Due to the global development of the Internet, every country is now faced with three kinds of informational threats from external state and non-state actors: censorship, surveillance, and deception. In each country the targets of these threats are: the opinions of its citizens, their ability to express them, and their personal data as well as the confidential data of its institutions and economic operators. These targets are all part of its digital sovereignty, which is a component of sovereignty, in the same way as monetary sovereignty, for example.
Censorship and Big Tech
The number of social network users operated by US Big Tech worldwide has grown dramatically in recent years, to the point that Facebook will soon reach three billion users worldwide. The problem is that many of these social networks censor their users according to their own rules, and supersedes the justice system of the users' countries, which is in principle the only one with the legitimacy to judge users' messages and, if necessary, to order their deletion.
This is a massive infringement of the users' fundamental right to a fair trial, conducted by a legitimate justice system, and not by a private commercial enterprise. Obviously, judicial intervention on this scale requires resources, but: on the one hand, this is the price of justice and sovereignty, and on the other hand, these resources could be provided by taxes on Big Tech, which makes considerable commercial profits by exploiting the exchange of ideas between people on a global scale.
Moreover, censoring some messages, and spreading others, is also a way of crafting public opinion : in practice, Facebook now has such power on a global scale. And this poses a threat to many democracies. Facebook and Twitter, for example, have not hesitated to censor African leaders in Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Surveillance, Big Tech and Internet Service Providers
Big Tech also collects a lot of users' personal data for commercial purpose, which violates their privacy and even their security. Facebook recently threatened to suspend its activities in Europe, on the grounds that the European Union was asking it to comply with European law on the protection of personal data of European citizens
Another type of actor can monitor users' personal data: Internet Service Providers (ISPs). ISPs can record the internet activities of all their subscribers: this recording is known as connection logs, or data retention. These logs can tell us a lot about users, their private lives, their political opinions, etc. Even intelligence services of a country would like their parliamentarians to authorise them to access ISPs connection logs. The problem is when a country calls on a foreign ISP to develop the Internet on its territory: this foreign ISP will be able to collect a huge amount of confidential user data, from the ordinary citizen to Primature or Presidency. This risk also concerns telephony and smartphones: do you think that Huawei offers smartphones in primatures in a totally disinterested way?
Furthermore, the collection of personal data, or the obligation to disclose it, has another effect: self-censorship. This is known as "chilling effect". This is caused in particular by Facebook "Real Name Policy", which requires Facebook users to use their real names. Facebook deliberately ignores the fact that this policy can endanger the lives of users in many countries, such as Afghanistan. The only way to preserve oneself is then to self-censor: Facebook's policy therefore generates censorship. And, again, this changes public opinion, and undermines the values of democracy.
Online deception, Russian trolls and algorithms
Last but not least, the manipulation of opinions by Russian actors on social networks. These are offensive, hostile operations aimed at interfering in elections or manipulating opinions for the purpose of political influence or obtaining access to natural resources. One actor in particular has stood out in this field: Evgueny Prigozhin, a man close to Vladimir Putin who heads a conglomerate whose activities range from propaganda troll farms (in Russia, Ghana, etc.), to media control and mining in Africa, or mercenaries (e.g. the Wagner group), which makes it possible on the one hand to guarantee access to the coveted mines, and on the other hand to protect the regime that has offered this access.
These Russian operations are extremely damaging for the victims of the manipulation operations - since they constitute a form of enslavement that exploits credulity - and also, more broadly, because the existence of these state or para-state practices of hybrid warfare encourages even greater surveillance of Internet users' data: Russian propaganda therefore also - indirectly - infringes on users' private lives.
Finally, social networks (but also search engines or news engines) use opaque algorithms or artificial intelligence to highlight certain content. This is how you receive disturbing or nonsensical content suggestions on your Facebook feed, and how, for commercial reasons, Facebook inflicts certain types of content on you even if you have not requested them.