Contesting Cyberspace and the Coming Crisis of Authority
25
increasingly empowered and free. But mobile connectivity also enhances the potential
for fi xing individual ’ s communications with precision in time and space that would
make the greatest tyrants of days past envious. For example, the latest (fourthgeneration) mobile devices are standardly equipped to include metadata about the
geolocational information of images and videos that are captured. Unwitting users
who upload them to public Web sites and social networking platforms may not realize
that the metadata can be harvested by anyone viewing the pictures and videos on
those sites and services.
Not surprisingly, regimes aiming to control popular uprisings fueled by mobile
technologies have turned to these and other methods to identify, isolate, and contain
organizers and participants. These actions, in turn, have generated fear, intense scrutiny, widespread condemnation, and often very vocal criticism of the companies who
operate the infrastructure and services and are forced or otherwise compelled in some
manner to collude with the regimes.
For example, in Egypt in 2008, one of the country ’ s largest cell phone carriers,
Vodaphone, turned over information on users who employed the service to organize
food protests. Later, in 2011, the company admitted that it had sent messages on
behalf of state security services, encouraging Egyptians to take to the streets to counter
the mass uprising in that country.
12 Both cases caused public outrage and calls for
boycotts against the company from human rights and privacy advocates. Similarly, in
a much-publicized set of squabbles, Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the
popular Blackberry device, has found itself facing demands from governments ranging
from the United Arab Emirates to India and Indonesia for access to its encrypted data
streams. In 2011, RIM agreed to implement content fi ltering on its Web browser in
response to requests made by the Indonesian government to block pornography.
13 The
controversy has brought about scrutiny into RIM ’ s mobile architecture that otherwise
would have likely never existed, pitted governments against each other, and generated
criticism of RIM itself by human rights advocates suspicious that the company has
made secret deals that violate due process and public accountability.
14 As cyberspace
grows exponentially, embedding itself deeper into our everyday lives through a greater
range of connected devices and services, the contests over the rules and protocols by
which such a complex domain is organized naturally intensify as well.
Driver 2: A Demographic Shift in Cyberspace: Next-Generation Digital Natives
The massive growth, dynamism, and penetration of digital technologies are well
known. What is less well known is that there is a major demographic shift occurring
in cyberspace as the center of gravity of cyberspace users moves from the North and
West to the South and the East. Although cyberspace was born in the United States
and other Western industrialized countries, and thus embodies many of the values of
25
increasingly empowered and free. But mobile connectivity also enhances the potential
for fi xing individual ’ s communications with precision in time and space that would
make the greatest tyrants of days past envious. For example, the latest (fourthgeneration) mobile devices are standardly equipped to include metadata about the
geolocational information of images and videos that are captured. Unwitting users
who upload them to public Web sites and social networking platforms may not realize
that the metadata can be harvested by anyone viewing the pictures and videos on
those sites and services.
Not surprisingly, regimes aiming to control popular uprisings fueled by mobile
technologies have turned to these and other methods to identify, isolate, and contain
organizers and participants. These actions, in turn, have generated fear, intense scrutiny, widespread condemnation, and often very vocal criticism of the companies who
operate the infrastructure and services and are forced or otherwise compelled in some
manner to collude with the regimes.
For example, in Egypt in 2008, one of the country ’ s largest cell phone carriers,
Vodaphone, turned over information on users who employed the service to organize
food protests. Later, in 2011, the company admitted that it had sent messages on
behalf of state security services, encouraging Egyptians to take to the streets to counter
the mass uprising in that country.
12 Both cases caused public outrage and calls for
boycotts against the company from human rights and privacy advocates. Similarly, in
a much-publicized set of squabbles, Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the
popular Blackberry device, has found itself facing demands from governments ranging
from the United Arab Emirates to India and Indonesia for access to its encrypted data
streams. In 2011, RIM agreed to implement content fi ltering on its Web browser in
response to requests made by the Indonesian government to block pornography.
13 The
controversy has brought about scrutiny into RIM ’ s mobile architecture that otherwise
would have likely never existed, pitted governments against each other, and generated
criticism of RIM itself by human rights advocates suspicious that the company has
made secret deals that violate due process and public accountability.
14 As cyberspace
grows exponentially, embedding itself deeper into our everyday lives through a greater
range of connected devices and services, the contests over the rules and protocols by
which such a complex domain is organized naturally intensify as well.
Driver 2: A Demographic Shift in Cyberspace: Next-Generation Digital Natives
The massive growth, dynamism, and penetration of digital technologies are well
known. What is less well known is that there is a major demographic shift occurring
in cyberspace as the center of gravity of cyberspace users moves from the North and
West to the South and the East. Although cyberspace was born in the United States
and other Western industrialized countries, and thus embodies many of the values of