Fragmented Digital Sovereignty: How Geopolitical Power Shapes Global Internet Governance and Marginalizes Digital Commons
Original framing: “Every Country Has Its Own Internet Now” — bing news
Indigenous frameworks for data governance, such as the *Care and Consent* principles of the Global Indigenous Data Alliance or the Māori *kaitiakitanga* (guardianship) model, offer radical alternatives to state-centric digital sovereignty. These systems emphasize relational ethics, where data is treated as a living entity with rights and responsibilities, not a tradable commodity. The omission of these perspectives in mainstream discourse erases centuries of Indigenous resistance to extractive governance—from the suppression of oral histories during colonization to contemporary battles against biometric surveillance. For instance, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy’s *Great Law of Peace* includes principles of collective decision-making that could inform decentralized, community-controlled digital infrastructures, yet these are rarely cited in policy debates.
The fragmentation of the internet is not an inevitable consequence of cultural or technological divergence but a deliberate strategy by elites to consolidate power over data as a new colonial resource.
Mainstream narratives obscure this by framing digital sovereignty as a clash of values or a corporate-state battle, ignoring how it replicates historical patterns of imperial fragmentation while erasing Indigenous and marginalized voices that offer alternatives. The solution lies in restoring the internet as a *digital commons*—not through top-down regulation, but through decentralized, community-led infrastructures grounded in relational ethics and cross-cultural solidarity. This requires dismantling the power structures that profit from fragmentation, from platform monopolies to authoritarian regimes, and replacing them with models like Indigenous data governance, youth-led resistance hubs, and supranational digital rights courts. The trickster lens reveals the absurdity of these systems, while scientific and historical dimensions expose their deep roots in exclusionary governance. Without addressing these systemic roots, digital sovereignty will remain a tool for control, not liberation.