From time to time, when not more constructively engaged, physicists indulge in bad-tempered exchanges regarding the possible existence of other universes – a so-called “multiverse”, which lies outside the bounds of empirical investigation and is therefore considered an unscientific concept by many purists. It is a hypothesis unlikely to be resolved, but it provides an approximate parallel to another, more practical theory that could begin to influence our lives within a decade.
An interesting article in Newsweek last week, by Martín Avila, CEO of Right Forge, described as “a full-service technology infrastructure”, entitled “A Second Internet is Needed for American Survival”, presented a scathing denunciation of Big Tech. “In the last six months alone, big tech has censored newspapers, deplatformed Parler and stopped the President of the United States from communicating with the American people and the World,” wrote Avila. He expressed his belief that “the tyrants of Silicon Valley” were trying to eradicate the rights proclaimed in the American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
There was nothing unique about that complaint: thousands of other people have been voicing the same grievance. Unlike them, however, Avila proposes to take concrete action to remedy the situation – in a startling and innovative way. He claims that Right Forge is already creating “an entirely self-reliant, self-contained vertical infrastructure”. By controlling all production, including physical data centres, hardware and code, they are “replatforming America”. His thesis, as the title of his article proclaims, is that it is necessary to create a second Internet to reclaim American values.
Whether or not such an enterprise amounts to the initiation of a second Internet is for pointy-headed techies to analyse; but the important point is that an idea has been generated, an aspiration formed, to break away from an online universe controlled by Big Tech. That very notion makes it almost inevitable, in a world of high technology evolving at a rate of arithmetical progression, that this will eventually happen.
It is like watching the early efforts of UKIP, derided by the sophisticated, which ultimately culminated in Brexit. A powerful combination of the provocations offered by Big Tech, the rapid evolution of the possibilities of online technology and the irrepressible desire of the human spirit to break free of constraints means that the clever money must inevitably be on Techxit.
Is it technologically possible to create a second Internet? The answer seems to be yes. In principle, all that is required would be a system running on the same TCP/IP protocol as the existing Internet, but in an isolated chamber. Inevitably, smart computers would attempt to join it on to the legacy Internet, restoring the monopoly. So, it might well be necessary to add a new convention for identification or, better still, create a new protocol that would be challenging to replicate. Since Big Tech would resent the competition, the irresistible image is of naval warfare in Nelson’s day, with grappling irons being thrown onto an enemy vessel to assist boarders.
Probably these issues would seem like teething troubles once a second Internet was up and running, with emerging technology solving problems and creating new threats, in what would likely be relentless cyber war. Even by today’s limited data, it seems perfectly possible to build a second Internet and that, in turn, opens an even bigger question: if two, why not 200, or 2,000 internets? Might the day come when there will be a multiplicity of internets, each catering for specialised interests or commercial functions? Are we heading towards the ‘Multinet’?
In that environment, regulation might become an impractical aspiration. It is interesting that the motivation for Avila’s initiative appears to be ideological rather than commercial. That is an indictment of the times and of how governments have allowed democracy to be eroded by the tech giants. It is strongly arguable that Big Tech deprived Donald Trump of the American presidency. It is beyond argument that it is repressing conservatives, Christians and all groups representative of traditional Western culture and values.
It is an axiom that open and free societies generate technical innovation and inventiveness. But so do repressive societies. Think of the ingenuity prevailing in Second World War POW camps, where the inmates, with minimal resources, learned how to forge complex identity documents, or tailor German uniforms and civilian clothes for escapees, etc. If a second Internet emerges earlier than would naturally have occurred as a consequence of technical progress, Big Tech will have been the architect of its own downfall as a result of its bullying and monopolistic practices.
Big Tech, through its own fault, is now beleaguered on several fronts. Governments want to bring it to heel, to make it pay for news garnered from other agencies, to tax it and generally recover a degree of control. Conservatives want to escape its censorship and cancel culture. The idea that Silicon Valley could, culturally and politically, marginalise and gag one half of America was never sustainable to anyone living in a world of reality – which, of course, excludes the social media billionaires.
All they were ever asked to do was provide a platform – not to police the thinking of the world’s population. But they succumbed to hubris. The cliché description of the president of the United States is “the most powerful man in the world”. Yet Big Tech silenced him: regardless of anybody’s view of Donald Trump, that should provide material for reflection to anyone who values democracy. The mounting outrage against Big Tech was summed up by Senator Ted Cruz when he asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: “Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?”
The complex network of interdependent technologies, the monopolistic arrangements, the data harvesting and storage of Big Tech means that the existing Internet will always be a toxic environment for non-woke participants. It is good that freedom of expression should be the motive inspiring attempts to create an alternative cyber environment. But establishment concepts of a second Internet appear to have the opposite priority. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and current chairman of Alphabet, its parent company, forecast last September that there would one day be at least two internets: one led by the United States, the other by China.
When the Beijing regime banned Google Search in China, the company’s response was to offer to build a customised search engine for China that would meet the stringent content requirements of a government that has excluded Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. In effect, a cyber Berlin Wall, serviced by Google, though this project was apparently subsequently abandoned. Some commentators believe the Internet will split along geographical lines, with very different regulation in different regions. That would undermine the worldwide, universal character of the Internet. In ideological terms it would represent a death blow for globalism, already in retreat on many fronts.
If enterprising American conservatives want to create an alternative Internet, they will be well advised to do so from the ground up, making a clean break with the legacy Internet: otherwise, it would be like utilising a 5G network constructed by Huawei. The concept is still in its infancy and is so ambitious and technically challenging an initiative, it seems likely there will be several false starts. But, inspirationally, the genie is out of the bottle and the eventual diversification of the Internet seems both logical and inevitable. Perhaps the Stones created a prophetic anthem in “Get Off Of My Cloud” – look out for the Multinet, coming sooner than you think.