news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

[Text/Observer Network columnist Shen Yi]

On the evening of August 24, local time, Pavel Durov, the founder of the social media "Telegram", was arrested in France. Subsequently, the owner of the X platform, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Security Council Medvedev, and Snowden, the whistleblower of the "Prism Gate" incident, spoke out and accused Europe of so-called "freedom of speech."

In my opinion, there are several observation points:

1. Cyberspace is not a lawless place, and national security is the red line and bottom line.

Wolfers' definition of national security in the 1950s, "values ​​vital to the state are in a safe state", is still being implemented, especially in the practice of European and American countries, and is the core bottom line. When a sovereign state autonomously believes that its national security is threatened, it will take action. In this action, the law is a tool to achieve national security, not a constraint and boundary. In other words, once an individual is considered to pose a threat to national security, the state will take all means to eliminate this threat.

Of course, we can debate whether this kind of national security determination is generalized and abused. Generally speaking, the standards of European and American countries in determining national security have always been relatively loose and broad, but in terms of expression and specific actions, they pay more attention to packaging, especially focusing on cooperation with the media to build a concerted action based on a consensus on national security.

Anti-Semitism and terrorism, two politically correct national security consensuses, are objective realities in the Western world. Once the border is touched, they will respond immediately. Durov was arrested this time because he refused to cooperate with the European and American governments' requests to obtain user data and control information on the platform. In European and American countries, this set of national security logic is indeed self-consistent.

2. The problem with national security in European and American countries is that they adopt a national security concept with obvious hegemonic characteristics.

The so-called "double standards" or "multiple standards" are the practice of "self-centered, individually rational countries" in the field of national security. The biggest problem is that it transcends geographical boundaries, expands the security boundaries of its own country, compresses the security boundaries of other countries, and constructs national security practices at the expense of the insecurity of other countries.

On the issue of Durov, the West encourages Durov and his platform to resist Russia's national security governance and demand compliance with Western countries' national security governance. Of course, in this process, Foucault's discipline, or cognitive shaping, is clearly visible: resisting Russia is democracy; disobeying the West is insecurity.

This is of course double standards, and it will also have a boomerang effect: Western countries originally simply believed that the development of the Internet would only unconditionally help expand Western countries' soft power and become a new tool for Western diplomacy to stir up trouble in the non-Western world and challenge the security of local non-Western countries. Therefore, Western countries have created a set of concepts of Internet freedom that are close to absolute, and have widely disseminated and strongly disciplined it through the media, education and knowledge systems.

Now, the boomerang has hit Europe and the United States themselves, and it has indeed created risks and threats to their internal governance and global expansion. Naturally, European and American countries have begun to take action according to their own understanding of national security. There was no transition or preparation in between, so the world, especially those who have been disciplined more thoroughly and hold idealistic cognition, was shocked.

Musk posted several posts in a row, mocking Europe for its lack of freedom of speech and demanding the release of Durov. He wrote in French: "Freedom. Freedom! Freedom?"

3. Governance of global cyberspace is a core issue area in the new round of global collaborative governance.

Effective governance of global cyberspace is the forefront and focal area of ​​global governance. This area naturally requires effective cross-border coordination, which is only possible on the basis of respecting the equality of cyber sovereignty of all countries; this governance inevitably involves the transfer of sovereignty, but this transfer must be based on equality, fairness and comfort for sovereign countries. The key to comfort is to ensure that the sovereign rights of a country are not undermined.

The United Nations is destined to have the opportunity to play an important role in this process, but to what extent it can do so, the most fundamental thing is to return to the coordination of major powers, especially the coordination of the five permanent members of the United Nations. At present, this process will still face various uncertainties and challenges.

This article is an exclusive article of Guancha.com. The content of the article is purely the author's personal opinion and does not represent the platform's opinion. It cannot be reproduced without authorization, otherwise legal liability will be pursued. Follow Guancha.com WeChat guanchacn to read interesting articles every day.