Donald Trump wants to shut down the Internet in certain areas in an effort to stop terrorism.
On Monday, Trump spoke at the U.S.S. Yorktown in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and suggested that he would meet with Bill Gates to discuss closing down parts of the internet to curtail its use by ISIS as a recruitment tool.
“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.”
But while some countries like North Korea and Egypt have been able to take such measures, it’s just not feasible in the United States. For one thing, there are multiple internet providers, and for another, many of them would have to shut down cell towers and fiber networks in addition to restricting satellite usage. What’s more, there are some foreign servers on U.S. soil that the United States can’t shut down without incurring the consequences either.
So no, Donald Trump, you can’t close the internet.