Militarization of the internet
use of the Internet for state security
Internet militarization is the use of the Internet and its platforms by states in order to ensure state security domestically as well as protect itself from any external attack. Over time, the co-constitution of state’s strategies and technologies has allowed states to protect themselves from attacks on their political interests as well.
Motivations
Domestic
Militarization of the internet is used by many states to try to insulate their citizens from other sources of information. By privatizing the internet within a country, the state can reinforce their own ideas and propaganda to their citizens without outside news sources or platforms attempting to provide different information.
National security
Militarizing the internet can also create the ability for states to interfere with other state's functions. Because the internet is a public domain, states have the ability to interfere with elections using online resources, promote propaganda, and overall disrupt national security for other countries.
Case studies
Domestic
Bahrain
During the Bahraini uprising of 2011, the Bahraini government used social media posts immensely in an attempt to end the uprising. During the uprising, the government was monitoring the use of the internet by its citizens, and punishing those that visited articles or liked Facebook pages relating to the uprising. During this time, at least 47 students were dismissed from Bahrain Polytechnic for ‘participating in unlicensed gatherings and marches’. This was ‘based on evidence mostly obtained from social media pages like Facebook.’ The government participated in passive observation of different social media accounts, and then used their military to stop those that aligned themselves with the views of the protests.
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This entry incorporates text from “Militarization of the internet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.