this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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Explain Like I'm Five

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How can leaders of a country like Russia or Iran or whomever shut down the internet? Is there not some hacker or cracker way to open it back up? (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 days ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world
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[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 14 points 5 days ago

It’s important to remember that many governments probably planned for this from day one. Free speech is one of the things totalitarian regimes fear the most. I can imagine a dictator saying “I want to get in on this internet thing, but I absolutely must be able to shut it down if things get uncomfortable for me.”

I would think that a “kill switch” was planned for and installed before anything else.