
Trump: Internet must be “cut off” to stop terrorist attacks - quuquuquu
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/donald-trump-twitter-internet-cut-off-terror-attacks-parsons-green-tube-attack-explosion-latest-a7948141.html
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andriesm
You are all falling for fake news clickbait.

"Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner," he wrote. "The
internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better!"

He doesn't mean cut off civilian access in the USA or in the UK, if he meant
shut down the Internet he wouldn't have added the "we must use it better" at
the end of the sentence.

Why are everyone getting so excited about it? It's a nothing burger...

~~~
jandrese
I agree with your general sentiment, but it's still dangerous for governments
to unilaterally decide that certain people won't have a voice. Who decides who
the "terrorists" are? It's easy to agree when you're talking about ISIS
recruiting kids in the US and convincing them to shoot up schools. It's harder
to agree when you're talking about people who chain themselves to Redwoods so
they won't be logged (aka ecoterrorists).

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pizza
Cut off the internet and you just create the incentive for developing popular
decentralized networking and motivate millions of the 'silent majority' to
research how to connect to it.

I don't see what the internet has to do with how little it takes for these
terrorists to radicalize loners. Surely fixing that would be better goal, and
less of a hydra..

~~~
intoverflow2
Are they loners? Not sure religious extremist terrorism is equatable to the
solo nutjob unabomber-style terrorist.

~~~
pizza
I guess my assumption is the more people you can go to in a community (or
community within a community), the less likely your political belief is to
target its citizens. That it presents uses signifiers and phrases from
religion (ie a vehicle for rituals) doesn't alter that it's just a
totalitarian political belief (self-granted permission to use violence to gain
power); if anything, the radical fundamentalism comes from something like "we
have been powerless because we were too pragmatic and not unreasonable enough"
\- imo, which pretty much confirms that the violence arises from nihilistic
disavowal of religion.

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specializeded
_Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are
foolish people._

What a country!

~~~
quuquuquu
Absolutely agree.

We have a constitution that guarantees our right to free speech.

And then we have a number of individuals in government who find every possible
way to explain that right away, and throw you in jail.

It's like saying, "everyone has the right to not be searched without a
warrant...

... but I swear I smell marijuana somewhere around here so let me call a judge
and in 15 minutes we'll be kicking down your door."

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quuquuquu
It never ceases to amaze me how politicians "never let a crisis go to waste".

Shutting off the internet has happened in Egypt and Cameroon. It brings
communication and innovation to a halt for 99.999999% of "good people".

The 0.000001% of people who desire to commit terrorist acts will simply find
another way to communicate. Radio? Word of mouth? Sneakernet?

Cutting off the internet is cutting off our noses to spite our faces.

Such a proposal should NEVER, EVER be uttered, unless you want to lose all
credibility whatsoever.

It is the equivalent of saying "just bomb the Middle East", as if millions of
civilians and foreigners wouldn't be affected.

~~~
thrillgore
Well we have Trump here calling for it. He has ZERO credibility outside of his
dumbass supporters.

~~~
sctb
Could you please not post like this here?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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wrinkl3
Trump's antics aside, I wonder how much more turmoil will it take for cutting
off the Internet to become an acceptable solution for a significant minority
of people in the West. Both sides of the political divide are becoming
increasingly frustrated with it: the Right see it as a terrorist recruiting
tool, the Left fear the Russian influence/trolls/hackers, and everyone seems
to despise fake news and echo chambers. Some sort of a semi-popular anti-
Internet/Internet Reform movement is bound to spring up sooner or later.

~~~
quuquuquu
This is an interesting and troubling thought. It is much like the "Washington
Consensus" that keeps the NSA alive and thoroughly funded. The NSA is probably
the best example of bipartisan collaboration in the world- which hurts all of
us around the world.

I think Internet censorship and restriction continues to slowly creep along in
fits and spurts. We see article after article of people being thrown in jail
or targeted (Lauri Love, Kim Dotcom, Aaron Schwarz, TPB and Peter Sunde
specifically, Julian Assange, etc)... and though we express outrage and we
organize...

We really are powerless to corporate and governmental control.

So I guess some day the probably will shut off the internet just for fun.
They've already been droning people and SWATting people for fun, why not shut
off the internet too?

Just make sure you say it's for vital US national security interests.

~~~
wrinkl3
I feel that the governmental/corporate attempts at killing free Internet are
mostly ineffective as long the public unanimously wants to preserve it. But as
soon as enough people begin to question it themselves, thinking that maybe
they _would_ be better off with a walled garden, that their lives would be
some much less stressful and chaotic if they just let it be properly
regulated, then it becomes a different struggle altogether. If you ever see
outlets publishing articles about how less stressful people's online lives are
in China/Iran/Russia, know that that's the angle that's being pushed.

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tdfx
To anyone who is perplexed by Trump (I certainly counted myself as one) you
will find that one simple rule will help you decipher his outbursts: he
doesn't mean what he says. His manner of speaking simply is not meaningfully
quotable and it's part of a larger strategy of persuasion that's actually
worked quite well for him. If you haven't listened to Scott Adams' explanation
of Trump, you really should:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReKIJvOJDrs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReKIJvOJDrs)

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dovdovdov
In case anyone doubted the pure purpose of terror is to control the masses.

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heisenbit
Please listen to him and cut his access to the internet and twitter!

