an “uncertain security situation” made it “impossible for Cogent to continue to provide you with service.”
While the goal is usually to apply pressure on the public to oust a dictator or kleptocrat, historically this form of pressure doesn’t always work all that well. In large part because the country you’re pressuring doesn’t really adhere to any kind of democratic norm, so the brunt of bearing the pain falls on the shoulders of ordinary and often powerless citizens, not wealthy kleptocrats.
One of Cogent’s justifications was that it didn’t want its infrastructure used to launch propaganda or denial of service attacks. But again, while the company has the prerogative to make ethical decisions, it’s not entirely clear the move does much more than hurt ordinary Russians by limiting access to independent information and services/tools beneficial to activists and reformers:
Following in Cogent’s lead, Lumen (formerly Centurylink) has also announced its intention to exit Russia. And again, groups and experts were quick to point out this wouldn’t have quite the impact companies seem to think:
“Disconnecting Russia from the global Internet means leaving Russian people only with state propaganda that is telling them that Ukrainian people are their enemies. This will silence the antiwar voices and it will hurt Ukraine,” said Natalia Krapiva, a digital rights attorney with the Internet freedom group Access Now.
Putin has spent years publicly stating he envisions a future Russian splinternet severed from the rest of the world. The goal: restricted access to independent information, easier surveillance, and easier distribution of propaganda. So recent events have numerous organizations, like the Internet Society, urging for a bit of reflection and caution in the space:
We must not ease the path for those who hate the Internet and its ability to empower people. We must fight the suppression of the Internet. This means making sure connectivity does not stop for anyone. It means ensuring that strong encryption, which protects ordinary communications, but also allows political discourse in the face of censorship, is always available. It means making sure the critical properties of the Internet are not undermined by legislation, no matter how well-meaning. It means making interconnections cheap and easy and ubiquitous, so that all networks are reliable and robust systems that can be made from unreliable parts. It means dedicating ourselves to ensuring that the Internet is for everyone.
The severing of key transit routes might feel good for those powerlessly watching the horrors in Ukraine, though it risks giving Putin something he’s been dreaming of for years: a state-controlled alternative to the real Internet. From there, all of these problems get worse.
