Big Tech Platforms Weaponizing the Internet

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA

Amid the continued “weaponisation” of the internet by some Big Tech platforms during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict is bringing back the focus on the sweeping powers of social media platforms. India is readying a new cybersecurity and data governance framework.
These actions by Big Tech companies put into perspective and call for a renewed focus on an “Atmanirbhar internet” call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which laid focus on reducing dependency on services being provided by these global firms. 

There are some Russian banks and their subsidiaries being banned from the international SWIFT network, it was due to the focus of the government’s self-build initiatives that the country now had alternatives to these global arrangements if India ever found itself in a similar position. If we were depending on SWIFT alone, we are gone. But we have UPI, fintech platforms in India that have reduced our reliance on a SWIFT type of an international money transfer platform. 

We are seeing through our thinking of Atma Nirbhar Bharat that we should not depend on the Indian internet being controlled or influenced by these big tech platforms alone. Such actions by companies, countries and big tech platforms, which have taken “positions that are very partisan”, are resulting in a “splinter-net”. Two phenomena are very visible: one is weaponization of the internet of which we were aware of in some sense. The second is the phenomenon of the splinter-net. 

The internet is increasingly being splintered, driven by the power of some Western countries. These platforms have now become dominant and in the event of a conflict between two sovereigns, they are being weaponized and there are no laws that would prevent this.,” Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said. We need Aatmanirbhar Internet, and need to make it difficult for Big Tech to be weaponized against India.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, companies, countries, Big Tech platforms and intermediaries have announced a slew of sanctions which have either stopped or cut off services being provided by them to Russia and its citizens. Some of these measures include stoppage of payment services, refusal by intermediaries to operate in Russia and not allowing their citizens to post. 

A report says, 43% of venture funding goes straight back to Facebook and Google in ad spending. “Back to Facebook and Google” this implies you think VC dollars and Google/facebook revenue comes out of the same pool. Is that how you think this works? We just keep thinking that Google and Facebook ad spend is no longer effective for early-stage startups in competitive markets...so what's next? The use of sanctions to cut off access to the internet is disturbing. It is quite a troubling precedent. 

Hence, there is a need to rethink local laws in order to de-risk Indian internet and make it harder for Big Tech businesses to be weaponized in any circumstance, the minister insisted. This remark comes in the wake of Big Tech companies and their subsidiaries declaring partial or complete service interruptions for Russia and its people soon after the war between Russia and Ukraine began.

The recent events in Ukraine and Russia have drawn attention to the power of platforms on the internet, the power of some governments to direct platforms on the internet to make political decisions, and effectively what can be called the weaponisation of the internet. There is a need for the country urgently to "de-risk" Indian internet to prevent a weaponisation of big tech & intermediaries against the country's interests. Experts comment, everything getting into digital becomes digital dependency, resulting in Digital addiction, there is need to be certain communication over the Off-line and physical medium of delivery. 

We have seen on how technology influences our way of living, the smart technology has designed by studying the neuro behavior of millions of human beings like, “personalisation” (your news feed is designed to filter and display news based on your interest); and “reciprocity” (invite more friends to get extra points, and once your friends are part of the network it becomes much more difficult for you or them to leave). 

The most interesting thing is that the architecture has the capability to increase and decrease the likes and comments, to make the commercially viable. This is how most of the tech companies are surviving in this digital era with their set of customers. Now sophisticated algorithms are getting evolved, on how to invite the customers (individual/ enterprises present over alternate social mediums) through data curating.

These recent events strengthen India’s case for data localisation, national champions, resilient internet network architecture, native open APIs and a strong cyber security command centre,” Chandrasekhar said. The actions by Big Tech companies and intermediaries also violate basic principles of net neutrality and basic idea of openness of the internet as they have now become “gatekeepers”, he said. The platforms are now controlling the access to the internet in many ways, be it through monopolies of search engines, duopolies of app stores, or devices.” 

Going forward, it is high time to innovate marketing and advertising traditional business models and effectively reduce these expenses.