The fragmentation of the Internet refers to the trend of different countries or regions implementing their own unique regulations and restrictions on Internet access and content. There are a number of technical, political, and commercial factors to fragmentation, all of which may pose a risk to the free flow of information across digital and geographical borders.
Two decades ago Tim Wu, a Taiwanese-American legal scholar who coined the term "network neutrality," raised concerns about how the Chinese government was “.” Since then, worries have only increased about states and commercial players adopting policies that might break up the Internet into disconnected segments, with talk of “balkanization,” “splinternets,” and – most commonly – “Internet fragmentation.”
