The Future of Speech Online: International Cooperation for a Free & Open Internet

This essay explores the impact that the resurgence of sovereignty has had on freedom of online speech. I argue that, in the past few decades, the internet has undergone a radical transformation from a universal tool of free communication to one that is increasingly fragmented into national and regional siloes. While acknowledging that recent internet regulation by democratic governments has been both necessary and inevitable, I argue that the authoritarian internet model-with citizens segregated from the rest of the global internet and subject to extensive surveillance and censorship - is on the rise, presenting a real risk to the internet as we know it. In the face of this threat, the world's techno-democracies need to work together to protect the freedoms that the internet has so far made possible.