Amid the perceived growing threat of terrorism among Republican presidential candidates in the U.S., Donald Trump maintains the answer to battling the Islamic State is simple – U.S. officials need to shut down parts of the Internet.
During Tuesday’s Republican debate, Trump once again took to the podium to suggest the government and Silicon Valley leaders need to shut down parts of the Internet to stop ISIS from recruiting.
“ISIS is recruiting through the Internet. ISIS is using the Internet better than we are using the Internet, and it was our idea,” he said.
“We should be able to penetrate the Internet and find out exactly where ISIS is and everything about ISIS.”
Immediately, Trump’s remarks were mocked by users on social media.
Experts, on the other hand, weren’t as impressed because shutting down parts of the Internet is nearly impossible.
As Gawker puts it, “The internet is a voluntary interconnection of local and regional networks—the United States can’t ‘shut down’ Syria’s networks anymore than China could ‘shut down’ Brazil’s networks.”
Theoretically, the U.S. government could disrupt regional connections in Syria, but it wouldn’t be able to disconnect the country entirely.
“To cut people out, you have two options: Internet providers on the ground and in the sky would all have to cooperate, or the US would have to send in troops just to destroy all the Internet connections,” read an article by CNET.
“Even if US soldiers took out on-the-ground infrastructure like towers and computers, there’d still be those pesky satellites orbiting the planet and beaming down information.”
However, cutting off parts of the Internet has been done before – most notably during Egypt’s Arab Spring. In 2011, Hosni Mubarak’s government virtually cut off Egypt from the outside world – shutting off cellphone and Internet access – by withdrawing more than 3,500 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routes.
BGP routes act as a path between the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the user; without them, users won’t be able to connect to the Internet.
READ MORE: Donald Trump thinks he can call Bill Gates and have him ‘close the Internet’
Last week, the Republican presidential candidate suggested he could call Microsoft founder Bill Gates about simply “closing that Internet up” in a bid to curb people from being radicalised online.
“We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people the really understand what’s happening,” he said during a campaign rally at the USS Yorktown in South Carolina.
Here’s some of the best reaction to Trump’s remarks:
Comments