Justin Sherman

The global internet has accelerated economic growth in many countries, and online-offline movements like #BlackLivesMatter, the Umbrella Movement, #MeToo, and #MarchForOurLives underscore social media’s potential to affect real change in the world.

The internet—particularly its architecture and governance—is a major factor in state power and an important element of this era of great power competition, especially between the United States and China. There may be other, “flashier” technologies out there, sure, but in preparing for great power competition, let’s not forget what already enables cyber attacks, online commerce, and global connectedness in the broadest sense each and every day.

Listen to the ongoing conversations on net neutrality, and you’ll notice that the United States, like other liberal-democratic countries, believes that, in the lexicon of policymakers, a free, open, interoperable, secure, and resilient internet can be a torchbearer for an open society—and democracy more broadly.