cover image: Digital Debates — CyFy Journal 2021

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Digital Debates — CyFy Journal 2021

19 Oct 2021

The most enduring idea from George Orwell’s 1984 is that even as we design and produce language, we are shaped in turn by the language we use—words are crucial in explaining complex ideas and in the process of meaning-making. The dynamic and fast-evolving world of technology, innovation, politics, and security sees the equally frenetic adoption of catchphrases. ‘Cyber sovereignty,’ ‘geotech,’ ‘ethics washing’ and more are fast becoming common lexicons, deployed differentially and differently. Sometimes used with care and thought, and on most occasions with an incomplete understanding of the distinct contexts that shape their use. ‘New normal’ was one such phrase that captured a collective experience, marking an apparent inflection point in our relationship with technology. Yet the term masks the fact that the world we are entering carries many of the same fissures, fractures and fallibilities of the past decade. Or is the encoding of the cleavages of the past in our digital future the ‘new normal’? Conflicts in a Connected World The past year has brought several complex questions to the fore: Should platforms be able to take decisions that challenge sovereign laws or reinterpret them? Is there a fundamental tension between the global reach of digital giants and the fact that they are primarily shaped by the mores and cultures of small, isolated communities, and subject to the laws, political processes and ethics of the country they are headquartered in? And are global digital norms and values achievable or even desirable? Our contributors analyse the ongoing ‘battles’ between the old giant, the many-limbed Leviathan (the State) and the new five-headed giant comprising of technology corporations that shape how we consume, interact and generate value online. The narratives around a ‘third way’ and propagation of the concept of ‘cyber sovereignty’ point to a new anxiety that grips nations and communities globally. These drivers are compelling them to autonomously forge a path in the Fourth Industrial Revolution amid tensions between the world’s two largest economies, the US and China, and to escape the virtual monopoly of a handful of tech giants.
india space tech and media media and internet cyber and technology cybersecurity and internet governance gp-orf series

Authors

Trisha Ray, Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan

Published in
India

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