What Will You do When Internet Connectivity is Taken Away?

How we can prepare for connectivity for the people

What is your plan if your internet connectivity goes down? 

Governments taking internet services offline is of course a suppression technique. This is done to inhibit organizing, to stoke fear, and also to prevent communication with the outside world so that there’s no transparency and accountability.

Sometimes a specific app is shut down, and sometimes it is all internet and cell service. Sometimes the government works with the internet service provider, sometimes the government works with app companies, and sometimes the government takes over utilities and shuts these down.

Often they do not even need to go to the company that owns an app or ISP because they will use physical or digital devices to thwart and interrupt connectivity. And in extreme cases, as we are witnessing now, sometimes entire infrastructures are destroyed to stop all communications.

This happened during the Egyptian Rebellion in 2011, it happens in the U.S. Empire as it did during protests for Black Lives, is happening in Palestine with complete communications destruction, and globally in a different form with corporate media control and censorship.

Fortunately, we are seeing many people on the ground get around and circumvent communications and internet shutdowns. And we are able here and there to witness some testimony and videos of what’s happening on the ground. These communications are vital to how we keep up to date and get real information directly from the people.

So my question to you, as you witness this happening, is what will you do when internet connectivity is taken away?

If this seems abstract and overwhelming, it might be helpful is to know that we already have many different ways that we connect. Wi-Fi and cell service are the two main ways we connect to each other. There are also companies that use satellites. 

But we also have radio waves, short-range devices, landlines, mesh, and the intranet just to name a few.

Community is your internet, literally and figuratively. I have a friend who moved to a rural area with no internet service. They spoke with all of their neighbors and had many community meetings. They ended up all agreeing to connect together, which required laying cable through and across everyone’s land and throughout the town. This would not have been possible without conversations and community building.

In my spare time, I help neighborhoods and organizations build intranet/mesh networks that don’t rely on major Internet Service Providers for service. That means we build our own local infrastructure to connect to each other so that we are not reliant on these larger companies or the government.

We have to strategize and plan ways to connect with each other that are outside of infrastructure that is controlled by Big Tech and governments. People that have been doing community organizing for a long time know all about this.

There are several moves you can make to prepare yourself. For one, even thinking about what options you have available to you in the case of an internet shut down, is immensely helpful. Can you make a plan with your neighbor? Do you have life assisting devices that need to be connected somehow? Can you create a good old phone tree with your friends? Is it possible to use light to relay information? Is there a business in your area that has its own intra communication system? Thinking about how you need to prepare can be a big first move in understanding your relationship to community and connectivity.

You can additionally get into the practice of being in touch with and amplifying messages from people on the ground that are sending out updates. We must create our own people communication networks that reach far and wide, that are directly connected by us.

Stay tuned to learn more about how we build our own ways of communication to keep our people connected.

Community is your connection.

May we all be free and connected.