There's always been a tension, but lately governments have been incredibly active in their fight to eliminate encryption and anonymity, in general. I guess it's connected to right wing parties becoming both more successful and bolder in their aspirations, but there used to be a libertarian faction in conservatist movements everywhere that pushed against this. Do you have any theories? This is more sociological in scope than purely technological, but the sub is about privacy, in general.
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To maintain power and control over the people
What? No way! /s.
Believe it or not, some of this started around the abuse of AI and bots and propaganda online. America has made a clear choice to stand with Russia against Europe and social media has been a key issue with propaganda. Since we all rely on American tech the EU governments see fit to prioritise control over privacy.
I don’t agree with it as being the best way to handle the issue but unfortunately I can’t come up with better alternatives… Really... If you can then do please let me know.
(I already expect downvotes here from people with an ego that can’t give me a good argument but here we go)
One alternative would be to make EU tech giants. Our own OS, programs, social networks... and completely isolate ourselves from the US over time.
With them prioritising control, we will get majorly fucked by the US - if not the whole world.
EU is still kinda rich at this point, but is running pretty fast to the cliff, behind which is the abyss of poverty.
Absolutely, but in the meantime what do you do? That’s the issue
(Edit: Downvoted for what? Ego issues?)
Question is rather what we can do?
Because no matter how i look at it, my answer remains: "very little". Politicians are idiots obsessed with control and corruption. If they can get people to obey without having to buy them by giving them empty promises and breadcrumbs, they will do just that.
That’s the issue. There is no easy answer. There are things we can do to reduce the issue but we can’t stop them unless we verify who’s posting what on where. And again, I’m not here justifying the destruction of privacy and anonymity but I suppose we do need guardrails on social media to avoid these propaganda machines taking over
The best solution against propaganda is... not fighting against it.
The same with racism or any other issue - including conspiracies.
The more you try to fight the issue, the more legitimacy you're giving it. It's like trying to persuade a religious believer to convert to atheism.
And in fact, this mechanism is behind spreading of Christianity 2000 years ago. Romans kept imprisoning, torturing and killing first Christians. Or we can look in the near past, to the era of Communism in eastern Europe. Communists kept oppressing religious people - but as they were making the oppression worse, more people were becoming Christian. Meanwhile, in recent years, when people have freedom of choice, they often end up abandoning religion willingly.
Go search for a video of Morgan Freeman about Black history month. I thought about it and i agree with him.
Trying to remove people's anonymity from the internet will sterilize the conversations the same way, they're happening in the outside world. It will not make anything better, but turn it for worse. Outside world does not offer any answers, it requires 100% conformity all the time. Only component missing will be body language.
As an autistic adult, i will probably turn into hermit. Not sharing any opinions with anyone, keeping everything for myself.
Removing youngsters from social networks is not a solution either. It will cause them to go out, make gangs again - criminality will inevitably increase. Of course, nobody will connect the dots and realise their part of the blame, everyone will just shift the blame to something else, because it will be more convenient.
They know climate change is real. Need to have an anvil to beat back the masses with.
I guess you ask of a western view, because in other parts of the world its normal the governement has control over the media/information less subtle than in the west....
Its not about left and right. Its about elite vs the rest. In the past, western democracies were able to pretend that the people have the power. This worked over information gatekeeping. With the internet and mostly social media, normal people could spread information in real time and if it hit a nerve, this info spread viral and reached masses. This means the governements/elites lost control over the flow of information.
What we see now is only them trying to regain information sovereignty. As it is a bit antidemocratic, it is masked with childprotection and against hatespeech. In the near future in the "commercial" internet, clear name identification will be the norm. Like in china.
+poor man gold
IMO it's newfound capability through AI. Just an example, the NSA had to largely scrap their phone records collection program because they didn't have the time or manpower to do anything meaningful with the raw volume of data gathered. AI on the other hand can trawl through bulk data without breaking a sweat (ignore false positives and the implications therein) so the siren song of the surveillance state is being heard once more.
Now this is an interesting point. Thanks.
I think this is spot on. Governments have always wanted to surveil citizens, the limits are their technologies and resources. Scribes used to lurk in dark corners of taverns noting conversations and public interests. The desire to surveil and control hasn't changed, but now there are more extreme technologies that both reduce the price and increase the efficacity. The end goal is to replace government with technology. Peter theil, Alexander Karp and the other rich pyscopaths all publically admit to this being the end goal of their push into the surveillance industry
Completely agree. The answer is simply 'Because they can now'. They're just doing what they've always dreamed of doing but couldn't. Now they can.
One part actual intention (misguided as it is) to Connect people and services and make people's lives easier. This has not really been as surprising as people think it is as far back as 2020/2021 their were plans pitches and outlined for a all digital future multiple countries have made internally and on the world stage.
I remember even in 2019 a couple of my legislators talking about everything online and tech first.
So it's one part governmental techno optimism that if we just tech everything we solve everything.
The other part is the willfull tear down of our privacy rights under the cover of "protect the children". They are both sets in their which is what makes it hard to fully tear down, I do believe as stupid, misguided and absolutely going to bite us soon their are people who's personality isn't "I hate porn and I am making it your problem" or " we will forge the internet in transparency and to achieve that anonymity must die" but are like:
hey I would like my Gran to use government services even though she lives in the sticks, I want her to save on travel and just get help were she is.
hold on we all have phones and they have good batteries and we have good connection why not just have our driving and ID on the phone,we already have digital cards why not ID? Think of the convenience and money saved.
porn is bad and we need to go back to tried and true ID for adult things,we have the technology why are we not doing it?
So the person who sees tech as a solution and thinks "why are we not doing it"
I have written opposition to these laws and have learned to identify the "good" legislators who genuinely believe what they are doing is progress and the rat bastards that clearly have a control streak aka " I am the adult in the room" mentality were they alone can fix this. Think the mps on Tuesday that were like don't want to verify don't watch porn and the one who causally asked for client side scanning
They are both operating on techno optimism, and I am sure one of them is seeking techno authoritarianism.
The worst part,they are moving in unison, if just one or 2 did it they would laughed at,but because they are all doing it(and have had it planned as far back as 2020 )they don't clown on eachothers policies( did you notice outside the USA no one is speaking bad about how bad this stuff has landed? You probably have something similar in your books).
Well we have to do it because it "worked out for the UK", my mps have said.
The are doing this because they know had they done it alone the push back would have been fierce. We are fighting on all fronts.
Very much this but also with AI we are starting to see a breakdown of services and verifying authenticity of users/clients, in some cases this is a reality and in some it’s concern for what could be (regardless of accurate this might be). On top of this China and Russia have been spending billions on disinformation efforts targeting western democracies in order to destabilize them, I’m not citing but I believe this is covered in a GEC special report, CEPA and EEAS and others. What we are currently seeing is a bit of fear driven reactionary political move by multiple countries that are pushing forward ill conceived plans that could have incredibly negative impacts on the free and open web, user privacy, security and liberty. The negative impact of social media on minors does factor in as well but it feels as if it’s more of a cudgel to push this kind of stuff through (also a weirdly Puritan push but I think that is similarly a cudgel). There’s just a lot of moving parts but there is definitely a reason we are seeing a number of countries move things in this direction as unfortunately and ill conceived as that may be.
Agreed but their is also alot of "Being left behind" occuring.
What that country is tackling the big bad Tech companies why are we not doing it. Age verification well it's being proposed by the EU ,you know the GDPR guys if they say it's "Privacy preserving" who are we to question one of the most data privacy minded people( ignoring all the push back for chat control for the last 5 years).
Yes we all should be carded they argue it like alcohol and we card for that ,we all have internet and my phone take good pics why not force adults to show themselves,we do it all the time offline.
We are ruled by a duality of 1 morons that don't understand they are laying the infrastructure that in some future will and I say WILL be weoponised against people and 2 their is a large contingently of legislators that understand exactly what they are laying down and are all for it either because they are getting kickbacks(UK), they stand to benefit in the private industry when they leave office (UK,USA) or they believe they will be the ones to utilize the new granted powers. The second ones scare me the most as no matter how bad it is and how much it will hurt their descendants they have "got mine" attitude. Atleast with the first they can be bullied to reason the other ,like the Dutch minister who keeps trying to ram chat control won't back down.
We are watching the user generated era of the internet be ripped to pieces, anonymity smashed to smithereens and privacy rebranded as suspicious.
Alot of western people who have not been at the end of a full on censorship regime will learn why people are still able to communicate during internet shut downs,the I'll also learn very very very painfully why the open net was a god send. Right know alot of bickering and for the lack of a more subtle word Bitching about "brain rot" and " someone saying mean things online". I understand the need for better moderation online, I understand the perceived "harms" social media can bring,but alot of these laws are very clearly being rammed through by the second kind of legislators. In a decade when you can't comment without ID and people who try and speak anonymously are marked as dangerous this whole " ban twitter/ social media for under 15/16" will be the " we really should have seen through that bullshit" moment.
We can still change that future,but we need to all be fighting.
Power seeks power. Money seeks money. Money is power. Easiest math ever.
BUT.
The public, by not fighting back, is allowing it because there are no immediate, visceral consequences. Apathy is easy when there aren't any consequences. No one is knocking down your door RIGHT NOW. No one is going through your personal information RIGHT NOW. No one is tracking your movements RIGHT NOW. Those things are hypotheticals until they aren't. Most people don't want to think about it. There's a saying: "The 2 things you never want to see made are hotdogs and laws." If the average person knew what went on behind the scenes they wouldn't just start taking it seriously, they'd start rationalizing how to not think about it. "It's not relevant to me. I have nothing to hide. Why should I worry about something I can't control? What's on Netflix?"
They will notice, when it's so bad they can't ignore.
But it won't be a violent revolution squashed,it will not be a president causally calling for the death of their political rivals (and no one pushing back) no it is always something small.
Its always a small freedom lost in a dire moment that will make them realize "it wasn't always like this,what changed".
When the Taliban took over after the US abandoned their stations I read stories of girls hiding books,salons painting over murals of women with flowing hair.
The line that always gets me is "I loved combing my hair by the door looking at the passerbys, I miss those days"
For know you can read social media without an ID,you can read what you like without verification, you can directly call your local politician "a waste of skin and an embarrassment to all skin walkers". You can at least in many remaining parts of the world watch adult films online with just a keystroke.
I suspect one day those calling for age verification will go hey let's google that and they will reply " can't view the results without verification" and when someone says "just verify" and they go" what if it comes back to me" ,"just do it,you have nothing to hide". In that moment they will remember a world were a Google search did not come with justification or friction....or fear.
Governments are captured by capital, there is a push against capitalism way of life, so now capital pushes back.
This. Understanding how the state functions as a protector and a buttress for capital in liberal democracies is important here. The state supposedly acts as a neutral arbiter for the law, but in the US where money = speech, if you have more money you now have more speech, and politicians of both parties are completely captured by their corporate overlords. Normally the counterbalance to this would be labor, but in the US there is no such thing as on organized labor movement nor is there a political party that furthers its interests, so you get general populist hubub but no constructive outlet and thus more corporate control of societal life.
If OPs question is more like WHY are capital interests trying to degrade anonymity and privacy on the internet, it's shockingly simple. It makes it easier for them to make money. Corporations are like lemmings, they can only chase profit single mindedly at the expense of all else, even their own long term survival.
My question was more about, knowing this has always been the case, why has this accelerated so suddenly lately. From what I'm learning, it's that tech companies, which benefit from this in several ways, are now influential enough to push effectively for this legislation; governments have now found a political climate conducive to this because much of the population is in favour; and recent technological developments have made surveillance practices possible that were not possible before, so it didn't make sense to try to achieve certain levels of control before, because you couldn't do anything with it, but now it does make sense.
Basically this, as capital is threathened and the general populace gains class consciousness the governments move farther right as a last ditch effort to preserve capitalism
Where’s the free market capitalism you speak of? That was proven false when “too big to fail” happened. Private equity, mergers & acquisitions to near monopoly… there’s oligarchs hi-jacking the government to induce control of the populace, in a neo techno feudalism.
Capitalism is dead.
Neoliberalism is certainly dead, and we are watching it's carcass be picked apart as we speak, but capitalism is very much alive. In crisis, maybe, but the underlying social relationship where value is extracted from the labor of the masses and funneled toward the lucky few at the top has probably never been stronger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
Or as the WEF pushes it....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public%E2%80%93private_partnership
Capitalism isn't about the free market. It's about explicitly a social relationship definition between 2 classes, business owners and workers. Neo-techno feudalism is just another word of extreme capitalism where there is still 2 classes of owner and worker.
Authoritarianism
It`s not just the Right or the Left. Politicians are realizing that Big Tech have more information about their citizens than the governments themselves, plus it will be a massive boost for more police-oriented countries to have complete access than to deal with those pesky human rights and court orders.
What we are seeing is a push (lead by lobbyists of course who have their own agendas) for governments to be able to have more of our personal information and privacy under the guise of "security" and "protect the children"
I don't think there's a reason or plan behind it. I think it's just a chain reaction of shit these guys did what? Well we can probably get away with that as well. Oh and how about we try this as well.
The free expression and exchange of information is the only thing that can keep them in check so they are scared shitless of it.
They want to be able to fuck kids, blackmail, have hunting parties and pizza parties and not have low level plebs like us call them out on it. If we do, then our punishment will be food and gas shoratages.
Israel getting a bad wrap gotta control the narrative
This has been my intuitive, vibes-based opinion given the coincide in genocide and uniform crackdowns on free speech and protest. But even if that's an incorrect assumption and it's being driven by the new horizons of opened by AI, one only needs to look at the leadership of those tech companies to see there's really no daylight between foreign lobbyists and Larry Ellison or the off-their-rocker Palantir execs (where doing hotrails immediately prior to every interview and public interaction appears to be company policy).
Mike huckabees flat out says it in his recent speeches. So do people like Larry Ellison
Multiple reasons I think, social crisis, pre-insurrection atmosphere across multiple countries, danger of war, capitalism questionning.
It's war, and the effects of the war. Money that's spent on weapons/war can't be spent on people. And that will create anger.
As any system, the bigger it gets, the tighter control they want to have. They work with the fantasy hypothesis of both the government and karens which they could do everything perfect if they just have more data about everything. Like "Yeah we cannot prevent criminals just because we dont have enough info on the people" not because they are just a bunch of incompetent r3tards.
Imagine they are so bad at their job that they need to know what people is doing live 24/7 to try to reduce/prevent crime. When you think about it, it makes absolutely no sense.
They apply the same exact way of thinking of everything "the economy sucks because we don't have enough good info on peoples and companies so they just need to give us everything they have".
And all of this a totally crap. The stupid thing is common people defending this stuff. I can understand it from the government because they are some evil corporation. People used to be wary in general about the government, but this sentiment slowly fade away.
Cyber warfare is probably the most active conflict frontier right now.
Likely governments are failing to properly balance privacy rights and the need to counter bad actors.
That and they recognize the power of it to control people. The same old shit.
Control is always the goal of and driven by, the government.
Control. They want to ensure they stay in power.
The fear of large revolutions organized online.
the simple answer: a lust for power and control
Techbros
Surveillance and the info it generates is how one achieves power. And power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. According to H Kissinger.
From what I know, there has been a large spotlight being placed on a myriad of scandals and other affairs surrounding tech companies, AI, games, and social media in particular.
It’s mainly being pushed by parents groups, at least in the US, and from what I can tell, the UK (based on combing through Mumsnet). Earlier pushes were actually started by a few billionaires, most of whom I forgot the name, especially around encryption. So really, it’s the engineering of consent by rich people.
Wannabe authoritarians.
I will play the devil's advocate - our lives are more and more digital. Our money is digital. Our identity is digital. Our contracts are digital. Our infrastructure is digital.
This, as follows, moves a lot of crime from the real world into the digital world. Why steal money physically near you, if you can steal online in a completely different country across the world? Logically, doing stuff online gives you much more cover and protection to avoid being caught and prosecuted.
Now, the governments still have the incentive to protect their people and infrastructure (without people and infrastructure, a government has nothing to control, right?) so, they do wanna keep everything in check and safe. Now, in the digital world, having anonymity and encryption is basically like having full diplomatic immunity from the law in the real world.
How would you as an individual, who has a lot of their wealth digital or digitally exposed, react if it gets stolen, and the police says they can't do anything because the thieves used VPNs, E2EE and Tor so they have absolutely no clue how to trace them or help you...? Basically, to tell you sorry, we can't do anything if it happens online. Police could easily wiretap classic phones, phone calls or SMS. I guess with modern E2EE this simply doesn't work. Even if you have some digital metadata traces, often times they are not enough to prove anything in court unless you have it in plain text. Just because you were somewhere at some time, doesn't prove you guilty, but also doesn't prove you innocent. It's useless.
And E2EE is also not the final solution for everyone, as I guess organised crime will find loopholes and decryption methods far faster than any government ever will. Best case, government has no idea what's going on, while you are still being spied on , just by someone else.
Thank you for your detailed answer. This is an important factor too.
Even in its most compelling form this argument falls apart rather quickly. The job of police should not be made easier due to hypothetical risks, and mass surveillance is certainly not an answer any western liberal democracy should reach for.
For your given example the solution would be proactive cyber-defense (make it a legal requirement for companies, audit regularly) and quite frankly, much better education for end users (big scary multiple layers of UI/UX that's like if you push this button and give the Nigerian prince your life savings, thats completely on you, tough luck!) and deposit insurance a la FDIC or EDIS (in the event your account is legit breached). All of these exist and are well established and don't require trouncing democracy. But them tech bros would rather replace democracy and avoid regulations of any kind.
Even in a world of VPN's, TOR, and E2EE it's still possible to do traditional forensic work, and targeted use of state power can and should be a thing. After all, devices are still physical and live somewhere, and at some point data's got to get decrypted in order for it to be useful. And so long as that's true? Well, you can see the relevant XKCD for yourself
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/538:_Security
I have theories. I have been paying attention for a very long time and I was reading about digital ID over 10 years ago.
There has been a plan by the small handful of people who pull the strings from behind the scenes, yeah it sound crazy but if you have studied history and current day politics, it seems pretty obvious.
They have been working towards restricting our freedoms, so those who hold power can do whatever the fuck they want and get away with it.
If it isn't obvious to people right now, it's beyond left or right, it's people who think they have the right to control us like stock.
I won't say who they are, but with some research, you will find them.
They published project 2025 openly and they tried it even before that with the smedley Butler business plot thing, this has been an open secret unchallenged for ages because nobody wanted to fight the wealthy and politically connected.
Also stop being cagey. It's the wealthy. Being all squirrely about it just has you come off as a cryptofascist.
Greed. Billionaires. Mental illness and sadism
Technology has empowered the people. The governments want that power back.
Right wing policies being promoted
At least in my country : because people voted for right-wing kinda conservative parties, now they reap the rewards.
Labour parties in Denmark,Spain and the UK are in favour of these policies too. It's not just left vs right.
To add a level, the party that was voted in used to be a liberal right wing party, but has suddenly switched to conservative right wing the last few years. I don't think the liberal branch would have liked that but here we are, they success increased when they started pushing for such policies, so here at least, people litteraly voted for such policies...
But definitively not a pure right/left issues, as much as a liberal/authoritarian issue I agree.
Seems like it. Unfortunately, the backslide into authoritarianism is global, largely driven by crises.
It is definitely an authoritarian vs liberal issue, and I should have been clearer. I still think authoritarianism is more represented by the right wing now, but as many point out left wing governments are also pushing in this direction.
Don't forget Australia
Race to the bottom for the bag.
Protecting the kids! /s 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
lobby(aka legal bribes) from 'special interest' groups already in & close to the gov
In my opinion they're scared. I'm sure simulations have been run on the pace technology is taking and the increasing division between political orientation, culture and race. The speed with which you can create a mob is frightening in my opinion. Possibly also a shift to corporate governance where warrants are useless and everything is considered public information. To your other point, it's both a left, right and centrist issue with the push for authoritarian policies. EU for example. I am however as confused as you as to where the more libertarian conservatives went with exception of one who has the balls to speak up.
You're right in that it's no longer a right wing policy, if it has ever been.
I mentioned it in another reply, but the way people use right and left wing as descriptors is more or less meaningless at this point.
I can't think of a single party I would actually describe his left wing because of their staunch corporate appeasement, even among international parties considered more radical there is no political will to actually bring the wealthy to heel.
It always feels like a mistake to call groups like The American Democrats left wing because they are a little less costly on social issues, they are still corporatists through and through and there's never been a point in history where there weren't.
It goes back to the very origin of the phrase, but it was a description of the physical location of two warring political factions during the french revolution, the left being against monarchism and authoritarian power structures while the right was promoting the dominance of royalty and strict heirarchy.
If there's no fundamental challenge to authority, I don't think it should be called left wing. It plays into the hands of the right wing by keeping that challenge out of the overton window of acceptability.
My controversial opinion: because people are the ones who want and vote for it. So politicians act upon it.
46% of britons strongly support age verification (YouGov poll link, check it yourself)
From my view, there are plenty of people in the western countries that genuinely support more restrictions, more rules, more boots on other people. As long as it is their side with the boot. Whenever people espouse the ideas and feelings of: "protect the kids", "ban that", "fines on this", "license for this". I would say that it is important to push back on those ideas and ask, "what will new rules actually entail?", especially if it's your friends or relatives who say those things, and they might listen to you.
You are not wrong at all.
Unfettered social media is destroying our social fabric.
So called security. Something especially wanted by the extremer political parties both right-wing and populist as well as exterem left-wing.
Brother. Both the left and the right want the same exact thing. Control. Look no further than extreme polar opposites California and Texas going full authoritarian with mass censorship, just their own different flavors.
They’re all in on it. It’s because the internet is the greatest tool for average people to hold these parasites accountable. God forbid. Can’t have that can we
The AI being used to radicalise people and sway elections, probably isn't helping things either.
World leaders have been wanting to try for decades. They have been controlling it from the start in authoritarian countries (like China with the Great Firewall and then Article 7 of the PRC's National Intelligence Law). The more liberal democracies tried it at the start, like the Clipper Chip as the only allowed encryption and the Communications Decency Act/Child Online Protection Act; however, after these failed due to a mix of activists (including essays in NYT, Wired, and general overall help from EFF) and generally more liberal institutions at the time (including SCOTUS), they failed. Early in the 2020s, they started trying again, and this time they have found that due to the authoritarian and fascist structures that have been installed around the world, it's much easier to get away with now. When one of the more liberal democracies gets away with more control and power and the ability to censor, others think now is their shot too.
The lack of interest by the population
War.
I really don't see any other reason from wanting to have so much control, so synchronized between the West block, than war.
The economy is collapsing and power is being turned over from more competently evil rich boomers to their insane reckless nepo children, who are less capable of masking their fascism or thinking about the future.
This was made worse by early 2000s internet culture radicalizing a bunch of future billionaires in very strange ways. Curtis Yarvin and that harry potter fanfic cult have a surprising amount of sway over silicon valley moguls, and they're who currently steer culture.
Peter Thiel and his heretical Chtistain Transhumanism.
Libertarian here who is no friend to corporations. I'll probably sound like a crank in this rant, but take it for what it's worth.
Elites want to control the people in service of their goals. Corporations want to make money and their leaders want money, status and power. Together, they have entered into a partnership. Politicians have learned that if they allow big tech to get bigger, they can acquire a means of controlling society. Big tech is only too happy to go along, if government lets them get rich and prevent competition. Control is good. Competition is bad.
Right now, left-wing governments are the ones leading the charge against privacy and in favor of surveillance. For example, left-wing governments rule Australia, the UK (Starmer and Labour Party), Canada (Carney replacing Trudeau), France (complicated but Macron used to be a Socialist, right-wingers are out of power), and Denmark. These initiatives are central to how they seem themselves governing in the future. Combined with this is an authoritarian streak we saw in action in Canada, when Trudeau declared a state of emergency against the trucker protests.
But the right-wingers are no better. When they get into power (see Farage in UK, the RN in France, AfD in Germany) they will pick up the tools left them by leftists and use them too. When we make this struggle party-political, we immediately lose. One side uses it to rally their base, and the relentless march toward more state control goes on.
Corporations are amoral and will go with whomever has power, right or left. Look at how the tech elites pivoted when Trump came back to power. And the US Democrats are as obsessed with wealth as the Republicans. They curry favor with billionaires and ensconce themselves in mansions (Clinton, Obama). But they are only one interest group. Labour unions, professional organizations, interest groups all jockey for a place at the table, and get it. (Remember, a central plank of fascism in Germany was corporatism.)
What unites the left, the right, big business and big labour is a relentless desire to CONTROL society in service of their goals. Elites across the spectrum fear the people and want to put them back in their cage. This is a disposition more common in Europe, but it's everywhere. In the olden days, politics was more behind-the-scenes and could be managed. But the people kept rising up. When they rejected the EU Constitution, they were overruled, it was resubmitted and passed. Then we got Brexit, probably the most terrifying event for elites in the past fifty years. The issue isn't about whether you agree with it or not, just that you CAN do it.
Politicians want to control voters. What scares them? Brexit. Le mouvement des Gilets jaunes. Unpredictability.
Corporations want to control competition and guarantee profits. What scares them? Anti-trust. The one time you ever saw corporations lose their cool was when Lina Khan was in charge of the FTC, which oversees corporations and markets in the USA. Look at the scores of WSJ editorials against her. With her gone, and Trump in place, everyone is smiling.
Anti-trust enforcement undermines big tech's ability to control us, and therefore weakens political elites. Plus, it has supporters across the political spectrum, from Bernie Sanders to Josh Hawley. It's the photon torpedo that will blow up the Death Star.
I'm always a little confused by people's description of any major government has left wing, because it's basically granting them the mask of social progressivism they use to hide fiscal conservatism and austerity that only benefits themselves, the hyper wealthy, and the corporate elites.
Anyhow, I don't see this course correcting without either startling violence and social instability forming or people suddenly getting VERY invested in anti-capitalist scare messaging enough to scare the elites into concessions.
Yeah, the idea that the governments of England, France or Australia are in any way "left-wing" is absolutely laughable lmao. Like they're calling for an end to neoliberalism and establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat or something. Why it's so hard for me to take libertarians seriously.
These governments are some of the most stanch supporters of imperialism and western hegemony the world has ever seen lmaooooo left wing my fucking ass
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It goes back to 9/11 and the Patriot act ...shit Snowden was before Trump
Weird it's mostly the in power left wing that is pushing that stuff in the EU/commonwealth...
It's not left vs right, is authoritarian vs libertarian, the Y axis not the X axis.
Stalin was Auth Left Pinochet was Auth Right Rand was Lib Right Chomsly is a Lib Left
Absolutely true. Just got annoyed by people always blaming the right wing for that crap, while the left wing is just as guilty of it... We need to make sure authoritarians of any persuasion are not getting elected...and currently we do an awful job at it...
Example?
Online safety act, now vpn bans -> labour in the UK
Chat control first big push by Ylvä Johansson (Swedish social democrats), and latest push from Denmark was by Peter Hummelgaard (Danish Social democrats)
I think it's because of the damn surveillance technology. For example, facial recognition simply didn't exist before, and it wasn't as effective as it is now.
dictators wanna dictate
a need of control
"National security"
Current? Technology has been a mechanism of social control since circa 3000 BC.
We're taught to look technology uncritically for a reason.
I think one of the reasons that recently a lot of people stood up refusing seeing injustice (too soft to say but it's for reddit) that we see in the middle east. Since the countiries who involved in it are in power and dominating, they don't want to see that people disagree with their lie and course.
They need silent people who are busy with their toys. What can be better than give them entertainment and control them in everything?
governments don't govern so its not governments. there is a little outdated thing called religion that is still around. they control it all. through all the tax loopholes making more and more money. religion governs the governments that act as the façade. no other reason for an outdated archaic way of law to even stick around in the current world and asi threatens all that to. thats why the world is going backwards abortion bands age verification etc. i'd is fine but the bans on rights and verification on content people dont consider pure is the big scary thing
Most likely answer, the people at the top know something we don't.
sometime around the time governments figure out they can be overthrown by movements incubated on the Internet - when I worked at Google our network ops people dealt with this problem in some country almost daily
Virtue signaling from the US stopped this year. That's all everyone needed to stop pretending caring about people.
ultimately, to make sure that American companies, technology and otherwise, can make a lot of money
ultimately, to make sure that American multi national companies, technology and otherwise, can make a lot of money
Social media and ease of access to it finally alerted governments to take internet seriously. Before, governments are full of cavemen bureaucrats who don't even know how to start up a PC. Now, with smartphones being available to everyone it necessitates them having tech knowledge, and once they got smart they finally figured out it's a great way to control the population.
NWO, All seeing eye, order out of chaos, secretive dark occults run the world
does it matter? humanity is near it's end. A.I or Alien will take over. What they are achieving right now is just short term control.
Even if the elites are lizard people or aliens, doesnt stop the fact humanity is on the brink so whatever control they are achieving really means nothing other than short term satisfaction.
So tell me how many democrats vote against funding the NSA surveillance program. It's the elites vs the peasants.
Money Power Sex
The Playboy Philosophy
because smartphone and internet have now become a necessity for majority people in developed nation.
back then government lacked a central control for everyone. now it can be done when ohones and internet are controlled by few companies and technology has advanced.
back then it was hard to curb piracy, today oiracy are on life support thanks to IP blocks
1) it's being used to spread harmful disinformation and misinformation on behalf of our geopolitical adversaries. 2) it's being used to reduce the profits of organizations that sell information and goods. 3) it's being used to facilitate organized crime (e.g. random ware) that often benefits our geopolitical adversaries. 4) it's being used to create and distribute exploitative and criminal material (e.g. CSAM). 5) fairly effective technologically-enabled control is quite easy, if you have the support of technology companies - easier and cheaper than traditional policing.
Now, whilst only a small minority of technology users may engage in some or all of these activities, they are together disruptive enough that authorities have taken notice.
Fundamental destabilization and restructuring of ... everything. The market is trying to value things it can't yet.
Pending societal collapse.
It seems that what is usually attributed to so-called "capitalism" is at work here: in order to exist, the state must expand. This is a natural process.
Believe it or not, it's not always right wing parties. I live in Brazil and here it's the left wing supporting age verification and the right wing being against it. As someone who always identified as left wing I came to a sobering conclusion: It doesn't fucking matter what "wing" a government identifies with primarily, they're all liars with a fetish for absolute power and control that just say what they think their voters want to hear.
That's why this is happening worldwide. Deep down every government has a fascist vein, even when they claim otherwise.
But what's pissing me off isn't governments being authoritarian, it's most of the population apparently accepting it like lapdogs. We gotta remember that the government is supposed to fear the people, not the other way around.
Potential for world war thats what drives it.
Dictatorship. The right wing stuff is just an excuse
The thing is, it’s not always clear/obvious that the gov‘s are trying to 'surveil' us.
In a real democracy people have freedoms and rights. And in a sense they rule through direct involvement in decision making.
But in a real world representative democracy the elected representatives rule with the help of 'special advisors' (that have their own interests, basically through lobbying). And one main interest of this advisors is, to keep their business models alive (because there is a hell of money to be made).
Now, tech companies are good at data collection of their customers, and people unfortunately are willing to give it all away (for questionable benefits).
And who decides which data they can collect? Historically so it happened, through the lobbying of the special advisors, that the gov’s allowed them to collect and share everything they deem fit.
But out of concern of people’s opinion on this issue they invented the so-called data protection laws, that doesn’t prevent companies from collecting and sharing date, but rather that people have the feeling they could protect their data somehow after they have been collected and shared.
And now, since the companies have the data, gov’s will say "why not use the data to know what our population is up to". Since they can collect the data from various companies they can aggregate the data they need it. And if asked, "if they collect data", they can always say, no.
Now, with the desire of gov’s to collect data themselves, in the name of 'children’s and/or special groups rights protection and terrarism prevention, they have taken the data collection to an other level.
The only thing free/privacy minded people are left with, to 'produce' less or no data that can be collected.