Yes, we do understand why incoming president elect Donald Trump hates news and online media. Prominent publications from The New York Times to Washington Post among others weren’t kind to him during his election campaign and kind of went into overdrive to ensure that the flamboyant New Yorker didn’t win the popular vote. The inability of the news media to predict the on-the-ground mood explains why Donald Trump is pissed with them.
However, it was also the internet and social media which took the true word of Donald Trump to the American masses, helping him win the minds and hearts of American majority who voted for him. All through the election process and even now, his Twitter account has been the only reliable source of information reflecting the state of mind of Trump to his 18.4 million followers and others.
Yet, the incoming president has been making statements that have been viewed as inimical to the cause of internet.
Trump’s latest statement discrediting email as insecure follow the same anti-internet trajectory that he has championed so well.
“It’s very important, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way because I’ll tell you what, no computer is safe,”
Trump reportedly reacted when asked about the controversy surrounding Russian hackers’ role in manipulating the servers of the Democratic Party.
Before this instance, Trump has made several provocative statements which suggest that he may be open to changing the rules governing free access to the internet in the US. He has even shown willingness to tweak net neutrality, which ensures that Internet Service Providers don’t favour any particular content provider over another.
Here’s the times when Donald Trump has attacked the internet since he shot into limelight after deciding to contest the US election.
1. Shutting out parts of internet
“I sure as hell don’t want to let people that want to kill us and kill our nation use our Internet,” Trump said during the fifth Republican debate in December 2015. His comments were met with shock among Republican leaders, with Senator Rand Paul calling Trump’s proposal “unconstitutional”.
Trump reasoned that he would “close certain areas of internet when we are at war with somebody”. Many commentators reacted to Trump’s comments with unease worrying about the future of open internet under Donald Trump, claiming that it wasn’t possible just to shut out parts of internet.
Trump’s comments on shutting out internet were made when the issue of tackling ISIS-inspired extremist came up during the debate, but they exhibited to some observers that that 70-year old may not hesitate to curb civil liberties of the public if the need be.
(Source: Youtube/CNN)
Some commentators have argued that it is not possible to shut off parts of the internet.
Blocking public from using internet in crisis situations is not without precedent. In India, internet services have been closed off in the past, during the Kashmir unrest and more recently in Manipur. But that was a blanket process and no website remained accessible during the ban.
2. Attacking fair internet
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the nodal body regulating the internet in the US, was commended by free speech advocates for taking a slew of measures in 2014 that would increase fairness over the internet and make it easier for small and new players to compete with established brands.Not only did the FCC enshrine net neutrality in America’s internet policy, it also imposed penalties on internet service providers who were seen as manipulating the internet to favour some players.
However, Donald Trump has never been happy with the principal of net neutrality, which he thinks put conservative media at disadvantage. He tweeted as early as 2014,
“Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.”
Trump has shown an inclination that he is willing to walk the talk on scrapping free and fair internet, as he made two vocal critics of net neutrality in-charge of the FCC in his transition team.
Summing up the emotion among supporters of net neutrality, online publication Wired ran an article with title,“This is the Year Donald Trump kills net neutrality.”
3. Trump’s attack on email
This one is the latest and carries more weight than his previous two attacks on the internet as it comes just less than three weeks before Trump is scheduled to assume presidency of the United States.
When asked what he thought about accusations of hacking by Russia, Trump said that he would rather prefer ‘courier’ than email and even dissuaded his supporters from using the internet.
“You know, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way. Because I’ll tell you what: No computer is safe,” Trump said.
“I don’t care what they say.”
Trump is known to not to be a big fan of email and information technology, and reportedly was critical of other candidates during the presidential campaign who he thought were too reliant on technology.
Despite his reservations about internet, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that he expected Trump to keep using Twitter and social media after he assumed office.
Spicer reportedly said,
”I think it freaks the mainstream media out – that he has this following of 45-plus million people that follow him on social media and he can have a direct conversation with them.”
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