A completely free and open global web. This beautiful vision is increasingly challenged by the digital strategies of authoritarian states, in particular Russia and China. A specialist in the geopolitics of technology and Russia, Ifri associate researcher Julien Nocetti dissects the global battle that is taking place quietly behind our screens.
L’Express: Europe, China, United States… States sometimes have very divergent ways of thinking about their digital sovereignty. What impact does this have on the face of the global internet?
Julien Nocetti: There are two basic trends. On the one hand, the vision generally held by OECD countries, with the emphasis placed on the openness of the Internet, its interoperability, and the benefits brought by the digital revolution. It is supported by multilateral institutions and is very consistent with the nature of the initial Internet project which was to free itself from borders, whatever they may be. It has long been in direct competition with the vision of authoritarian states, in particular Russia and China, even if these two countries realize their vision of digital sovereignty in different ways. In China, from the construction of the Internet network, there was a desire for total control of digital infrastructures and data flows leaving China. I put aside Hong Kong, which for a certain time may have been a digital “border post” to the outside world. From the start, China wanted a completely sealed digital space. The logic that prevails in Russia differs a little but it is starting to match that of China.
In the past, was there a certain freedom given to digital players in Russia?
Very clearly. In the second half of the 1990s, parliamentary debates were held on whether or not to establish control over the nascent Russian Internet. The choice was made not to impose strict Chinese-style control. This freedom lasted for years – the digital public sphere which then emerged was perceived by the authorities as a convenient decompression chamber while public freedoms in “physical” life were shrinking. The turning point occurred when Vladimir Putin returned to power in 2012. At that time, the Arab Spring had shown the emancipatory potential of social networks. Russia is then moving more and more clearly towards digital authoritarianism, structured by legal texts. This control, under the cover of laws against terrorism or child protection for example, has only increased since.
In recent years, more specifically, what has Vladimir Putin put in place to more tightly control the Russian internet?
The real turning point occurred at the start of the 2020 decade. The cycle started with the Covid pandemic and then the invasion of Ukraine allowed Russia to test different control tools, notably facial recognition technologies. Today, these link the country’s major urban centers, starting with Moscow. There are facial recognition cameras in some of the country’s schools, to check the behavior of teachers and students, and the way they view the war. This is the subject of close cooperation between national players like Ntechlab and Chinese companies like Huawei and Dahua.
This qualifies Russian technological sovereignty since there is a strong dependence on Chinese tools! But there is an accelerated technologization of digital control practices in Russia. The other shift that we observed, around the same period, was increased control of digital infrastructure in Russia. Until then, the emphasis was on content control – what the Russians call the information sphere. The “Sovereign RuNet” project, as it was voted on at the end of 2019, however places a lot of emphasis on infrastructure. The objective is to make the Russian digital sphere waterproof, for example via the proliferation of technical boxes called “TSPU”, who will play the role of border guards for data passing from Russian territory to abroad and vice versa. These boxes are closely controlled by the Russian authorities, starting with the FSB. The Kremlin’s objective is to achieve total control of data circulating in Russia, but also of that leaving the country. This changes the situation because until now, notably thanks to the Russian diaspora, we had a country which exchanged information relatively easily despite state censorship.
How advanced is Russia in AI?
Until the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the AI strategy was mainly civil – read commercial – supported by one of the major players in the Russian economy, the Sberbank banking group. He was identified as the national champion of AI and through him, most of the major projects of the Russian AI plan were carried out. As in other countries, the issue of AI was naturally associated with the issue of producing brains which fuel start-ups and the economic fabric of the country but also with the issue of modernizing the semi-automatic sector. -drivers who have suffered the full brunt of the post-Soviet transition. The situation changed with the invasion of Ukraine.
Far from evolving towards an ultra-technological engagement, with autonomous robots and locally produced drones, Russia instead found itself digging trenches and using artillerymen. This questions the official strategy which was to automate two thirds of the Russian army’s equipment by 2025… And if AI still figures in the Russian army’s major projects, the question of the financial means associated with this objective arises. We should undoubtedly distance ourselves from the hypothesis of a Russian army which could, thanks to AI, have an advantage in the Ukrainian theater. It remains well behind the United States and Europe.
Have Russian “informational warfare” strategies evolved?
The uninhibited use of information weapons remains a vector of action favored by Russia. It is a very convenient way to stay below the threshold of open war, with little financial and human costs incurred. And this allows Moscow to establish a balance of power that is relatively favorable to it while in conventional terms, Russia has resources significantly inferior to those of NATO.
Practicing disinformation and subversion so brazenly presents advantages for Russia on both a tactical and symbolic level. Because in return, we Europeans, like the Americans, who are targeted by this Russian strategy, we develop a rhetoric of threat at every moment of potential tension. At each election, we fear threats of subversion. But this must not make us forget the reasons for dissatisfaction in our own societies.
With the digital policies of countries like Russia, but also China, is the idea of a common global internet shattered?
The idea of a common “free and interoperable” internet is naturally called into question. However, there is no clear break: gradually, we have seen the construction of very different digital models, competing architectures. This is also seen at more targeted levels. In Kashmir, Sudan, Iran and Cameroon, there are recurring voluntary and localized internet shutdowns that are ordered. Some actors seek to deprive entire populations of access, which calls into question ultimately the idea of universal access.
How are censorship practices evolving in the digital space?
Censorship is no longer limited to blocking access to this or that website but also to distracting Internet users from fundamental political and civic issues. Censorship practices are evolving from a purely legal aspect to something much more psychological. The goal is to make a population politically apathetic. This is observed in Russia even if some windows of digital resistance still remain. Alexeï Navalny had clearly shown that studied uses of digital technology could lead to sustained demands. But overall, the Russian population has been distracted from political debates by this online censorship. This is also observed in China even if, there again, scattered strategies of resistance to this censorship remain. But it is becoming more and more difficult to circumvent, access to VPNs in particular is reduced in these countries.
How are the influence strategies that certain players can pursue in the digital space evolving?
Some artificial intelligence applications are changing the game here, with all the possibilities for voice, textual content and image falsification that it offers. We are still far from the myth of deepfakes which would swing votes. But in the hands of malicious actors, whether state or mafia, this possibility of massive falsification can blur perceptions of a social crisis, for example. It can contribute to poisoning relations between rulers and populations and giving rise to open crises. This is a subject to follow closely given the gap between the time of the law and the pace of technological innovation – including among our geopolitical adversaries.
You invited in an interview given to Digital Renaissance last March not to think of digital sovereignty solely through the lens of Gafam regulation. For what ?
For a decade, the issue of digital sovereignty has often been seen through the lens of large American platforms and their competitive or fiscal abuses. All this is not without foundation, that is obvious. But restricting the question of sovereignty to the domination of non-European actors seems reductive to me. This firstly avoids questioning our own choices, which are sometimes questionable on an industrial level. And they are not monolithic actors, any more than they are all-powerful actors, who would apply a long-determined strategy and would necessarily be in cahoots with Washington. They have their own internal evolution, which differs depending on the companies and their culture. You only have to look at the protests that have punctuated the life of Google or Facebook.
What pitfalls should we avoid when seeking to build this digital sovereignty?
Wanting to isolate yourself technologically is an illusion. This is to deny the reality of digital interdependencies that are still very strong despite current talk about technological “decoupling”. The other pitfall would be to place oneself at odds with the EU. Europe has a digital policy which is not perfect, far from it, but which is gradually asserting itself to place the EU on the global map of players who count in the technological field, firstly through standards . Having a purely tricolor reading of digital sovereignty, focused exclusively on the use of French actors, is also restrictive. Only the European scale can allow us to have influence.
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