▲ | Atreiden 5 days ago | |
People, and the governments they compose, respond to incentives. If platforms like discord take a hard-line stance of "no, we're not enabling a surveillance state apparatus" and the government then forces them to cease business in that country, that is a decision with consequences. People don't like when the government takes away their nice things due to motives they don't agree with. It catalyzes a position - "unchecked government surveillance is creating negative outcomes for me". Over time, if enough actors behave the same way, public sentiments will shift and, assuming a healthy democracy, the government line will as well. But acquiescing to demands like these only further entrenches the position, as the public is only loosely incentivized to care. The boiling of the privacy frog in a surveillance state like the UK means most people won't care enough to change it until it's too late |