Conspiracy researchers once warned of the existence of an internet kill switch. They feared that if the awakening ever reached critical mass and people were moved to mobilise, the powers that be would immediately shut down the net.
Their concerns were justified. However, I don’t think they’ll ever shut down the web. They won’t need to. They’ll simply bring down a few websites, like WhatsApp for example.
WhatsApp was down in the UK this morning. It might be back up now. I hardly use it. But, as of 2022, the app has more than 2 billion users. It is the world’s most popular messaging application.
It is owned by Meta (Facebook). Facebook itself has nearly 3 billion active monthly users.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you wanted to suppress a story or even some information at the speed of light, bringing down WhatsApp and Facebook would be a good start.
I do wonder when the major apps go offline temporarily, if it’s down to a genuine fault or if they’re gaming a deliberate switch off and monitoring the public reaction.
Of course shit does happen. I’m sure that the outages are genuine most of the time. But not all of the time.
People have become over reliant on these apps and on tech in general.
If the shit does properly hit the fan, and we know that at some time in the future it certainly will, how will we communicate, mobilise, check on friends and family etc, if they bring down the messaging apps?
Damned if I know.
