These laws, near-identical versions of which are being rammed through in many countries simultaneously, could make it legally and financially infeasible for anyone but wealthy corporations to run online services. You have to suspect this is by design.
The effect will be that all communication has to go through censored, commercial channels with integrated deep surveillance. Political dissidents will be unable to organize without being flagged, and left-wing messages will be easy to suppress. Combine it with the recent tendency to cut left organizations off from banking and payment systems, and it starts to look pretty attractive to governments who know their populations are going to be angry about what is coming.
The climate crisis is really starting to bite and our political and economic systems are only equipped to serve the wealthy few. If the next crash is the big one and people start to starve, governments and the few they serve are going to need all the tools of suppression they can get.
These laws, near-identical versions of which are being rammed through in many countries simultaneously, could make it legally and financially infeasible for anyone but wealthy corporations to run online services. You have to suspect this is by design.
The effect will be that all communication has to go through censored, commercial channels with integrated deep surveillance. Political dissidents will be unable to organize without being flagged, and left-wing messages will be easy to suppress. Combine it with the recent tendency to cut left organizations off from banking and payment systems, and it starts to look pretty attractive to governments who know their populations are going to be angry about what is coming.
The climate crisis is really starting to bite and our political and economic systems are only equipped to serve the wealthy few. If the next crash is the big one and people start to starve, governments and the few they serve are going to need all the tools of suppression they can get.