Why Donald Trump’s Call to ‘Close Up’ the Internet Is Science Fiction

It is not clear what Donald Trump actually meant when he conjured up the idea of getting Bill Gates to help “close up” the Internet. However, since he remains a technology adviser to the company’s current chief executive, Satya Nadella, you could imagine Mr. Gates returning to Redmond (WA), where Microsoft is based, and the two of them going down into the basement at Microsoft HQ and pulling the plug. The problem is that the Internet’s backbone doesn’t run through Redmond, and it never did.

In 1993, John Gilmore, a freedom-of-speech activist and one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was quoted as saying, “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” Trump was probably not asking Mr. Gates to shut down the Internet, but looking for some way to deny it to the Islamic State and its allies as a propaganda and communications tool. Mr. Trump’s suggestion touches upon a long-running debate regarding the Internet and censorship. Instead of Bill Gates, he might receive better advice from Li Keqiang, the prime minister of China, which has put a great deal of energy into “closing up” the Internet, including barring electronic distribution of The New York Times.