The U.S. government’s proposed ban on Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat plays into technologists’ fears that the internet utopia is crumbling. But let me explain why a splintered internet isn’t so novel, or necessarily a horrible thing. First, the internet was never as global or interconnected as the ideal. What we mean when we talk about a unified global internet is a history in which the internet was dominated by America, with U.S. companies and U.S. values infusing the world. The exception was China, which operated a parallel internet world.

Source: New York Times August 10, 2020 16:30 UTC