I’d argue Silicon Valley pretending there is a natural arc of digital history towards freedom and enlightenment if we just leave everything alone is distinctly reminiscent of 90s free-trade optimism. And like that philosophy, this too one finds its tombstone in China.
The laws that apply on the internet are very desperate attempts by people with no technical knowledge to control something that can't be controlled. They work only because ways to circumvent them are not yet easy to use by the masses.
Using the word "activities" implies that something different than what's really happening.
Ask the question like this: Should countries have the right to control information inside their borders? The answer to that question is no.
> Opposing this on the basis of "they'll extend it to political opposition ..." makes as much sense as opposing the arrest of criminals because "they'll extend it to political opposition ...".
If you make it less expensive to do something, you make it more likely that it happens. Incarcerating murderers and rapists is very important and is an effective deterrent against serious violent crimes, so creating prisons that make it easier to incarcerate political prisoners is bad but the thing it's necessary in order to do is more important.
Blocking streaming sites isn't nearly as important and it's also less effective for its intended purpose than it is for the ulterior purpose, because users will go out of their way to bypass censorship of streaming sites whereas inconvenient political content is censored not just with respect to its content but also its existence, and then if you create a censorship apparatus it allows people to be kept in the dark as to what is even being censored. So in that case the badness of the censorship apparatus existing far exceeds its value in being able to inconvenience some minor offenders.
In what country is there actually a "right to private, encrypted communication"? At best there's rights for "privacy", which is a pretty woolly concept, but generally don't cover copyright infringement. More to the point, unless you reject the concept of copyright entirely, you have to accept that free speech rights will have to be "violated" to enforce it.
I recognize that this is not a popular opinion, but IMHO IT SHOULD BE covered by the "secure in their papers" section in the 4th Amendment in the US, and/or with established precedent regulating encryption export as armaments, by the 2nd & the Heller decision granting the rights afforded by the 2nd to the individual
at least that's the correct interpretation of the founding document as far as I can tell. not that it matters anymore.
Do you really believe that the interests of the people are inferior to the interests of capital? Do you actually believe that the interests of each group are aligned?
You'd agree with say, <insert country> mass blocking sites for their people just because the sites say something about democracy?