Actor Simon Pegg warns that any widespread disruption of Internet service “would be like dropping a bomb on the country,” because “there are so many online things” people have become dependent on with regard to day-to-day living.
“We’re living in a very tenuous peace at the moment, particularly online,” Pegg told The Daily Beast while discussing his new cybersecurity-themed television series, The Undeclared War. “All of us, every major cyber player on Earth, has exploits already planted in each other’s cyber infrastructures.”
“We’re living out a similar deterrent situation as we did in the ’80s with the nuclear arsenals, in that everybody has things ready to go off,” the Star Wars actor continued. “All that stuff in the show about dropping Putin’s plane by 20,000 feet or switching the lights off in his office, that’s all doable — and to us as well.”
Pegg went on to say that “If the Internet shut down today, there would be catastrophic consequences. And that’s just switching off the Internet. There are so many online things we’ve come to depend on, from hospital appointments to just basic day-to-day living.”
“That would be like dropping a bomb on the country — it’s a similar thing, and it’s entirely feasible that it could happen,” the Star Trek actor added. “So yeah, it did make me feel like, oh shit, maybe the safe West is a myth.”
While the actor admits that the loss of the Internet would be “catastrophic” for people, several social media platforms continue to censor content and ban users based on an ever-growing list of arbitrary rules on what left-wing activists deem unacceptable speech.
In March, Google-owned YouTube censored Ukraine On Fire, a 2016 documentary chronicling the events of Euromaidan, the uprising that overthrew Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and installed a pro-E.U., pro-NATO government.
Last year, Twitter permanently banned then-President Donald Trump from its platform, while Facebook and Instagram locked the 45th president out of his accounts indefinitely. These social media platforms have also faced heavy backlash for banning and censoring a copious amount of other users over the years.
Platforms also censor and curtail content their users see. In one of the latest examples of seemingly endless examples of online censorship, in July, Twitter censored “Ellen Page” from trending after left-wing media outlets complained.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.