Comment by unity1001
4 years ago
> It's really not that hard to imagine, look at China or Russia or many other countries (e.g. Middle-East). Very aggresive white/blacklists of internet services.
Part of the problem is people thinking that such countries are creating the fragmentation whereas it were the US companies who literally partitioned internet through algorithms, walled gardens, filters and blacklists. A national firewall can be circumvented by VPN and many do. Its much harder to circumvent whatever limitations such corporations that control large parts of the internet create.
> A national firewall can be circumvented by VPN and many do
FYI, this can be quite difficult for certain countries. Source: I have had friends who live in China and the Middle East, and VPN IP addresses are very quickly found and blacklisted. It's not a one-size-fits-all solution.
And honestly, this is why I'm ok with big tech getting highly regulated.
In many ways they're _ALREADY_ more powerful than state actors. They were pretty open about their attempts at manipulating the last presidential election, and I personally think it was a gigantic mistake for them. It's only going to get worse imo.
> I personally think it was a gigantic mistake for them
It went well for them as long as they were on the winning side. Only after their side lost or they changed sides things started going downhill.