He will do the latter and prevent larger problems (protests, growing opposition) with his new censorship infrastructure. Which, in my opinion, is his main motivation.

I have no doubt he'll do the latter. But I don't think he'll dare use it to prevent protest - if he does, he will face much larger opposition. Heck, I'll take to the streets if that happens, and the only demonstration I've taken part in in the last 15 years or so was a single anti-Iraq war demonstration that happened to take place across the street from me...

If we get that far, I'll also throw 10k towards darknet infrastructure if someone comes up with a viable project.