France's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said more than 1,300 arrests were made on Friday night as racial riots entered their fourth night across the country and in French territories worldwide.
  •  patchymoose   ( @patchymoose@beehaw.org ) English
    2•1 year ago

    From a technology standpoint, does the French government have the ability to just shut down the internet like that? Admittedly I don’t have a deep understanding of how the internet works, but I thought it was more decentralized than that, at least outside of China.

    •  bbbhltz   ( @bbbhltz@beehaw.org ) English
      4•1 year ago

      Oh, I don’t know. If they did it wouldn’t be the internet, just certain services like Telegram. Politicians over here, like in other countries, have been grumbling over encrypted chat apps for some time. And different articles and politicians have been labelling the rioters as terrorists so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was at least an attempt or proposition for some sort of law banning or prohibiting any chat client that cannot identify sender and recipient in the near future.