Technology, Internet, and telecommunications corporations, by providing or discontinuing services, provide a glimpse of a future in which the tech industry takes sides in combat, with far-reaching consequences.
Meta, the corporation that owns Facebook and Instagram, warned earlier this year that individuals could make postings on its social media sites asking for violence against Russia. This has never happened before. One of the world’s largest technology companies openly chose sides in a geopolitical dispute. Russia was now fighting not only a country but also international corporations with a financial stake in the outcome. In response, Russia declared an Instagram ban within its borders. The repercussions were profound. Meta spent about $2 billion on the ban, which eventually included Facebook.
Through the conflict in Ukraine, technology corporations are demonstrating how their decisions can affect geopolitics, which is a significant departure from the past. Technology businesses have either been drawn into conflicts because of how their customers used their services (for example, people listing their homes in the West Bank on Airbnb) or have supported government foreign policy (e.g., SpaceX supplying Internet to Iran after the United States removed some sanctions).
Technology firms are now autonomously influencing conflict in real-time by determining what capabilities to give and how much opposition they are ready to endure.
This is bringing about a new global reality. Any government (or group of countries) with geopolitical ambitions must now plan not only for how nations will respond but also for how technological corporations will respond. As an expert on the intersection of technology and geopolitics, I believe that the ideas and ideologies of technology CEOs are now as important as those of politicians.
The Internet is an excellent example. When the war started, Russian soldiers moved in to disable Ukraine by seizing important infrastructure, such as nuclear power reactors. One-fifth of Ukraine’s electricity is generated by the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility, over which Russia now holds authority.
For the Internet, this method did not work. Just days after the Ukraine war began, US-based SpaceX switched sides and began supplying the Ukrainian government with Starlink, its satellite-based Internet service, allowing Kiev to retaliate against Russian soldiers. Aerorozvidka, one of Ukraine’s most destructive drone divisions, was only able to target Russian forces because of access to Starlink.
By October 2022, SpaceX’s total cost for delivering Starlink terminals to Ukraine had reached $80 million. Even with this connection in jeopardy, Ukraine was able to prevent Russia from dominating the country’s Internet with the help of SpaceX.
In the conflict, social media has provided an additional point of control. When Ukraine’s digital minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, stated that Twitter had become a “weapon to the damage Russian economy,” he was referring to a broader Ukrainian strategy to utilize big tech against Russia. The IT industry’s lobbying was successful. From Alphabet ceasing all advertising sales in Russia to Apple removing VK, Russia’s largest social media network, from its ecosystem, Russia’s society has been digitally “squeezed.”
In addition, big tech has joined Ukraine’s lobbying effort, urging other governments to intervene. DigitalEurope, a European lobbying group comprised of companies such as Amazon, has called on the European Union to contribute digital infrastructure to Ukraine. However, blocking Russia’s access to some social media networks has not resulted in a total blackout: new Russian equivalents, such as Rossgram, have emerged to replace Instagram.
And, as Russian forces combat the Ukrainian opposition, satellite imagery is becoming increasingly important. Google has stopped live traffic features in Ukraine, a capability that could provide Russia with information on the whereabouts of the Ukrainian military. Simultaneously, MDA, a Canadian space business specializing in images intelligence, or geo-intelligence, gained government authorization to supply
When the situation in Ukraine began, all eyes were on Western nations to see how they would respond. Will Russia be cut off from the global finance system SWIFT? Can Europe handle another refugee crisis? Was the world prepared for a worldwide energy shortage?
In all of this, the role of technology businesses has been underestimated or misinterpreted, whether by Russia failing to anticipate Western technology companies assisting Ukraine or by Western nations wrongly expecting that reducing technology transfers to Russia would hasten the conclusion of the war. Even countries like China are involved, despite the fact that its technology businesses have not taken a clear stance on the Ukraine conflict.
However, it is possible that the decisions of technological businesses will have the most long-term impact. Ukraine’s administration aspires to be a technological powerhouse like Israel after the war. As Ukraine reinvents itself, the Ukrainian president wants the country to become a “digital state,” relying on technology supplied by foreign firms.
But, more crucially, as technology businesses influence the Ukraine war and assist rebuild the country, they may obtain “power” over the most critical aspects of the state, ranging from infrastructure, such as the Internet, to defence, in the form of satellite imaging. These corporations are a separate force from the Ukrainian government, the Russian government, or the Ukrainian people.
Technology corporations are shifting the balance of power, as Ukraine gains capabilities it did not previously have, and Russia, in some situations, is denied these capabilities. Of course, not everything is pro-Ukraine. While many Western corporations leave Russia swiftly, numerous Asian companies continue to operate there.
Nonetheless, this highly political movement in technology should serve as a wake-up call for states all around the world. Technology corporations are no longer remaining silent in geopolitics for the sake of money, as many Western firms have done in China despite that country’s behavior toward its political adversaries. They also do not blindly follow government decisions. They are acting independently and, at times, unexpectedly to attain geopolitical goals that they have set for themselves.
In the future, having the support of Google or Meta will be just as important as having the support of the world’s superpowers. And, on top of that, nations that rely on technology companies may have to deal with these companies—and their leaders—changing their tune at the drop of a hat.
With no end in sight to the Ukraine crisis, the stage is set for other technology companies to take even more daring action. Regardless of their goals, such as intervening in conflicts where democracy is under threat, or how far these companies will go to achieve them, such as abandoning tens of millions of users, one thing is clear: the more technology firms shape geopolitics, the more control they will have over the world, and it is this control that countries and companies will wrestle over for years to come.
