106 Chapter 5
POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES IN ACTION . . . ANARCHISM AND CYBERSPACE
EVENTS: The period between 1969 and 1989 witnessed the birth of the digital revolution in information and communication technologies (also known as the third industrial revolution) through, among other things the invention of the Internet and the rise of home computers. This marked the beginning of the ‘information age’. In 1991, the earliest version of the World Wide Web (often simply called WWW or the Web) became publicly available as a global information medium, popularly termed ‘cyberspace’, through which users can read and write via computers connected to the Internet. Other products of the digital revolution include smartphones, satellite and cable television, websites and blogs, and social media. By 2020, 67 per cent of the world’s population were connected to other people via digital technologies. SIGNIFICANCE: Cyberspace has widely been viewed as an experiment in anarchy, with digital technology promising to make many anarchists’ dreams a reality. This certainly reflects the expectations and high optimism of many of the Internet’s early exponents, especially those influenced by the hacker-punk culture that reigned in Silicon Valley in the 1990s. Practising what has been called cyber-libertarianism (or techno-libertarianism), they were inspired by the goal of reallocating concentrations of power away from states and institutions and transferring them to individuals on an equal basis. Cyberspace is therefore characterized by absolute freedom of expression, made possible, above all, by the absence of government interference. Libertarian dreams have, moreover, been given practical expression through so-called ‘crypto-anarchism’. This is a form of anarchism that operates through market arrangements sustained by computer networks, while also preserving confidentiality and security. Examples of crypto-anarchism include Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and online marketplace companies such as Uber and Airbnb. However, the notion of an intrinsic link between hyperspace and anarchismhas become increasingly
difficult to uphold. For one thing, Big Tech, which has come about through the emergence of ‘tech giants’ such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, has meant that cyberspace came to be dominated by a few large companies. Among the consequences of this is that Internet technologies and platforms routinely suppress competition and abuse their market influence by sharing sensitive information about users’ relationships, tastes and preferences, and, in the process, stoking demands for government regulation and frameworks accountability. For another thing, rather than operating beyond the control of the state and public authorities, cyberspace has in many cases become an instrument of state power. This is evident not only in the growth of Internet-based systems of state security but also in the rising phenomenon of ‘cyberwars’, in which digital technologies are used to disrupt the activities of other states for strategic or military purposes.
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