The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion The U.S. government couldn’t shut down the Internet, right? Think again.

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March 8, 2020 at 4:14 p.m. EDT
A Kashmiri youth connects to social media using a virtual private network (VPN), in Srinagar, Kashmir, India. (Farooq Khan/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Jessica Rosenworcel has been a member of the Federal Communications Commission since 2012. This article is adapted from her keynote remarks at this year’s State of the Net Conference.

In the age of the always-on Internet, what happens when a government decides to turn it off? For many people around the world, this is no longer a theoretical question.