That’s what Dave Hodges, creator and host of The Common Sense Show, believes and, what’s more, he says it’s just a prelude to mass murder, based on past historical events of a similar nature.
While the Internet has not been around in its present form for more than a couple decades, authoritarians and dictators throughout history have attempted to erase history that does not serve them well through mass book burnings, the destruction of founding documents and other records. What generally followed was mass murder.
Today, this is being accomplished either through Internet censorship or actual shutting down of the Internet by governments. As Hodges noted on his website, quoting a Brookings Institute study, “there were over 50 instances of Internet shutdown and many of the shutdowns were associated with government violence against the citizens of that country” in 2016.
In a revealing video, Hodges discusses the report, which noted first and foremost the economic impact of the shutdowns: $2.4 billion.
The shutdowns did not go unnoticed by the world’s foremost diplomatic entity, the United Nations. The UN Human Rights Council passed a non-binding resolution that condemned intentional shutting down or disruption of domestic Internet access by governments.
Though many member states supported the resolution, the governments of several nations including Saudi Arabia, Syria, India, Morocco, Brazil, Iraq, Pakistan, the Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Algeria and Turkey shut down Internet or mobile service, often for long periods.
In his report for Brookings, Darrell M. West, vice president and director of the think tank’s Governance Studies, as well as founding director of the Center for Technology Innovation, said he found 81 short-term Internet shutdowns that took place in 19 countries between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016.
“The majority of these blackouts occurred in the Middle East and South Asia, with India, Iraq, non-ISIS Syria, and Pakistan accounting for 71 percent of recorded instance,” he wrote in a press release describing the study’s findings.
West noted that Internet disruptions and shutdowns curb economic growth, cost governments tax revenue, stifle innovation and undermine the confidence of businesses and consumers in the affected countries. “As Internet-powered businesses and transactions continue to grow, they represent an increasingly significant portion of the global economic activity,” he wrote, adding that if shutdowns persist, then damage from them will get more severe.
But as Hodges notes, there are human costs to shutdowns as well as economic costs. For example, when authoritarian governments want to limit their citizens’ ability to report abuses internationally, they often begin their repression by first shutting down the only way people can communicate to the global population, via social media and other methods. (RELATED: Learn how to resist government propaganda and tyranny at Resist.news)
Then again, countries like North Korea and China regularly curb Internet access or limit/ban it altogether. What goes on inside North Korea is largely unknown to the outside world because its dictatorial leader, Kim Jong Un, locks down outside access so tightly, leaving him free to heap abuses on his people at will.
Hodges noted that the Brookings Institute study also found that the Internet shutdowns also went “hand in hand” with atrocities. In his study West noted that the UN Human Rights Commission’s resolution cited “promotion, protection, and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet” as its motivation for passage.
The UN panel also noted that failure to keep the Internet free of government control and accessible to the people was a violation of international human rights law.
Hodges, in his video, also said that such dangers are inherent even in the United States, where President-elect Donald J. Trump will have a difficult time getting full control of the Executive Branch’s vast bureaucracy.
“He’s facing endemic corruption that’s a hundred levels deep in these agencies, and under civil service law, he can’t get rid of everyone,” Hodges said.
See his full presentation below, and read more breaking news about the collapse of society at Collapse.news
[embed]https://youtu.be/_je-D7GOMVg[/embed]
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for Natural News and News Target, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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