• gregorum
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • @massacre
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      251 year ago

      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.

      • @gorkette@aussie.zone
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        81 year ago

        How much of the infrastructure is government owned? Any if it? I do not think he could do this even if he ordered it.

        • JJROKCZ
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          11 year ago

          The alphabet agencies are fully capable of doing whatever is needed, they’re the ones that patch peoples systems for them or hack PCs through the power grid and other crazy shit.

          If the American government wants the internet to be cut off they’re capable of doing it without the assistance of the ISPs

    • Endorkend
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      91 year ago

      Aren’t all 3 of those actually headquartered in Ireland (for tax reasons)?

      • @SpaceNoodle
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        141 year ago

        No, that’s just the tasty part of the Dutch sandwich

  • gullible
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    891 year ago

    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.

    • @YoorWeb
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      71 year ago

      I’m surprised how many users upvotes click bait headlines.

  • @TheLurker
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    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

    • @ashok36
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      101 year ago

      Right? No internet means no economy. Even the simplest daily things like getting gas require an internet connection.

      • @TheLurker
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        1 year ago

        deleted by creator

        • @linearchaos
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          21 year ago

          Most of those emergency services have fall-backs for loss of connectivity. A lot of cases you need people manning consoles that are usually remote.

          Financial services are probably hardest hit. They still have a lot of private networks to keep themselves up say if they just iced DNS.

          But yeah, if they just proclaim no network anywhere financial would be doa.

    • @pinkdrunkenelephants
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      21 year ago

      If there’s a civil war in the U.S., they’ll absolutely tank the economy to stop the people from rising up. They’re tyrants. They don’t care about the well-being of the country but about maintaining their power over others.

    • @cosmicrookie
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      11 year ago

      Did you know that in South Africa, the power is shut regularly by their government?

      • @TheLurker
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        1 year ago

        deleted by creator

      • MadMaurice
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        11 year ago

        I think you missed the point the other person was trying to make. They mean shut off all electrical grids. I don’t think South Africa has that power.

    • @vexikron@lemmy.zip
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      81 year ago

      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!

      • @WraithGear
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        71 year ago

        I don’t know where Equilibrium came from but i approve.

    • @bfg9k
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      121 year ago

      It’s not a big truck

      It’s not something you can just dump something off of

      It’s a series of tubes

    • @hOrni
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      31 year ago

      It’s possible that he saw the episode and thought it was real.

  • @FireTower
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    391 year ago

    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.

    • @jdrch
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      161 year ago

      I doubt the president who lives on the internet & relies on it to connect with his superfans would disable it.

    • @denshirenji
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      1 year ago

      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.

      Edit: He indeed talked about geoblocking countries with groups like ISIS operating within them. At least that is what I assume he meant with his word salad. This is from post below mine. Still not turning off internet.

      • kick_out_the_jams
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        1 year ago

        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.”

        • @denshirenji
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          -11 year ago

          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.

  • bedrooms
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    381 year ago

    Quick, hide that internet button so that grandpa can’t switch it off!

  • @noroute
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    1 year ago

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    • @jeffwM
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      171 year ago

      Well, he’d pretty much turn off the government if he turned off the internet anyway

      • FaceDeer
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        131 year ago

        You say that as if Republicans don’t want exactly that.

        • Flying Squid
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          51 year ago

          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.

          • FaceDeer
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            51 year ago

            Are you suggesting that the Republicans might lack a sense of foresight and awareness of the consequences of their actions? Well I never.

      • @noroute
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    • @MagicShel@programming.dev
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      71 year ago

      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.

        • Rob
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          91 year ago

          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.

  • Lemminary
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    221 year ago

    Will he personally pull the plug off the wall so that ISIS stops being a meanie?

  • theodewere
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    201 year ago

    he learned that idea when he visited his buddy Kim in North Korea

  • Machinist3359
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    181 year ago

    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.

    • 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.

  • @Coreidan
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    171 year ago

    My balls might turn off the internet

  • @Rooskie91@discuss.online
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    161 year ago

    Lol every country on the brink that has tried this has incited their own revolution. When people loose their distraction machines they tend to aim anger in the right direction. I say turn it off.