Ban governments from shutting off the internet by region, and make them pay for the damage a shutdown causes
In short
- The law bans any order to shut down the internet for a whole region or an entire country.
- To limit specific communications, authorities must get a court's permission and set an end date.
- Phone and internet companies that refuse an illegal shutdown order do not lose their licenses to operate.
- The government that gave the order pays residents and shops that lost money because of a shutdown.
If this comes true
On a night when the votes from an election are still being counted, a fish broker in a harbor town takes orders for the next morning on their phone as usual, and answers a message from a brother far away who asks, "Is it calm over there?"
Perhaps
A post calling for a riot might spread overnight, and people who could not have gathered if the networks had been cut off might clash in a shopping street.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
This proposal covers shutdown orders that governments or local authorities give to telecom companies and internet providers. First, the law bans cutting off mobile phone lines or internet connections entirely in a particular region or across a whole country, and also bans slowing everyone's connection so much that it cannot be used. Second, when authorities want to restrict a particular website or a particular person's communications, they must get prior permission from a court that is independent of the government, limit the target and the time period, and make the content of the order public afterward. Only when there is an immediate danger to life is a short restriction allowed before permission is granted, but it must be reviewed by a court right away, and if the court does not approve it, it must be lifted immediately. An election, an exam, or a protest rally is not, by itself, treated as a danger to life. Third, it is banned to revoke a company's license or punish it because it refused a shutdown order that broke the law. Companies must keep a record of the orders they receive and publish the number of them regularly. Fourth, residents and businesses that suffer losses to their work or daily lives from an illegal shutdown, or from a shutdown that went beyond what was permitted, can demand compensation from the government that gave the order. To lighten the burden on each person of proving their losses, a set amount is paid automatically once the length and area of the shutdown are confirmed.
BenefitsTurn the crudest tool into the most expensive one
The strength of this proposal is that it turns a shutdown from an act that is only condemned in words into an act that costs money. Once the duty to pay for the damage moves to the government that gave the order, every regional shutdown means a large payment from the budget, and legislators and finance officials also become a brake. Asking for a court's permission means that, even when action is needed, narrower methods get considered first, so there is no reason to halt the lives of people who have nothing to do with the problem. Protecting companies from losing their licenses means they have the power to point out that an order is illegal, and a second pair of eyes appears between the side that gives orders and the side that carries them out. For residents, it brings the comfort of knowing that a way to reach others remains in a disaster or an emergency, when they can check that their family is safe or ask for help. There is also an economic benefit: in a country where the internet does not go down, even distant companies can trade with confidence, and jobs and investment are more likely to gather.
DrawbacksIt gives up a way to stop dangerous calls at once
Shutdowns have been used so easily because there are real situations where they work quickly. False information that stirs up clashes between ethnic groups, or calls that spread the place and time of an attack, can move people within hours. While waiting for a court's permission, or while searching for and stopping only certain posts, violence that can never be undone might happen. In countries without the technology to block only specific communications, there may be situations where a ban on total shutdowns leaves the authorities able to do nothing at all. Also, in a society where courts are not independent of the government, the permission process may become a formality and end up giving shutdowns the stamp of legal approval. Because compensation is paid in the end from tax money, a contradiction remains: the cost falls on taxpayers, not on the people who decided on the shutdown. There is also a danger that if governments give up total shutdowns and move to quiet surveillance or restrictions aimed at particular people, the problem could become harder to see.
Learn the background
The internet has become the foundation of daily life, from work and school to hospital appointments, sending money, and keeping in touch with family. Even so, in many parts of the world, governments keep shutting down the internet by region whenever there are protests, elections, or exams. When it is cut off, money sent home by people working away never arrives, farmers cannot check the price of their crops, and it becomes harder to call for help in a sudden illness. The ones who suffer are the great majority of residents, who have nothing to do with the unrest. One reason shutdowns have not stopped is that the side that orders them loses nothing. The damage falls piecemeal on residents and shops, and the government pays almost none of the cost. Another reason is that telecom companies hold their licenses from the government, so they risk losing them if they refuse an order. Even when statements condemning shutdowns are issued in international settings, there is no way to make anyone follow them. Caught between the need to keep order and the freedom to communicate, people keep accepting that a shutdown is fine if it is only temporary, and so the crudest tool, shutting everything down, has become the easiest tool.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
It helps pay for the server and the AI's planting
This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-23a) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes