Chinese or American? What will the Internet look like after the end of Corona?

The Corona Virus paved the way for the many profound changes that will take place when the current epidemic ends. The Internet is at the top of the list of things that will look different for almost everyone.

Since the 1990s, when the Internet emerged from the National Science Foundation’s network (NSFNET) and the US Government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPNet) network to a commercial intermediary, American and foreign policy makers have viewed the Internet on a massive scale. As wide as if it were a routine information service or just a whole lot of private data networks.

His power with his chaos.
The Internet, compared to pre-existing media, "old media", such as regular mail, telephone, television broadcast, cable TV and radio and print publishing, was treated as an interesting medium but a third medium that only concerned a segment of the general public. 

Over the past 25 years, the result of this view has been a significant difference between the highly regulatory approach that governments everywhere take towards old media versus the almost unorganized approach of new media, particularly the Internet.

This haphazard approach to the Internet has led to a boom in innovation, experimentation, investment, and the rapid growth of the network compared to older media that need extensive legal reviews, regulatory permits, and comprehensive preparations for lawsuits and predictable complaints. 

Its importance appeared before Corona
and he managed to innovate without permission creating new services and products that are very important to us. Not surprisingly, investments and creative talents poured in dramatically in the new media that gave us the internet world that the Corona virus pandemic visited in early 2020, as elites in every country became fully connected, and most public people in most countries were also connected to the Internet.

Because of government policies to slow the spread of the epidemic by closing offices, shops, churches, schools, etc., the Internet and the services it works on have become the lifeblood of billions of people.

These are just some examples of things that are almost entirely dependent on during an online epidemic, and include office jobs, education, entertainment, family connections, health care, social events, attractive sports, sermons, religious lessons, investment and retirement, among others.

After Coruna the Internet is Dominating
Think for a moment if you want to ask these people who depend on the internet in many countries: If there is only one medium that can survive, regular mail, phone, TV broadcast, printed publications, cable TV, radio, or the Internet ? For at least a decade, the answer among most young people may be "the Internet."

This indicates a profound change in attitudes towards the Internet compared to other media. Therefore, when people go almost everywhere from their home offices, home schools and home churches, they will have had a very common personal experience.

The Internet will look different to them than it was before the epidemic. For billions of people in dozens of countries, the Internet will no longer be just an odd medium for some people. It has been their lifeline for weeks or months. Leaving it to opponents, terrorists, commercial interests, saboteurs, politicians, elites, or any other party will not be imaginable.

If it is difficult to predict how this will translate into policies and programs, as is the case with the timing and details of any nation, but there are already broad lines, before the epidemic occurred, for a few areas of Internet policy in which governments are becoming increasingly active.

The central role of the Internet during the epidemic is expected to accelerate the following:

• Military and intelligence chiefs from most of the major countries have increased their interest in gradually becoming the Internet as a key area of ​​international conflict, culminating in the "forward defense" principle adopted by the Pentagon in its cyber strategy. And just as governments everywhere protect national airspace and territorial waters, they are expected to do more to define and protect their national cyberspace.

Increasing the level of online content regulation with increasing frequency as the medium grows, starting with intellectual property issues, child killings, human trafficking, hate speech and interference in political campaigns. And just as governments everywhere organize content for broadcast and print, the pressure will increase after the epidemic to do so on a medium that is now more important.

For decades, the "digital divide" has been a popular topic between a narrow segment of the media, civil society, politicians and scholars. But, given that the Internet itself - unlike telephone, television or regular mail - was widely viewed as an optional tool, and of value and concern to only some, this issue never gained wide appeal.

With a large majority in many countries accepting that their jobs, banking, shopping, education, religion, family, health care, and more depend on the Internet, their views on whether Internet access is optional will change.

If a person’s survival depends on their access to the Internet, access cannot be considered logical as optional. The principle that people should have access to the Internet to participate to the minimum level in society applies to states among themselves as much as it applies within countries themselves.

Finally, the Corona Virus has highlighted more than ever the unique role that American institutions play in controlling the Internet and the unique powers that the President has over those institutions. Few foreign leaders are absent from the point where the US President declared emergency situations during the epidemic, and that these statements give the president broad unilateral powers over companies and organizations in the United States.

US President Can Cut Off Internet 
The Federal Communications Commission (JC) Commissioner Jessica Rosenursel indicated last January that the president has the authority to control important aspects of the Internet, if he so wants.

According to a recent analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations, the more widespread defense production law gives the president unilateral authority to "allocate materials, services, and facilities for national defense purposes."

And if a few foreign leaders are absent that the US President has broad emergency power over companies and organizations in the United States, it is not missing from anyone that the core of the Internet lies within the narrow strip of 40,000 square miles from Seattle to San Diego known as the Silicon Valley.

This region includes the most important social networks in the world, shopping channels, chip makers and router manufacturers, as well as authorities that manage everything from Internet domain names, to IP addresses on the Internet to Internet language standards and norms.

The Chinese and Russian Internet
The recent global recognition of the president's sweeping emergency power over the substance of the Internet will accelerate the trends toward Internet fragmentation that have been in effect in Russia, China, Iran and elsewhere for more than a decade.

This could lead to what Google's former CEO, Eric Schmidt, predicted in late 2018 that there would be a "split into a Chinese-led and non-Chinese internet led by America."

In this regard, the most enduring effect of the epidemic on the Internet is the simple recognition that the US President has enormous emergency power that one day can be used to control the Internet.