Not just split by nations - search engines and social media, news media too - and while there isn't much evidence of traffic manipulation, companies like cloudflare wield a disproportionate amount of power over internet communications. That's not to say that there are dangerous places on the internet that people need to be protected from, but the idea of a totally neutral and open internet has long since been a thing of the past.

Submission Statement: In many ways, the borderless nature of the internet is essential to its functioning as a global communications channel. The fact that a hypertext link can point to anything that exists anywhere in cyberspace is something that has long been taken for granted. Yet, in other ways, the open and unrestricted internet is more of an illusion than reality. On multiple levels, the net is fragmenting into separate domains that are no longer able or willing to connect. This fragmentation – sometimes referred to as the ‘Splinternet’– is happening along geopolitical lines, pointing to a potential future where ‘global connectivity’ is not so global anymore, but separated by digital iron curtains set up by rivalling great powers – with the US, the EU, China, and Russia being the primary actors.

This article was first published in FARSIGHT - Futures Reviewed. A quarterly futures publication by Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies.

There are a LOT of websites blocked in the US. Doing a deepdive after finding some illegal content lead me down some shady fking places, but there are hundreds upon hundreds of websites buried in the world wide web.

Weird niche fked up forums, sales groups, services all that jazz. Not dark web, not deep web, none of that. Ne'er an onion in site.

It's wild. And the thing is that a lot of these websites are almost nomadic. Everytime one gets brought down, it pops up somewhere else, same content archived.

I misread it as “sphincternet”, but that may stil turn out to be the case…

Yea it’s important this doesn’t become a thing cause then controllers can target individuals and shove them into places they don’t belong…

Anybody notice how now when you do a google search clicking see more at the bottom usually just brings up the same repeated links. Or how at the top it says millions of results but click page 9 at the bottom and there is def not millions. It ends at page 9 and again those pages are usually just copies of the links from page one. Idk if this has relevance with this topic but it def feels as if it does somehow

The following submission statement was provided by /u/CPHfuturesstudies:

Submission Statement: In many ways, the borderless nature of the internet is essential to its functioning as a global communications channel. The fact that a hypertext link can point to anything that exists anywhere in cyberspace is something that has long been taken for granted. Yet, in other ways, the open and unrestricted internet is more of an illusion than reality. On multiple levels, the net is fragmenting into separate domains that are no longer able or willing to connect. This fragmentation – sometimes referred to as the ‘Splinternet’– is happening along geopolitical lines, pointing to a potential future where ‘global connectivity’ is not so global anymore, but separated by digital iron curtains set up by rivalling great powers – with the US, the EU, China, and Russia being the primary actors.

This article was first published in FARSIGHT - Futures Reviewed. A quarterly futures publication by Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/z3dilx/is_the_unrestricted_internet_an_illusion_welcome/ixl84wv/

Yes. Truthfully net neutrality is dead. They even have an old word for it. Net-neutrality.

Web site won't scroll. Useless. Somewhat misses the point that "the Internet" is in fact two Internets: the C2C/C2B one and the larger B2B affair. Much of the B2B has dedicated connections and is isolated from tiny fingers.