We’ve been noticing the possibility of a “splinternet” for a while. Internet shutdowns and different approaches to Internet rules by different countries have been happening. Recent events have brought us closer to a breaking point.

We need to protect the Internet now, or there might not be an Internet to save in the future.

To remind you, a “splinternet” is the opposite of the Internet we know. It’s the idea that the open, globally connected Internet we use today could split into isolated networks controlled by governments and companies. Most people don’t want this to happen.

How Would That Impact You?

The Internet is simple, and that’s what makes our online experiences smooth. You don’t need permission to send an email, shop online, or work together on a music project. If you have good and affordable Internet, you can just go online and do what you want.

But a “splinternet” would make things complicated. For example, your emails might not reach your friends in other countries, you might have to pay extra to shop from foreign websites, or you might not be able to collaborate with your band members.

Why should you be concerned? In short, the “splinternet” is getting closer.

The Internet is very tough, and we have plenty of data to prove it. It’s hard to imagine how we would have managed through an ongoing pandemic without this worldwide tool, which was quick and adaptable enough to meet our changing needs. However, we can’t assume it will always be this way.

The same things that make the Internet valuable and a crucial resource for humanity also make it susceptible to problems. We recently discussed three ways that could lead to a “splinternet.” These include:

1. Countries trying to disconnect from the Internet and control their own networks.

2. Governments make decisions about the Internet without protecting its functionality for everyone.

3. Countries making political requests and decisions that affect other countries’ access to the Internet.

The recent events triggered by the war in Ukraine have brought us closer to a worst-case scenario. A single political decision affecting another country’s Internet access could set a dangerous precedent leading to a splinternet.

Thankfully, G7 and European Union countries have taken steps to protect people’s Internet access through sanctions exemptions. But there’s still much more work needed.

Using the Internet isn’t just a privilege; it’s a responsibility to protect it. Each of us needs to act now to prevent a splinternet because turning back might not be possible.

The Internet Society, a global community with over 120 chapters and nearly 90,000 members worldwide, is already taking action to safeguard the Internet, and you can too.

You can take these three easy actions to help #ProtectTheInternet right now:

If you see something, say something.

Ask governments to #ProtectTheInternet.

Grow the movement using social media.

Today, more than 200 countries and territories are celebrating Safer Internet Day. They’re asking everyone to come together to make the Internet a safer and better place. Parents especially understand how important it is to work towards a safer Internet.

The Internet has been essential for parents to juggle work and childcare during the ongoing pandemic. But it’s hard to ignore the growing problems that are getting worse on the Internet. With kids spending more time online for learning and socializing, we can’t always be there to watch over them.

What’s even scarier is when government proposals make it harder for people to keep kids safe online. They forget a simple truth: security is vital for a safer Internet.

This might sound simple, but it’s important.

The UK’s Online Safety Act and the US’s EARN IT Act are recent proposals. They put the safety of almost everyone online at risk, including children. These proposals do this by going after encryption, which is our most robust digital security tool.

Encryption is a vital technology we use every day. It’s similar to the lock on your front door, which keeps our conversations private. It also protects our personal details, like where we are, our medical records, and who we are, from criminals.

Now, let’s think about safety and security.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, safety means being protected from danger or harm. On the other hand, a secure Internet, as defined by the Internet Society, is one that can resist attacks on its infrastructure and provide a strong and reliable service to its users.

Why is encryption important? Think of it as protective gear for the Internet. It ensures that the inner workings of the Internet, as well as the countless interactions we have with it every day, stay private and genuine.

How does this promote safety online?  

An open letter from tech experts and groups points out that encryption not only safeguards privacy but also protects children and other vulnerable groups from online threats. People like journalists, LGBTQ+ communities, and human rights defenders rely on encryption to have safe online spaces.

If the UK or US governments succeed in banning encrypted communications, it’s like telling you not to lock your home’s doors.

Just as no responsible adult would advise a child to open the door to strangers, why would a government propose a law that makes almost everything you do online accessible to anyone?

In October, millions of people and businesses worldwide celebrated the first Global Encryption Day, encouraging encrypted communications.

Even the Government of Canada recognized strong public support for encrypted communications in a 2021 consultation report about online safety.

If more governments start with these strong foundations, we can have more meaningful discussions about real solutions for online safety, especially for kids.

Instead of using public money to promote bad laws, governments should invest in teaching digital safety in schools and homes and addressing societal issues before they become problems online.

Ultimately, it’s up to adults. Parents and caregivers are responsible for keeping children safe, whether in the physical or digital world. By consistently teaching kids how to stay safe in both worlds, simple tools like door locks and encryption can provide extra protection.

Every day, I ask Google about the weather as I prepare my son for daycare. This quick routine helps me decide what he should wear and whether we need extra clothes or a jacket for our bike ride.

No matter how you check the day’s forecast, the source you’re using doesn’t directly measure or predict the weather. Instead, it shares information collected by those who do. The Internet plays a big part in spreading and communicating this data. It also assists meteorologists in gathering information from various sources, even remote sensors, to make weather predictions better.

Meteorologists often make mistakes in their forecasts, but it’s a tough job. They have to consider thousands of different things, including hundreds of factors they can’t control, to understand why it rained in one place but not in another. The ability to get such specific weather information is something we often overlook, but it’s quite amazing.

Just like we rely on the Internet for reliable and fast connections, measuring the Internet is important and tricky, just like predicting the weather and understanding climate patterns. That’s why we created the Internet Society Pulse. It’s a bit like your weather app, but it gives us a snapshot of the Internet’s health, availability, and how it’s changing.

The Internet doesn’t have country borders, but people want to know how it works in their own country. The Internet Society Pulse Country Reports help with this. They collect and explain information about the Internet in different areas all around the world, including every country, state, and region.

What Makes an Internet Healthy in a Country?

It’s tough to guess if a country’s Internet is healthy without looking at the data. Some may appear healthy due to fast and accessible service, but several factors are taken into account when checking the Internet’s health in a country. We divided these factors into three areas:

A free Internet lets people and groups use different technologies without needing approval and with few obstacles. Keeping an open Internet helps encourage new ideas and ensures it’s ready for future uses. An open Internet is one that anyone can easily access and use.

A worldwide connected Internet is for everyone. It lets networks and users link up without being limited by location. Expanding Internet connections makes it more useful for communication, learning, and business for everyone.

A safe Internet can defend against attacks on its structure, providing a strong service to its users. A reliable Internet meets the users’ expectations by offering a stable and dependable foundation for applications and services.

The Pulse Country Reports show data that Pulse collects from different public sources like APNIC Labs, Facebook, Google, ICANN, IIJ, ITU, Mozilla Firefox Telemetry, PeeringDB, and W3Techs. This data explains how healthy each country’s open Internet environment, worldwide connected infrastructure, and secure and trustworthy Internet are.

Why Measuring the Internet is Important

The ultimate goal in Internet measurement and operations is to predict issues or attacks before they occur. Network operators constantly monitor their network’s performance, allowing them to respond promptly and effectively to maintain customer satisfaction. Some Internet measurements focus on enhancing the understanding of Internet health at the network’s outer edges.

The Pulse Country Reports do not offer a detailed, localized view of this (at least not yet). Instead, they provide an overview of the overall health of all networks within each country. This broader perspective can be helpful in various ways:

1. Policymakers and decision-makers can use the reports to identify areas of the Internet that require enhancement and develop supportive policies for improvements.
2. Civil society groups and journalists can utilize the reports to advocate for increased investments and infrastructure and security improvements in regions with lower scores.

For instance, examining the Philippines’ country report reveals specific areas where decision-makers and advocates can focus their efforts to enhance the country’s Internet health and resilience. These areas include:

• Increasing the number of Internet users.
• Enhancing the country’s Internet resilience by improving infrastructure, performance, security, and market structures.
• Encouraging service providers to diversify their international routes and local peering, both of which are vital for strengthening the Internet’s reliability in the country.
• Urging content providers to secure the DNS supporting their websites.

In simple terms, the Pulse Country Reports offer a big-picture look at the Internet’s overall health. This helps guide decision-makers in recognizing issues and making choices. They can then confirm these concerns and make decisions to invest in policies and infrastructure improvements, ultimately benefiting both their own country’s Internet and the global Internet as a whole.

They were pioneers. They had a big idea. They wanted to create a way for all the different types of networks to communicate with each other. These early innovators worked together, building on each other’s ideas and pushing the limits of what was possible. They opened up a world of new opportunities for the future of humanity.

They were dreamers, even though their vision might have seemed crazy to some. But they believed that billions of people would rely on their creation every day: the Internet. And that’s where we are today. The Internet has become a powerful, life-changing force. It’s easy to forget how much it has made many societies better. To put it simply, many people in the world can’t function without it anymore. But with each passing year, the Internet faces more and more threats.

Protect the open, global Internet while there’s still time.

The Internet is in danger because some powerful groups want to control and use it for their benefit. As you’re reading this, there are threats to the Internet. Some people are trying to damage its essential features by making wrong and shortsighted rules. Others want to divide the Internet into smaller parts with country borders, which weakens its global nature. Some even plan to block access to information and limit free expression through Internet shutdowns.

We need to protect the Internet from these new dangers. We should make sure that regular people control it, not those who want to use it for their own purposes or those who might accidentally damage it.

Our 2023 Action Plan explains how we’ll deal with these challenges. Our goal is to ensure the Internet remains a useful tool for everyone forever. We’ll work together with our global community of partners, members, and supporters to take clear, measurable steps to strengthen and safeguard the Internet. We can’t do this alone. The Internet relies on all of us to secure its future because it’s now closely connected to humanity.

At first, browsers were animals that ate leaves and twigs from trees and bushes. They kept their heads up while they ate, while other animals called grazers kept their heads down to munch on grass.

In the 1800s, the word “browser” began to be used in a different way. In Europe, new covered shopping malls became popular. These malls were a place where people could walk around and look at things, especially for women. People who did this were called browsers.

Browsers were different from grazers because they were not looking for anything specific. They were just curious and wanted to see what was around.

The word “browser” also came to mean someone who was interested in new ideas. This was because the 1800s was a time when many new ideas were being invented. People who were interested in these new ideas were called browsers.

The word “browser” is still used today to mean someone who is interested in new things. It is also used to mean the computer program that you use to look at websites.tunesharemore_vertadd_photo_alternate

In the 1800s, new places were created where people could look at things. These places were called department stores. People who went to department stores but didn’t buy anything were called browsers. Browsing became a popular pastime for the middle class.

Browsing is also a popular way to use the internet. People browse the internet to look at websites, even if they don’t buy anything. Browsing the internet is a way to experience the world without having to commit to anything.

The first web browser was created by a British computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee in 1990. This was a big change in how we use the internet. It was originally called the World Wide Web, and it mixed the idea of the internet with the program itself. Later, they changed the name to Nexus to avoid confusion. In 1991, Berners-Lee introduced this project to his colleagues at CERN, where he was working. In the next few years, other computer scientists at different universities made their own web browsers. Many of these early browsers are not used anymore, like MidasWWW, ViolaWWW, Lynx, Erwise, and Cello.

Mosaic was the first program that made the internet easy to use. In 1994, Gary Wolfe wrote in WIRED about how Mosaic changed the way people experienced the internet. He said, “you can explore the online world freely and easily. Mosaic is not the quickest or most powerful way to find things online. It’s simply the most enjoyable way.” This new enjoyment made the internet more accessible to everyone, not just computer experts. The browser turned the internet from something used mainly by programmers and academics into something for the public. Now, the browser was not just a tool people used to access the internet; it became the way people explored and found things online.

Marc Andreessen went on to create Netscape Navigator, a browser that competed with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Microsoft faced legal issues for including Internet Explorer with its operating system, but by the time the sanctions arrived, Netscape had already lost its dominant position in the market. Netscape released its software as open-source, and it later reemerged as the non-profit Mozilla and the Firefox browser. Google and Apple also entered the competition with their Chrome and Safari browsers in 2003 and 2008.

Google’s browser was different. It had a simple design, focused on add-ons, and frequently updated itself. Eventually, it became the most popular browser, replacing Internet Explorer as the face of the internet. This shift marked a significant moment in the second browser war, which went on from the mid-2000s until 2017. During this time, various browsers competed to break Microsoft’s hold on the market by enhancing their features. These improvements included common online tools like tabbed browsing, private search modes, protection from phishing attacks, and spell checkers.

Tabs became a standard feature in web browsers during the mid-2000s, though they were originally used in an obscure browser called SimulBrowse in the late 1990s. This innovation created a new way to explore the internet by letting people have multiple websites open at the same time. Tabs capture how web browsing both responded to and shaped how we experience the internet. They represent the constantly changing, scattered nature of our focus, where we’re always tempted to click and start something new. Yet, tabs also show our desire to keep our options open, hold onto our momentary interests, and never fully let go of our past online experiences.

The internet browser adds to these concerns. In the 19th century, browsing was a fleeting and temporary activity. But today, your browser remembers the places you’ve visited, the information you’ve looked up, and the questions you’ve asked. It keeps track of your history until you tell it to forget. Your browser doesn’t fully belong to you. It holds a lot of information about how you use the internet and who you are.

When you browse online, the environment changes based on your interests. Unlike flipping through magazines in a store where the other magazines don’t react, the internet constantly responds to your actions. It adapts to your habits, like what you click on and where you spend time, and shows you different things. The concept of casual browsing without commitment, especially in terms of shopping, doesn’t apply here. Using a browser means you’re participating in online activities, and there’s no such thing as idle browsing.

The internet opens doors to countless ideas, people, and things from all over the world, making it feel incredibly vast and accessible. But spending time searching and browsing online can often make you feel confined and stuck, like you’re heading towards an uncertain and sometimes disappointing destination. This might be because there’s no neutral place you can go back to for a fresh start, no stable point to reorient yourself. The internet was perhaps meant to be “surfed” like riding the waves of an ocean, where you’re carried along by natural energy, with the wind in your hair, and so on. However, in a world where the internet adjusts and changes to match your interests, a captivating online browsing session can be more like getting lost in a never-ending journey.

Online browsing is, in a unique way, less expansive than real-life browsing. Now that the browser as a tool has become more important than the browser as a person, what does that make us? Who are we—or, to put it differently, what have we turned into—when we browse the internet? Ironically, it appears that we’re more like grazers. As our search engines become smarter and do more for us—predicting what we need, guiding our attention, understanding our wants—browsing becomes less like casually picking leaves from the tips of plants and more like having someone thrust a handful of disconnected leaves right in front of your face, so close that you can’t see anything else.