Don't Fear the Splinternet: Policy Interoperability and Lessons from the Banking Sector

Résumé analytique

In platform governance debates, the word "global" carries heavy ideological weight, sitting behind fears that domestic regulation of social media platforms will "break the internet" or slide toward the authoritarianism of China's "Great Firewall" or Russia's RuNet. This essay argues those fears are overblown. Appeals to the internet's inherently "global" character smuggle in specific normative commitments that favour minimal state regulation, treating the dominance of a few US- or China-based platforms and a single, undifferentiated regulatory space as natural. Drawing on Dani Rodrik's concept of "hyperglobalization" and Niels ten Oever's account of interconnection and interoperability as core internet norms, it shows how any attempt to address hate speech, human rights, or cultural expression gets reframed as an attack on the internet itself and a step toward the "splinternet."

The banking and financial sector offers a corrective. It is a paradigmatically global industry dominated by a few centres and globe-spanning firms, yet it operates under widely varying national regulation. Neither the relatively lax US approach nor Canada's more conservative, stability-favouring regime is objectively right or wrong; each reflects particular values and interests, and regulatory heterogeneity can limit contagion. Canada's conservative banking system helped it withstand the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and it looks well positioned after the March 10, 2023 failure of Silicon Valley Bank, both rooted in permissive US rules. Following Rodrik, Haggart argues the goal for internet governance should not be one set of freedom-maximizing rules but an interoperable patchwork of policy regimes reflecting citizens' democratic preferences. Policy heterogeneity should be celebrated, not feared.