Comment by TFNA
13 hours ago
> You aren't required to identify yourself to get a phone. You can get a prepaid phone with no ID.
Requiring ID to buy a prepaid SIM card has become the norm across the developed world. There are still a few holdout countries, but they won’t hold out for long.
You say that as though it's a feature rather than a bug. Being able to have an anonymous SIM card is a useful privacy and security feature, to avoid things like "tell me the ID of everyone in the vicinity of this protest". (And that's one reason governments try to break that.)
People like the guy you replied to surely don't perceive the right to protest as vital.
Neither won't they ever fathom the fact that governments inevitably become full-on fascist to the meek bleating of a critical mass of ther ilk (check the sympaties to the Chinese surveillance below).
My sympathies are increasingly with the Chinese model of development. So, yes, policies that confront the major challenge of our era – ensuring social harmony among the chaos of modern media and communications – are good features.
> ensuring social harmony among the chaos of modern media and communications
Harmony is another word for suppression of dissent, and that's the effect it'll have.
There's a long history of tools being promoted for one purpose and used for another. Tools supposedly intended to restrict "porn" get used to restrict LGBT healthcare and resources. Tools supposedly intended to promote "harmony" on social media get used to track down activists and protestors.
The obvious response to such overreach is to refuse to allow such tools to exist. It's not that the tools invite abuse; it's that all use of such tools is abuse.