All of the companies that would instantly start losing a billion dollars per second would never allow this to happen. This isn’t some 3rd world country where Google and Apple and Facebook aren’t headquartered. The internet will always be happening here. They’re completely dependent on it and their customer’s constant access to it.
Our econnomy is heavily tied to the Internet at this point. Billions in commerce are conducted directly and many billions more in enabled (“what’s the closest pizza place?”). Not to mention stock trading, banking, government services, healthcare, etc. You’re very much on track here and I don’t think it’s hyperbole.
While it could technically happen that our government could legally shut down the internet, it wouldn’t last long or it means we are under attack (perhaps internally) and need to control damage/messaging.
How much of the infrastructure is government owned? Any if it? I do not think he could do this even if he ordered it.
Aren’t all 3 of those actually headquartered in Ireland (for tax reasons)?
No, that’s just the tasty part of the Dutch sandwich
I’m seeing a lot of Newsweek posted here and that is disheartening, to say the least. Newsweek is half a step from the dailymail’s level of bombastic misrepresentation. Continued use of Newsweek as a source is not ideal as a result.
I’m surprised how many users upvotes click bait headlines.
Classic coup move
Hands you a hollowed out hard copy of 1984 with a Sig 320 inside
We are going to need a lot more people trained in Gun Kata soon, Cleric.
But for now, its dangerous to go alone, take this!
I don’t know where Equilibrium came from but i approve.
I was replying to a user named Grammaton Cleric.
Oooooh, I missed that too. I love that film.
Quick, hide that internet button so that grandpa can’t switch it off!
“Go ahead and pull the internet plug, gramps! I’ll be pulling your plug soon enough anyways”
All i can say good luck. If you turn off the internet nothing will work and shit will hit the fan for the gov too fast.
Well, he’d pretty much turn off the government if he turned off the internet anyway
You say that as if Republicans don’t want exactly that.
No internet, no imaginary numbers go up.
Republicans don’t want government, but they do want their corporate masters to make money. Which whey won’t do if there is no internet.
I agree and this is exactly my point. It will be chaos worse than anything we ever seen. People just don’t realize how dependent everything is on internet now.
Stores and banks aren’t stocked or staffed for turning off e-commerce. Banks hate when customers walk in the door instead of doing everything online. And the stores woods have to find a drastically different equilibrium without internet advertising or orders. It would be absolute chaos.
It would be absolute chaos.
Which is part of what successful coups rely on: the visible theater of interrupting daily life.
Destabilizing daily life as much as possible, for as many people as possible, makes the public that much more pliant and willing to accept a dictator who will restore order and fall in line with a new regime.
People here talking about Donald Trump like he has any inner limits at all, or anyone in his circle with the power to get him to turn back on a bad decision. No. That fucker will turn off the internet in a heartbeat if he has even a fraction of an opportunity to do so, just to prove he can. And he will then blame it on whoever is standing in his way the most.
He shuts down major backbones, effectively turning off the U.S. Internet. At the same time, he releases a story to the media and telcos about a major attack on the backbones - a virus, whatever. There’s panic and chaos, as the country grinds to a halt.
He uses that to declare martial law.
After a sufficient time (a small number of days, or even hours), he turns the backbones back on, claiming experts have fixed the problem. Citing martial law, he puts restrictions in place on the U.S, Internet, as dictators do.
We now have severely limited access to real news and information, martial law, and a dictator in place. American Democracy is dead.
Vote Democrat. No matter how much you think they’re the same, they aren’t.
Miles Taylor, Trump’s former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, was asked on MSNBC about what potential damage the former president, who is the frontrunner in the GOP primaries, could do in government without breaking the law.
“The possibilities are almost limitless,” Taylor said. “The biggest concerns for me are on the national security side. I think Americans still don’t understand the full extent of the president’s powers and things Donald Trump could do, bubble-wrapped in legalese, that would be damaging to the republic.”
“He could invoke powers we’ve never heard a President of the United States invoke—potentially to shut down companies or turn off the internet or deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil,” he added. "We don’t know because the things that are in there, the emergency powers of the president, aren’t widely known to the American people.
I doubt the president who lives on the internet & relies on it to connect with his superfans would disable it.
Not for the people he likes.
So no one said that he would or even may turn off the internet, but that he may use legalize and his emergency presidential powers, if elected, to do something crazy. The person talking about it was spitballing and included turning the internet off as a example of something crazy that he might do.
Oh Trump has blubbered about it enough that I would take it seriously.
It wouldn’t be a legal mechanism if there was something stopping him from doing it.(from the article)
“We’re losing a lot of people because of the internet,” Trump said. “We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that Internet up in some way. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people.”
“ISIS is recruiting through the Internet. ISIS is using the internet better than we are using the nternet and it was our idea,” Trump said. “I want to get the brilliant people from Silicon Valley and other places and figure out a way that ISIS can’t do what they’re doing. I would certainly be open to closing areas where we are at war with somebody. I sure as hell don’t want to let people that want to kill us and kill our nation use our Internet.”
When challenged, he added: “I’m not talking about closing the internet. I’m talking about closing parts of the internet where ISIS is.”
Fair enough. I can be incorrect. Still doesn’t say he planning on shutting down the internet, but I wouldn’t put it past him if it would serve his best interest. It doesn’t seem he even really understands what the internet is and how it works.
he learned that idea when he visited his buddy Kim in North Korea
Will he personally pull the plug off the wall so that ISIS stops being a meanie?
I think he is too much of a narcissist to do something that would reduce the amount of attention he could receive.
Also:
To be clear this is unlikely to be a long term nation wide internet blackout. Rather, e.g., turn off the Internet in a section of a city and send in troops to deal with a protest.
Oh, that’s okay then!
Phew for a minute I was worried
I would have accepted this take in 2016 but not anymore. He’s running again to avoid the consequences of his shitty stupid choices. If he wins he’s gonna feel completely unshackled.
Oh and his allies have already been stacking the bureaucracy with loyalists. There won’t be any voices of reason in second administration because they already chased those people off.
Good luck.
I’m pretty sure the only way to turn off the internet is remove humans from the ultimate equation. We have a stubborn little habit of maintaining the status quo or ignoring the rules, especially when porn and/or money is on the line.
He’s going to call Bill Gates to do it.
You kid but he literally names Bill Gates in the article.
What about Bill Microsoft or Bill Windows?
Finally.
Finally a candidate who bases policy around the objectively correct take away from Ready Player One, the most culturally significant sci fi statement on society of our generation.
(/s if that is somehow needed)
(/s if that is somehow needed)
Always keep Poe’s law in mind.
