If the Treaty of 1919 planted the seed of semantic governance, the invention of the internet provided the soil in which it would grow uncontrollably.
The early architects of the internet imagined a decentralized network dedicated to the free exchange of information. Their vision was utopian. They believed that greater access to knowledge would produce greater understanding among peoples and nations and for a brief moment, it appeared they might be correct.
Universities connected to one another across continents. Researchers shared data instantly. Students accessed libraries previously beyond their reach. Enthusiasts of obscure hobbies discovered communities of like-minded individuals scattered across the globe. The world felt smaller but it also became louder. The internet removed traditional barriers to publication. Anyone with a connection could distribute words to audiences that once required the infrastructure of newspapers or broadcasting companies. The number of voices participating in public discourse expanded exponentially.
Governments were unprepared. Their bureaucracies had been designed for a slower world, one in which communication flowed through relatively predictable channels. Now narratives spread through millions of individual nodes simultaneously, mutating as they traveled and attempts to regulate this new environment proved largely ineffective. Laws passed by one nation had little influence over servers located in another and messages deleted in one jurisdiction reappeared instantly in others.
The internet did not abolish semantic governance. It made it impossible. And when governance fails, conflict tends to follow.