'America First' Global Policy Could 'Break the Internet, Says Former State Department Net Policy Coordinator

There's “no rational ‘America first’ global internet policy that won’t break the internet,” said former U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy Daniel Sepulveda in a Friday Facebook post. Sepulveda left the State Department in January a week before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who pledged to take an “America First” attitude toward trade and other economic issues. “The benefits of the democratization of power and opportunity that the global platform creates must be shared for our own good,” Sepulveda said. “And the challenges the global platform creates -- from enabling criminal or harmful activity to challenging jurisdictional control over the development of local societies -- do not allow for a situation in which we win and others lose by putting America first.” Either “we solve these challenges together or we all lose,” Sepulveda said. “As we close ourselves off from people, goods, and services from abroad, nations will respond, in part, by closing themselves off to us digitally or by trying to extract some price for continued interconnection. If our friends across the aisle want to head this way, at least do it consciously.”