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  2. May 2017

May 2017

America’s dangerous Internet delusion

[Commentary] The unmistakable lesson of recent years is that the Internet is a double-edged sword. Despite enormous benefits — instant access to huge quantities of information, the proliferation of new forms of businesses, communications and entertainment — it also encourages crime, global conflict and economic disruption.

The drift seems ominous. We are dangerously dependent on Internet-based systems. This makes the Internet a weapon that can be used against us — or by us. The trouble is that we are aiding and abetting our adversaries. We are addicted to the Internet and refuse to recognize how our addiction subtracts from our security. The more we connect our devices and instruments to the Internet, the more we create paths for others to use against us, either by shutting down websites or by controlling what they do. Put differently, we are — incredibly — inviting trouble. Our commercial interests and our national security diverge.

Bringing the Internet to Rural India

While India produces some of the world’s best coders and computer engineers, vast multitudes of its people are entering the virtual world with little sense of what lies within it, or how it could be of use to them. Those who work in development tend to speak of this moment as a civilizational breakthrough, of particular significance in a country aching to educate its children. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has made expanding internet use a central goal, shifting government services onto digital platforms. When Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, toured India in 2014, he told audiences that for every 10 people who get online, “one person gets lifted out of poverty and one new job gets created.” Young men use the internet in Taradand. Bollywood films. Older people view it as a conduit for pornography and other wastes of time. Women are not allowed access even to simple mobile phones, for fear they will engage in illicit relationships; the internet is out of the question. Illiterate people — almost everyone over 40 — dismiss the internet as not intended for them.

RNC Stands by President Trump, 'Witch-Hunt' Branding of Media

The Republican National Committee joined with President Donald Trump to brand the recent spate of news about the President as a media witch hunt.

Under the subject line "More Sabotage," the Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee composed of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., and the RNC sent an e-mail solicitation seeking money to fight that witch hunt. "Democrat hacks posing as journalists and unelected bureaucrats have incited a witch hunt to try and obstruct the American voters’ agenda," said the e-mail. "This is a sad moment for our republic." The e-mail suggested that the witch hunt was the product of the enemies of the president's attempts to shake up Washington and swamp-dwellers who don't want to be drained.

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