splinternet
cyber-balkanization
cyber-balkanisation BrE

The term "splinternet" is sometimes used to describe the effects of national firewalls.

The age of the Splinternet beckons.

Defentect is a business unit of Splinternet Holdings, Inc. (www.splinter.net).

Writer Derek Thomson explains that "in the Splinternet age, ads are more tightly controlled by platform."

The company needs to address the growth of the mobile Web, he said, or as VanBoskirk puts it, develop "a plan for The Splinternet."

As a result, many governments are actively blocking Internet access to its own nationals, creating more of what Morozov calls a "Splinternet":

The unauthorized NSA disclosures have led some states to seek changes to the global Internet architecture that could lead to a fragmented "splinternet."

Forrester Research vice president and author Josh Bernoff also writes that "the unified Web is turning into a Splinternet," as users of new devices risk leaving one Internet standard.

He uses the term "splinternet" to refer to "a web in which content on devices other than PCs, or hidden behind passwords, makes it harder for site developers and marketers to create a unified experience."

The splinternet (also referred to as cyberbalkanization or Internet Balkanization) is a characterization of the Internet as splintering and dividing due to various factors, such as technology, commerce, politics, nationalism, religion, and interests.

Defentect (www.defentect.com) is a homeland security technology firm developing and marketing intelligent threat awareness solutions and advanced technologies to fight the worldwide threat of terrorism and is business unit of Splinternet Holdings, Inc. (www.splinter.net)

Journalist and author Doc Searls uses the term "splinternet" to describe the "growing distance between the ideals of the Internet and the realities of dysfunctional nationalisms. . . ," which contribute to the various, and sometimes incompatible standards which often make it hard for search engines to use the data.

A filter bubble has been described as exacerbating a phenomenon that has been called splinternet or cyberbalkanization, which happens when the Internet becomes divided up into sub-groups of like-minded people who become insulated within their own online community and fail to get exposure to different views; the term cyberbalkanization was coined in 1996.

How is that cyber-balkanization?

In his 2001 bookRepublic.com, legal theorist Cass Sunstein argued that the increasing influence of the web's political sites could lead to a kind of cyber-balkanization (I'm indebted here to Drezner and Farrell's excellent discussion of this problem).