Wiktionary
n. A fragmented internet, or one of its separate parts.
Wikipedia
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. "Powerful forces are threatening to balkanise it," writes the Economist weekly, and it may soon splinter along geographic and commercial boundaries. Countries such as China have erected what is termed a " Great Firewall", for political reasons, while other nations, such as the US and Australia, discuss plans to create a similar firewall to block child pornography or weapon-making instructions.
Clyde Wayne Crews, a researcher at the Cato Institute, first used the term in 2001 to describe his concept of "parallel Internets that would be run as distinct, private, and autonomous universes." Crews used the term in a positive sense, but more recent writers have used the term in a negative sense.
Usage examples of "splinternet".
She was firing fast: the Marines and soldiers packed tight on the quarterdeck and forecastle were blazing away over the hammocks with steady pertinacity: stray ropes and blocks fell on to the splinternetting overhead: smoke hung thick between the ships, continually renewed as it blew away, and through the smoke the Bellone's guns flashed orange--flashes from the Victor too, on the Nereide's starboard quarter.