The Four Internets of COVID-19: The digital-political responses to COVID-19 and what this means for the post-crisis Internet

Abstract

Digital responses around the world to the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the acceleration in Internet governance trend towards authoritarianism in the digital-political responses to crisis and false trade-off decisions made by governments between privacy and public health. This paper investigates the digital-political responses to COVID-19 in the global contexts of 'four internets'; the authoritarian Internet, the bourgeois European Internet, the commercial American Internet, and the propaganda Internet of state and non-state actors. We then explore the possible responses to the post-COVID-19 Internet, as well as the implications of geo-political Internet trends for crisis response groups and organizations.