China and Russia are using the UN to censor the world

Excerpt

While Russian hackers attack Ukraine and probe critical infrastructure across the West, United Nations member states have been debating a new cybercrime convention. This may appear, on paper, to be a reasonable response to the Kremlin’s aggressive campaign to dominate cyberspace. But there’s a major problem: as currently written, the convention does little more than underwrite Putin’s digital authoritarianism. It’s no surprise, then, that Beijing and Moscow have been so forthcoming with their support. 

Putin has an uneasy relationship with the web. On the one hand, it is an arena in which Russia can challenge the West on equal footing, despite the latter’s conventional military and economic superiority. On the other, he fears the internet’s power to facilitate domestic unrest, spearheaded –in Moscow’s eyes – by Western intelligence agencies hellbent on destroying his country. 

Ivana Stradner is a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on X @ivanastradner. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.