More than 100.000 leaked documents have revealed that a little-known Chinese company, Geedge Networks, is selling censorship and surveillance technology systems modeled after the Great Firewall to governments around the world, Wired magazine reports. Researchers who reviewed the leaked materials say the company could sell advanced surveillance capabilities that amount to a commercialized version of the Great Firewall of China — combining hardware that can be installed in any telecommunications data center with software that is managed by local government officials. The documents also discuss features the company is working on, such as on-demand cyberattacks and geofencing of specific users. Geedge has already begun operations in Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Myanmar, as well as in another, as-yet-unidentified country. The surveillance and censorship system that Geedge is selling gives governments enormous powers and goes beyond the usual, legally regulated online monitoring practices common around the world. The researchers called the Chinese company’s practices “selling digital authoritarianism as a service.”
In parallel, the Vanderbilt Institute published internal materials revealing the activities of another similar company - GoLaxy. Its main activities are collecting data from social media, mapping relationships between political figures and news organizations and placing targeted narratives online through synthetic profiles. GoLaxy's three main clients are the Communist Party of China, the Chinese government and the Chinese military. The most common activities have focused on geopolitical issues related to Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US elections. While China is building platforms with the aim of shaping global narratives and turning information into weapons, on the other side of the world, in the United States, the Pentagon is trying to maintain its dominance in the field of using AI and digital technologies in combat operations. A Pentagon official told Politico that huge efforts are being invested in integrating AI into defense, but that they are not aimed at creating so-called killer robots, but at preventing disinformation and strategic surprises in a world where algorithmic decisions can decide wars. In this competition, the fight for narrative dominance and effective complex decision-making is as important as traditional armed power.
According to the report AI, China, Russia, and the Global Order, artificial intelligence and big data technologies are enabling a new model of digital authoritarianism, in which regimes can simultaneously foster economic development and maintain tight control over citizens. China and Russia treat information operations as a key area of strategic competition with the United States, developing narratives that portray America as an imperialist power imposing Western values on others. In an era where digital infrastructure is transformed into a battlefield, the boundaries between war and peace are being erased in the “cloud” of data and lines of code.
Digital authoritarianism no longer depends on tanks and missiles - it manifests itself through algorithms that monitor, manipulate and shape reality. In this new order, mechanical weapons lose their strategic value compared to the power of artificial intelligence to influence perception, destabilize societies and decide the outcomes of conflicts before a single bullet is fired. The authors of the aforementioned study warn that states around the world will increasingly be classified and divided into "digital liberal democracies" or "digital authoritarianisms". Thus, the ideological and technological rivalry between the US, China and Russia may become one of the key dividing lines of the 21st century.
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