Trump: Internet must be “cut off” to stop terrorist attacks | Hacker News Reader

Trump: Internet must be “cut off” to stop terrorist attacks

independent.co.uk

40 pointsquuquuquu19 comments

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...

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).

Ideally, a man in his position should not leave his statements to such a wide range of interpretations.

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..

heh... This is not how Trump works. He's all about the simple answer ( which is why I think he got voted in because many people seem to think the simple answers are the way to go )

Terrorists use the internet to organize themselves...well obviously cut off the internet and they can't communicate.

Lots of illegal immigrants from Mexico crossing the border? Build a wall!

The economy is a mess? Get leaders from big business to run the country!

Pretty sure any problem you put to Trump he'll "solve" it within 30 seconds :)

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

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.

Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people.

What a country!

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."

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.

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

Could you please not post like this here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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.

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.

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.

Have to admit, this definitely worries me. As does the bipartisan disdain for things like freedom of speech, privacy, etc. The fact the media don't seem to defend these things any more (nor the internet in general) makes it even worse.

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

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

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

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