Internet Outside of America

[ED-Tw0 ZeRo N9nE]

This will be directed to all Escapists who aren't Americans. With all this controversy going around about SOPA/PIPA, it gets me wondering exactly HOW reliant on the US's internet is your respective countries? Basically, if our infrastructure completely collapsed, would yours be able to survive it? Is your internet shared with your neighboring countries or do you have it completely self contained? I know the web was basically born here in the states, but the amount of control we still have over this entire medium is astounding to be. My country is starting to remind me of a childish school yard bully who refuses to share his toys. We do have a lot of problems here, most of us Americans can admit this, but if we go down, there shouldn't be any reasons why any of you get dragged down in any form with us. So, I hope you guys could survive something like that, but if you can't, then you might want to start thinking about how your countries could fix those problems. Contact your politicians guys, I see no reason why you should suffer for our stupidity.

[EDIT] I relise that this will probably sound like a REALLY stupid question to a lot of you, but I am talking to a WIDE range of different countries here, and your situations ARE going to be different from each others. The internet in Europe is not going to be the same in Canada. Speaking of Canada, is yours self contained, or are you running off of ours?

 

[ED-Tw0 ZeRo N9nE]

Cool, thanks for the feedback, T'is interesting stuff. I never would have expected New Zealand's to run tandem like that. Australia makes sence, it's pretty much what I expected to see, even with the rivalry, you've got to get your net from somewhere. The way your able to use ours routed through Hawaii is pretty neat, that definately through me for a loop. That's a LOT of ocean in between us, are the green dots towers or something? How's Australia's net, it should be pretty reliable right?

 

[Prince Regent]

In Europe we would not be affected (in a way you describe at least) by strange US internet regulation. Though a fear is that when one western country passes internet restrictions like SOPA more might follow. Better to immediately root it out.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I'm in Canada. I'm thinking we are kind of dependent....

 

[ED-Tw0 ZeRo N9nE]

Yikes, it's connected by cables??? I can't even describe the astonishment on my face right now, cables under the Pacific Ocean, through the Ring of Fire. Wow, I was thinking that the blue lines were the signals broadcasted from towers or something, but that? Man, that just seems so rediculous to me, there weren't any better wasys to do that, satellites maybe?

 

[MrTub]

Yikes, it's connected by cables??? I can't even describe the astonishment on my face right now, cables under the Pacific Ocean, through the Ring of Fire. Wow, I was thinking that the blue lines were the signals broadcasted from towers or something, but that? Man, that just seems so rediculous to me, there weren't any better wasys to do that, satellites maybe?

satellites would suck since they cannot handle the data transfer and it would a huge delay since the data would had to be sent out to space and then back to earth.

 

[Jodah]

As an American I would think the direct impact would be negligible. The infrastructure and such wouldn't impact Europe or other countries much if at all. Canada might get the shaft, though.

The biggest problem would come in the form of potential lost revenue. If a foreign based website is popular in the US but gets censored under SOPA or even worries about being censored by SOPA they may change their rules and moderation.

For example, not saying this would happen, but just theoretically. If SOPA were to pass it means that The Escapist could be blocked because a citizen of Canada posted a video that would be covered under SOPA. Now the US Government demands that ISPs block The Escapist for American citizens. The potential lost revenue from advertising and pub club would be enormous. The US is one of the largest internet markets.

So to prevent losing the US market The Escapist decides to implement new rules. Now instead of it being limited only to offensive material or spam you are not allowed to post any videos or pictures on the forums. Such posts would no longer by embedded/linked and anyone caught posting the plain URL would have their post deleted and/or a warning would be sent.

Now yes, this is the extreme but I for one don't want to give the US Government the power to make it happen. It is unlikely, but why risk it?

 

[dvd_72]

I cant comment much on the physical links between various countries, but there are many often used websites that are hosted in the US that could be taken down by SOPA. That, or they'd have to move.

 

[IrritatingSquirrel]

My worry isn't the immediate threat, It's that America might pressure Britain into passing similar laws.

 

[gallagherhjh]

First of all, while the Internet was invented in America, the World Wide Web was created by CERN in Europe.

As other posters have said, the infrastructure of the internet or the web is not USA centric, however of the websites which are written in English, the most popular ones are USamerican.

For example a British online video made by a British person with a British target audience may be often hosted in the USA. Naturally SOPA and PIPA will thus reduce the capabilities of these websites, thus impacting other countries

Another issue is that due to the British Empire in the 19th Century and USAmerican Geopolitical dominance in the 20th, English is firmly established as a lingua franca, thus the English Language websites are popular by persons who's first languages don't have as many webpages.

Hence internet restrictions in America will effect the usage of the internet for many (Especially the WWW).

More on topic, your question isn't stupid, however it is flawed in that it thinks of the internet in different countries being separate, whereas the network is rather between smaller networks of computers which are all interlinked by a standard universal protocol, that these networks are constrained/regulated by those who hold power in their physical locations is a separate issue.

 

[Da Orky Man]

UK here, and I'm guessing we'd be fine. Lots of connections with mainline Europe.

 

[devotedsniper]

Being in the UK/Europe i doubt SOPA/PIPA (or the sea cables being severed) would affect us much considering pretty much all the big companies out there which are international all have servers somewhere in Europe so even if the US site goes down we will still have our version.

As for issues with cables in the sea there are dedicated ships out there designed for the recovery and repairs of the cables (watched a documentry a while back about it).

 

[Zen Toombs]

I'm personally a dumb American with little knowledge on the subject, and appreciate being enlightened.

Thankye kindly! ^_^

 

[DeusEternus]

The main problem is that a lot of important websites are US based. We (Netherlands, Europe here) would not be able to reach those sites. We're talking sites like Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia, Twitter, Google...
I'm not sure if they have mirrors in Europe, but regardless, they would be bound by US law to filter their content in Europe as well. That is, if they don't set up some complicated system where you get Youtube.eu.

SOPA/PIPA will force US-based companies to filter their content. This is not good for anyone, globally. I think "There are no oceans on the internet" pretty much applies to this situation as well.

 

[Jakub324]

My worry isn't the immediate threat, It's that America might pressure Britain into passing similar laws.

That is a scary thought. I wouldn't put it past them, but Cameron has proven willing to stand up for Britain against the EU, so all we can do is hope he does the same against the US. Still, chances of that are on the grim side of small.

 

[GrindBass]

I'm not sure you really understand what the internet IS, you seem to be talking about it like it's a thing that is located in the US and everyone else gets access to. What it actually is is a MASSIVE fucking mess of cables connecting computers together (there's a reason why it's called the 'web'), with standardised software telling the computers how to communicate over those cables. No individual section of it going down will bring down the rest of the internet, all the communication that happens across that section due to it being the shortest route would find another way round (though obviously if a section was completely isolated or brought down then it wouldn't be possible to connect to any computers within that section, so we wouldn't be able to access all sorts of awesome sites that are hosted in the US).

 

[Nouw]

If we're talking infrastructure, I'm pretty sure Europe and Asia would be fine, since they're vastly interconnected, and have their own server mirrors.

My country, New Zealand, on the other hand . . .

Spoiler

This is all we have.
So I guess if the US link was cut, we would be relying on Australia.

Anything but xD. Seriously though, I hope it's not too bad if we end up relying on Australia.

 

[ED-Tw0 ZeRo N9nE]

Just to clarify guys, my concern on this issue isn't really dealing with SOPA itself, it's merely the catalyst that got me wondering about the effects the rest of the world would be dealing with if say perhaps we got hit with a massive EMP strike that knocked us back into the Stone Age (worst case scenario). Someone would have to be able to pick up the pieces. This is just something I've never really thought about until all this controversy popped up is all, and yes, I'm a dumb American here too. You guys in Europe I felt pretty safe about, but I'm almost certain that Canada would be hit hard if something like that happened.

Hmm, maybe I should refrase this question a bit. Do your respective countries have enough businesses operating on the net in order to sustain the loss in revenue this scenario would entail? Is that a better question?

[EDIT] Holy shit, after re-reading this, I sound like one hell of a redneck here.

 

[Evill_Bob]

As the USA is a major worldwide consumer (that's actually a big issue here, we import more than we export) it will affect the rest of the world. Imagine this scenario: Mojang, a Swedish company, gets targeted by SOPA/PIPA because in the forums a custom player skin for their most popular game, Minecraft, is linked that resembles Spider-man. They could then block traffic between Mojang and the USA. Suddenly Minecraft cannot be purchased within the USA and becomes completely unsupported as well for anyone living in the USA because updates and expansions can no longer reach them, as the USA makes up the largest portion of their sales they lose a lot of customers.

Moving on to another example, far more nefarious but just as legal and far too common: Frivolous lawsuit has been the weapon of large companies before, when the threat of a rising business has far outweighed the risk of the loss of Public Relations. Imagine a business opens up in, say Germany, they sell furniture and quickly become known for their unique look and sturdy construction. The USA imported about $64.5 billion (almost ?50 billion) in 2008 in general household goods. While a lot of companies are cashing in on this it is a very large pie to take a piece from. Before the Internet most goods from other countries were handled at dedicated import stores unless they were big enough to open their own branches in other countries. But with the Internet this small German company can sell worldwide with only a single factory without the need of a import store or opening another branch in the USA with only the need for a international shipping company. Let?s say La-Z-Boy decides they are not happy with this little company, they claim that one of their models of sofa is copy of a La-Z-Boy model. I don't remember if SOPA/PIPA will allow an immediate block while the investigation happens or after. But the point is where before SOPA/PIPA La-Z-Boy could sue with frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit, draining the funds of both companies in a legal struggle in an attempt to cause the company to go bankrupt or retreat from the global market. If La-Z-Boy looses the suit without any chance to appeal it they simply go after another model, if they win then it may potentially destroy the small business with fines. With SOPA/PIPA everything operates the same except victory in a suit means it doesn't matter if the company recovers or not. The small German company's site is permanently blocked and they must rely on import stores or open another branch to sell in the USA while still under the threat of a larger company waiting with an army of lawyers to repel them if they try. This scenario can play out in nearly any industry that exports to the USA. Any small business in Japan, Russia, the EU, China (especially), South Korea, and even Mexico and Canada (especially) can and will be victims of this bill.