The internet’s military roots and privatization made its democratic promise contingent, not inevitable.

Evidence

The internet as we now know it today was created by the United States Armed Forces during the Cold War. The agencies that built its core structures were responsible for keeping groups like Students for a Democratic Society under surveillance and assisting counterinsurgency efforts in places like Vietnam. … The Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton administrations privatized the machine world into corporate America. Nothing was more natural for the politicians of this era—public ownership was seen as barbaric, if not outright un-American. So for-profit firms would control the computers and the built environment of the online experience. One could very easily imagine a different internet if it had been built by a different country—France? Vietnam? Iraq?—or even at a different moment in US history. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 287

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader argument building across the book (and echoing political economy of tech) that the internet’s surveillance and profit structure was baked in from its origin. — connects to: The Internet was designed to decelerate war, not accelerate it. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 544; The internet amplifies existing political power rather than transforming it — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 489; The free digital universe was produced by political decisions, not inevitability — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 82 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The free digital universe was produced by political decisions, not inevitability #corroborates (0.92) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 82
• Decentralized internet architecture was designed for nuclear survivability, not freedom #corroborates (0.88) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 285
• The internet amplifies existing political power rather than transforming it #corroborates (0.82) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 489
• The internet’s early borderless promise gave way to jurisdictional fragmentation #expands (0.78) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 2314
• The Internet was designed to decelerate war, not accelerate it. #complicates (0.72) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 544