Tusikov Internet platforms weaponizing chokepoints proofpdf

Pre-Print Publication Tusikov, N. (2021) Internet Platforms Weaponizing Chokepoints. In D. Drezner, H. Farrell, and A. Newman, eds. The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence. (pp. 133-148). Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press. 7 Internet Platforms Weaponizing Choke Points NATASHA TUSIKOV Fans of the Houston Rockets basketball team had front-row seats to the coercive power of the Chinese government in October 2019, when the team’s general manager, Daryl Morey, tweeted his support for pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong. Morey quickly deleted the tweet and apologized, as did the National Basketball Association (NBA), but the damage was done. Basketball is big business in China, with a rapidly growing fan base and lucrative sponsorship deals. In response to Morey’s tweet, the Chinese Basketball Association and Chinese sponsors rapidly suspended their partnerships with the NBA. Underscoring the Chinese government’s direct involvement in the case, Chinese state television canceled broadcasts of games, and government officials demanded that the NBA commissioner fire Morey.1 Chinese internet companies also lashed out. Tencent, the massive e-commerce conglomerate and operator of the WeChat social media platform, temporarily suspended all NBA preseason broadcasts. The marketplace giant Alibaba removed Houston Rockets’ merchandise from its popular Taobao and Tmall marketplaces, as did the online marketplace JD.com. U.S. politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, condemned the Chinese government for using its economic clout over the NBA to silence critics in the United States. 133 134 The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence While the full economic repercussions are not yet fully known, the losses to the NBA and the Rockets measure in the millions. Chinese companies also suffered a serious financial blow. Tencent, for example, lost revenue from streaming and advertising NBA games. Just months earlier, in July 2019, Tencent had secured a five-year partnership with the NBA for US$1.5 billion for the exclusive rights to stream NBA games in China.2 In the terminology of this volume, the Houston Rockets’ case can be understood as a particular type of coercive interdependence that, in the book’s conclusion, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman term “points of control,” in which states leverage networks against private actors. China used its media and technology industries, both staterun and private, as a tool of economic retaliation against a major U.S. sporting franchise to condemn a U.S. business leader’s political speech on Hong Kong’s anti-government protests, a topic of high political sensitivity in China. This case is a continuation of China’s global efforts to control political speech in regard to Hong Kong and Taiwan, among other issues. The Rockets’ example illustrates how states can extend their power by enrolling private industry, particularly in this case of enacting choke points to control or block information flows. While weaponized interdependence is a new concept within the mainstream international relations literature, the concept describes long-recognized tendencies within the internet governance and regulatory literatures. Drawing from these literatures to enrich the discussion of weaponized interdependence, this chapter argues that states with the capacity to co-opt and coerce key internet platforms can extend state control beyond traditional jurisdictional boundaries. Leveraging large platforms, however, is primarily the domain of powerful states like the United States and China, which can pressure their domestic industries and use the draw of their large markets to compel industry cooperation. Platforms here refers to entities, often from the private sector, that provide important commercial and technical services to enable the effective functioning of the internet, like payments or the domain name system. Platforms’ withdrawal of critical services can enable states to control global flows of information or Internet Platforms Weaponizing Choke Points 135 render websites commercially nonviable, essentially cutting them off from the global economy. Contextualizing Weaponized Interdependence Weaponized interdependence, as set out by Farrell and Newman, describes a situation in which a state leverages network structures to induce or compel specific actors to control flows of information or alter behavior to gain an advantage over other actors.3 Scholars from internet governance, communications, and sociolegal studies have long analyzed the state’s strategic exploitation of information and communications infrastructure.4 However, for too long there have been fruitful discussions within these disciplines but not enough cross-disciplinary engagement amongst internet governance, communications, and socio-legal studies with international relations. While there have been efforts from international relations scholars to bridge disciplinary divides,5 deeper engagement is needed to see how weaponized interdependence may engender scholarship in other fields and what ideas international relations can adapt to further develop weaponized interdependence. In the internet governance literature, the manner in which states might extend control over the budding internet infrastructure— including control over internet firms that provide increasingly critical services of search, payment, and domain name functions—has been a topic of considerable discussion since the late 1990s. Scholars in this field stress the inherent regulability of the internet and warn of the state’s interest in, and capacity for, exploiting communications technologies and internet infrastructure, particularly by co-opting or coercively pressuring private-sector service providers.6 Three key ideas from the internet governance literature explain how conceptions of the internet rapidly shifted from one of an ungovernable space to a highly regulable space where states and, importantly, private-sector actors could exert authority. First, rules can be set within technology to govern behavior, a concept captured by the well-known phrase, “code is law.”7 This refers to the capacity of actors, principally private-sector technology companies, to set rules 136 The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence within technical architecture (or code) in software that controls the various systems, applications, and protocols that compose the internet. Depending on the nature of the rules and systems governed, the rule makers may be able to deter or even prevent certain activities, or monitor or block information flows. Second, the growth of key, often private-sector operated nodes within networks that supply the internet’s technical and commercial services offer an attractive leverage point for states, but only certain states have the capacity to exert control. While states initially took a laissez-faire approach to internet governance, in the early 2000s they began recruiting and co-opting these nodes.8 States’ ability to secure the cooperation of these nodes varies widely, as does the nodes’ capacity and desire to resist attempts to compel cooperation. Third, jurisdiction still matters online. States can achieve extraterritorial reach by tapping into private transnational networks. Control key actors, the argument goes, and one can control the provision and operation of important online services and infrastructure.9 Jurisdiction remains important for states in relation to internet platforms, as governments may have greater influence over companies that operate within or are headquartered in their territory. Platforms’ Choke-Point Effects Depending upon the type of services provided, platforms that command dominant market share can institute what I elsewhere have defined as access or revenue choke points.10 By withdrawing payment services, platforms can disable websites’ capacity to process payments or receive advertising funds, thereby “choking” the websites’ revenue streams. Platforms can also disrupt users’ ability to locate and access targeted websites by interfering with search and domain services, and they can remove sales listings from marketplaces, making it difficult to sell goods and services. The intention is to render the targeted entities commercially nonviable by impeding the sites’ proper functioning. Given their operational scope and provision of important services, these dominant platforms can have a regulatory capacity similar to or even exceeding that of typical state regulators. In recognition of the role that large, mostly U.S. companies play Internet Platforms Weaponizing Choke Points 137 in providing vital commercial and technical services on the internet, scholars have referred to platforms’ provision of key services as choke points,11 natural points of control,12 or bottlenecks.13 A handful of U.S. companies dominate the provision of important technical and commercial services including payment (PayPal, Visa, MasterCard), advertising (Google and Facebook), domain name (GoDaddy), and marketplace (eBay and Amazon). These actors are dominant because of their transnational and, in some cases, near-global platforms; their significant market share; and their regulatory capacity that stems, in part, from “their positions at the nexus points between communications networks.”14 U.S. platforms are only rivaled by their Chinese counterparts, which generate most of their revenue in China; Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu collectively dominate the provision of payment, marketplace, search, and social media services. Internet platforms’ capacity to enact choke points on behalf of states stems from the platforms’ legal authority and business models. In terms of the former, platforms grant themselves considerable latitude through their contractual terms-of-use agreements with their users to draft, interpret, and enforce rules in ways that suit the platforms’ business models and commercial interests. Platforms’ implementation and enforcement of these rules, typically undertaken with little independent oversight or public disclosure, constitute a form of private ordering. Through these agreements, platforms can act of their own initiative in the absence of formal legal orders or involvement by law enforcement. A standard element of these agreements is a discretionary provision granting platforms the ability to remove content or terminate services even when the act in question is lawful. Platforms can also rapidly institute new rules, or change existing ones, governing their services, and studies show that few users read— or they struggle to understand— the updated legal agreements.15 In terms of business models, the regulatory capacity of a platform relies on its routine surveillance of its users’ activities and transactions as part of its data-intensive business practices that are characteristic of surveillance capitalism.16 Platforms employ surveillance not only to police users for violations of platform policies, but also, more importantly, to collect and interpret data on users to serve the platforms’ commercial interests. This mass accumulation of data presents 138 The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence a tempting target for governments intent on surveilling or controlling their citizens online. Weaponizing Choke Points The concept of online choke points gained public prominence in 2010, when the U.S. government sought to destroy WikiLeaks after its publication of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Claiming the publication would harm U.S. national security interests, the U.S. government pressured key internet companies to sanction WikiLeaks. In response, companies withdrew their services, citing WikiLeaks for violating their terms-of-service agreements. Amazon stopped providing WikiLeaks with cloud-storage facilities, and EveryDNS withdrew its domain name services, meaning that users would not be able to find WikiLeaks online. PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa discontinued payment processing— a critical blow as the WikiLeaks site relied on donations and struggled to replace its payment services.17 The U.S. government’s campaign against WikiLeaks was the first high-profile case of what legal scholar Yochai Benkler described as a “denial-of-service attack” aimed at halting the “technical, payment, and business process systems to targeted sites.”18 Prior to its use on WikiLeaks, denial of service (DoS) was also used to block revenue from and freeze funds related to terrorist organizations.19 Lessons from Setting Choke Points The attack on WikiLeaks was not a singular case: it was the forerunner in the normalization of state pressure on platforms to withdraw their technical and commercial services to targeted entities. States use platforms to enact choke points against private actors to serve their strategic interests, as highlighted in the cases of WikiLeaks and the Houston Rockets. Drawing from socio-legal studies and the regulatory studies literatures, there are six important lessons to learn regarding weaponized interdependence. First, states’ capacity to recruit or coerce platforms to enact choke points varies widely. State capacity disproportionately favors pow- Internet Platforms Weaponizing Choke Points 139 erful states that can compel involvement by exerting political or legal pressure, particularly over their domestic industry. As Michael Mastanduno finds in his chapter in this volume, weaponized interdependence is a tool of strong states that have control over critical networks. States with dominant platforms headquartered in their jurisdictions have the home-court advantage. In the wake of WikiLeaks, the United States, United Kingdom, and European Commission pressured large, mostly U.S. internet platforms to withdraw their services from targeted websites and businesses. The targets were websites involved in illegal gambling, the unlawful distribution of tobacco, child pornography, counterfeit goods, and the distribution of copyright-infringing movies, software, and music.20 These state actors were successful because they credibly threatened to lay criminal charges or enact legislation if platforms did not agree to institute choke points “voluntarily” in the absence of legislation or formal legal orders.21 China has also applied considerable political and legal pressure on its platforms, given the tight control the Chinese government exerts over its internet and domestic technology companies.22 However, even powerful states face limits in their capacity to compel action from platforms. For example, the European Commission and the United Kingdom were only successful in directing U.S.-based platforms to set choke points within their respective jurisdictions regarding the distribution of counterfeit goods and copyright-infringing content.23 In these cases, pushback from platforms contributed, in part, to the jurisdictional limits on the regulatory efforts. As Adam Segal finds in his chapter on the U.S. government’s campaign against Huawei, successfully leveraging the global supply chain is a difficult task complicated by Huawei’s diversification of its suppliers and by U.S. companies’ exploitation of boycott loopholes to maintain business with Huawei. Second, states can use access to their domestic markets as leverage to compel platforms to enact choke points. The United States has a significant advantage, given the size of its domestic market, but the European Union (EU) and China can also use access to their markets as a way to secure industry cooperation. China is interested in leveraging its domestic internet platforms to serve its economic and polit- 140 The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence ical interests, as the Houston Rockets case shows. But given that its platforms largely operate within China, its choke point capabilities are currently limited to inside China. With the continued expansion of Chinese platforms, China may have a future capacity to use platforms to set choke points that affect the provision of commercial and technical services beyond its borders. In contrast to powerful states, smaller countries have few options to coerce action from global platforms. In Canada, for example, Google banned election-related advertising rather than comply with a new law regulating elections, concluding that the Canadian market was too small to merit the trouble of making the required changes.24 Third, states’ interest in seeking to leverage specific private actors may stem from private actors’ actual or perceived specialized technical or industry knowledge, and greater access to markets. 25 Working with platforms, particularly in the absence of legislation, can also offer states the benefits of flexibility and extraterritorial reach. As platforms operate through their contractual terms-of-service agreements, their rule setting and enforcement is generally more rapid, secretive, and adaptable than legislation or legal orders. Therefore, states may perceive corporate actors to be more responsive, costeffective, and efficient actors than government agencies in certain areas.26 By working through third parties, governments can also have deniability of certain industry-facilitated choke points or may be able to operate at a scale unfeasible for government agencies. Fourth, private actors have varying interests in working with states to enact choke points, such as preventing an association of their platforms with criminality or entities perceived to be a threat to the state. Platforms, particularly those operating globally, are vulnerable to state pressure in the form of threats of legislation or legal action where they operate in an uncertain regulatory environment. Finally, private actors may view collaboration with the state as a way to curry favor with state officials, secure an advantage over commercial rivals, or expand their operations. Fifth, conflicts between states and private actors— and among private actors— are inevitable. States and platforms have shared interests, although sometimes differing goals, in expanding their control over the internet. Concepts such as “surveillance capitalism” and Internet Platforms Weaponizing Choke Points 141 “platform capitalism” underscore the importance of controlling information flows.27 States may prioritize economic, military, or security interests, while platforms follow their commercial imperatives.28 When state and corporate interests conflict, such as in the case of Apple refusing to circumvent its encryption at the request of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), states may shift to more coercive tactics like legal action, legislation, or threats of withdrawing market access but face the possibility of industry opposition, as was the case with Apple.29 In addition to state- corporate conflict, there may also be conflict within states as to the necessity, viability, or effectiveness of weaponized interdependence, or when, if at all, states should resort to this tactic. As Mastanduno argues in his chapter, the weaponization of structural power should be reserved for clear, justifiable emergencies such as national security crises. He notes that, in an environment of competition and conflict among the great powers, shifts in regional power, and the continued instability of foreign policy under the Donald Trump administration, the challenge is that weaponized interdependence may become a frequent rather than exceptional tool, at least for the United States. Sixth, and finally, the effectiveness of choke points depends upon the degree of concentration in the industry sector in question and the availability of replacement service providers. Some services are relatively easy to replace, while in some industry sectors there are few viable commercial alternatives. The online payment provider industry, for example, is highly concentrated with a small number of dominant players— PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and, in China, Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba’s AliPay. There are also a host of smaller players, like Apple Pay, but these often rely on the large players’ payment systems. Payment providers are the most successful regulators because they can effectively defund targeted entities. Further, given the due-diligence requirements for payment providers to vet their users before granting accounts, it can be difficult to replace payment services, as WikiLeaks found. There are dominant actors in other online sectors: Google and Facebook for digital advertising; Google for search; Amazon and eBay, along with Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall in China, for market- 142 The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence places; and GoDaddy for domain registrars. However, in contrast to the online payment industry, these sectors are more diversified and their services are easier to replace. Unlike replacing online payment services, it is a relatively simple process to secure alternative providers for advertising, marketplaces, social media, web hosting, or cloud services. Many websites, for example, can function without advertising revenue; if a dominant search engine like Google removes search results from its index, people can use other search engines. Similarly, if a marketplace removes sales listings for certain products, as Taobao did with listings for Houston Rockets’ paraphernalia, sellers can move to another trading platform. Future Research Developing the concept of weaponized interdependence will no doubt be of value to international relations, bringing greater theoretical and empirical understanding to the state’s leveraging of network capabilities. The concept may be able to provide insight on how and under what conditions states can leverage private actors to achieve their strategic objectives against other states, as well as when private actors are most likely to comply or resist. These contributions from international relations would likely provoke fertile cross-disciplinary engagement and contribute to scholarship within internet governance, communications, and socio-legal studies, as well as other disciplines. More broadly, the case needs to be made for the utility of the concept of weaponized interdependence outside the United States. The United States has used its structural power for decades to achieve its political, security, and economic interests. Only recently has the United States realized that it can also be affected by weaponized interdependence, as Daniel Drezner notes in this book’s introduction. The rest of the world, however, has a deep familiarity with what it means to be in an interdependent relationship with a more powerful country and, in particular, has long experienced the ability of the United States to exert this type of power on allies and enemies alike. To what extent does this concept serve to explain to U.S. policymakers the newly discovered vulnerability of the United States to weaponized interdependence employed by other states, and how can it be Internet Platforms Weaponizing Choke Points 143 best developed for usefulness to non-American and non-international relations scholars and policymakers? In terms of a more specific research agenda related to internet and digital technologies, there are several fruitful lines of inquiry for future choke-point research. Scholarship should consider what other areas of commercial or technical services on the internet might be vulnerable to choke-point effects. Cloud infrastructure, for example, is a highly concentrated industry with major U.S. companies holding key market share, especially Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM, and Google Cloud Platform, along with China’s Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) and Tencent Cloud. What might be the effects of choke points within cloud infrastructure, and which companies might be most amenable or resistant? With an increasing number of commercial and government services dependent upon the cloud, including education, health care, and military services, disruptions to this sector could be consequential. Scholarship also needs to examine the potential for choke points in the physical infrastructure making up the internet, the protection of which has been a long-standing national security concern in the United States, as well as in many other countries. Control of the internet’s physical infrastructure takes on a new urgency with research demonstrating that the ownership and operation of core elements of the global internet infrastructure is shifting away from the United States toward Europe and Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.30 These elements include the fiber-optic submarine cables, autonomous system numbers, and internet exchange points that constitute the “pipes” of the internet. A consortium of public and private actors is building and controlling internet infrastructure in the AsiaPacific and African regions, but the short- and long-term implications of these developments, particularly in terms of continued U.S. hegemony over the internet, are not clear.31 Analyzing choke points in the online environment requires a careful examination of the Chinese government’s interest in and capability to enact choke points. The rapid growth of Chinese internet platforms over the past decade has generated friction between the United States and China, as only China has internet platforms that rival those in the United States. In addition to having national secu- 144 The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence rity implications, the U.S.- China trade dispute is also a technological dispute, with both parties wanting to dominate global markets in advanced technologies like robotics, autonomous vehicles, and artificial intelligence.32 The Chinese government has strategically cultivated its national technology champions, in part by banning foreign competitors and using policy incentives to favor domestic firms, which has resulted in a symbiotic partnership between the Chinese government and its commercial internet firms.33 China’s tech giants operate largely within China but control industry sectors: Baidu dominates search; Tencent operates the popular WeChat social media platform and WeChat Pay application; and the Alibaba Group’s Taobao and Tmall platforms are the dominant retail marketplaces in China, while Alibaba’s AliPay system competes with WeChat Pay for dominance of China’s online payment sector. Tencent and Alibaba are also expanding within Europe and Asia, with investments in cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and payment services, raising concerns in the United States.34 How and in what industry sectors might the Chinese government impose choke points to serve its political and economic interests, and with what effects? Since Chinese platforms remain reliant on foreign capital, particularly from the United States, for continued growth,35 how might this constrain the effectiveness of the Chinese government’s use of choke points? How might China employ choke points to gain technological dominance in areas of strategic interest to itself and the United States, especially in robotics, autonomous vehicles, and artificial intelligence?36 Finally, this focus on the United States and China prompts a final critical question: How are other countries affected by weaponized interdependence? Research is needed not just on states that have the capacity and intent to wield choke points, but also in assessing how affected countries might best respond to, resist, or deter statesanctioned choke points. How might smaller countries without dominance over economic networks, like Canada, Brazil, or Australia, resist or respond to choke points? This research agenda should consider the role of the EU in facilitating or responding to weaponized interdependence. The European Union does not have a domestic internet industry that rivals that of the United States or China, but the Internet Platforms Weaponizing Choke Points 145 EU is attempting to position itself as a regulatory superpower, in part through its May 2018 implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), its groundbreaking privacy law. Next Steps The use of choke points will continue because globally operating internet platforms are an attractive and valuable tool for states to extend their control. The United States has a particular advantage, given the commercial dominance of its platforms across various industry sectors and its capacity to compel cooperation from its platforms. China, however, has its own internet giants over which the government exerts considerable control. The Houston Rockets’ case is a likely prelude to future scenarios in which China capitalizes upon its growing internet sector to extend its political and economic control. This chapter is structured around the Houston Rockets case because it highlights an important factor in why U.S. academics and policymakers are concerned about weaponized interdependence: a country other than the United States can now leverage networks to exert choke-point power to serve its interests. As Drezner notes in the introduction, U.S. policymakers have been slow to recognize that the United States can be affected by weaponized interdependence, and now they need to consider how they might respond to choke points targeting U.S. political, security, or economic interests. Outside the United States, the practice of weaponized interdependence is quite familiar. Countries like Canada can provide advice and counterstrategies because they have experienced the United States wielding its structural power for decades. With the United States finally experiencing the negative effects of weaponized interdependence, might U.S. policymakers consider prioritizing alternative forms of statecraft? Notes 1. Patrick Blennerhassett, “NBA Boss Adam Silver Says Chinese Government Asked Him to Fire Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey,” South China Morning Post, October 18, 2019, www.scmp.com/ sport/basketball/article/3033476/adam-silver-said-chinese-government-asked -him-fire-houston-rockets. 146 The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence 2 . Tony Xu, “China’s Tech Giants Hit Pause on NBA Ties after Executive’s Hong Kong Tweet,” TechNode, October 9, 2019, https://technode.com/2019 /10/09/chinas -tech-giants -hit-pause -on-nba-ties -after -executives -hong -kong -tweet/. 3. Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security 44 (Summer 2019), pp. 42–79. 4. See, for example, David Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford University Press, 2003). 5. See Henry Farrell, “Regulating Information Flows: States, Private Actors, and E-Commerce,” Annual Review of Political Science 9 (2006), pp. 353–74. 6. See Michael D. Birnhack and Niva Elkin-Koren, “The Invisible Handshake: The Reemergence of the State in the Digital Environment,” Virginia Journal of Law and Technology 8, no. 6 (2003), pp. 1–57; Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (New York: Basic Books, 1999); Joel R. Reidenberg, “Lex Informatica: The Formulation of Information Policy Rules through Technology,” Texas Law Review 76 (1998), pp. 553–93. 7. Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. 8. Birnhack and Elkin-Koren, “The Invisible Handshake.” 9. Annemarie Bridy, “Internet Payment Blockades,” Florida Law Review 67, no. 5 (2015), pp. 1523–68; Uta Kohl, “Google: The Rise and Rise of Online Intermediaries in the Governance of the Internet and Beyond (Part 2),” International Journal of Law and Information Technology 21, no. 2 (2013), pp. 187–234; Natasha Tusikov, Chokepoints: Global Private Regulation on the Internet (University of California Press, 2017). 10. Tusikov, Chokepoints. 11. Laura DeNardis, The Global War for Internet Governance (Yale University Press, 2014); Tusikov, Chokepoints. 12. Jonathan A. Zittrain, “A History of Online Gatekeeping,” Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 20, no. 1 (2006), pp. 253–98, at p. 254. 13. Oren Bracha and Frank Pasquale, “Federal Search Commission? Access, Fairness, and Accountability in the Law of Search,” Cornell Law Review 93 (2008), pp. 1149–1210, at p. 1161. 14. Andrew Murray, “Nodes and Gravity in Virtual Space,” Legisprudence 5 (2011), pp. 195–221, at p. 220. 15. Jonathan A. Obar and Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, “The Biggest Lie on the Internet: Ignoring the Privacy Policies and Terms of Service Policies of Social Networking Services,” Information, Communication & Society 23, no. 1 (2018), pp. 128–47. 16. Shonsana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2019). Internet Platforms Weaponizing Choke Points 147 17. Yochai Benkler, “WikiLeaks and the Protect-IP Act: A New Public-Private Threat to the Internet Commons,” Daedalus 140, no. 4 (2011), pp. 154–64. 18. Ibid, p. 155. 19. Ibid. 20. See Tusikov, Chokepoints. 21. Ibid. 22. See Aofei Lv and Ting Luo, “Authoritarian Practices in the Digital Age: Asymmetrical Power Between Internet Giants and Users in China,” International Journal of Communication 12 (2018), pp. 3877–95. 23. See Tusikov, Chokepoints. 24. Tom Cardoso, “Google to Ban Political Ads Ahead of Federal Election, Citing New Transparency Rules,” The Globe and Mail, March 4, 2019, www .theglobeandmail .com/politics/article -google -to -ban -political-ads -ahead -of -federal-election-citing-new/. 25. Claire A. Cutler, Virginia Haufler and Tony Porter, Private Authority and International Affairs (SUNY Press, 1999). 26. Fabrizio Cafaggi, editor, Enforcement of Transnational Regulation: Ensuring Compliance in a Global World (Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012). 27. See Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism; Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity, 2017). 28. Shawn M. Powers and Michael Jablonski, The Real Cyber War: The Political Economy of Internet Freedom (University of Illinois Press, 2015). 29. Lily Hay Newman, “This Apple-FBI Fight is Different from the Last One,” Wired, January 16, 2020, www.wired.com/story/apple-fbi-iphone - enc r y pt ion -p en s acol a / #:~: t ex t= For%2 0 a l l%2 0 t he%2 0 F B I ’s%2 0 posturing,to%20crack%20it%20for%20them. 30. Dwayne Winseck, “Internet Infrastructure and the Persistent Myth of U.S. Hegemony,” in Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century, edited by Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne, and Natasha Tusikov (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 93–120. 31. Ibid. 32. See Natasha Tusikov, “How U.S.-Made Rules Shape Internet Governance in China,” Internet Policy Review 8, no. 2 (2019), pp. 1–22. 33. Min Jiang and King-Wa Fu, “Chinese Social Media and Big Data: Big Data, Big Brother, Big Profit?” Policy & Internet 10, no. 4 (2018), pp. 372–92. 34. Philippe Le Corre, “On China’s Expanding Influence in Europe and Eurasia,” testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment, Washington, May 9, 2019. 148 The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence 35. Lianrui Jia and Dwayne Winseck, “The Political Economy of Chinese Internet Companies: Financialization, Concentration, and Capitalization,” International Communication Gazette 80, no. 1 (2018), pp. 30–59. 36. See Kim Min-hyung, “A Real Driver of U.S.–China Trade Conflict: The Sino–U.S. Competition for Global Hegemony and Its Implications for the Future,” International Trade, Politics and Development 3, no. 1 (2019) pp. 30–40.