I saw a message asking why serious attacks on privacy have started simultaneously around the world right now. Personally, I can’t say that they have just begun, as surveillance without warrants has always been conducted. The issue is more about mass surveillance, which has been happening almost since the advent of computers. I can’t say that today’s situation is that different *in this regard. *
As for the question, technology has become much more advanced; the storage capacity of devices has increased exponentially, and the efficiency of processors has improved dramatically. In short, in the past, even if there was a desire to store all phone conversations in the world or surveillance camera footage, there was no physical capability to do so, as it would have required an area the size of the USA to store everything on floppy disks and army of secret agents who will process it.
To sum up, laws began to be applied when it became possible to enforce them. Now, with the capability to scan everything using large language models (LLMs), they are starting to implement these laws, and that’s all there is to it.
does anyone have something to add?
They don’t need LLMs to scan everything. That’s been possible with machine learning for decades. You could argue that they now have the compute in reach to make real time processing feasible, but they’ve already had that to some degree for also probably decades.
It’s really that oligarchs and corporations around the world are using the collapse of the US to apply disaster capitalism everywhere, while everyone’s distracted. Surveillance capitalism is now a trillion dollar industry that is intrinsically embedded deep within western militaries, “intelligence” (secret police), governments, and industry. They realise the charade of democracy under a capitalist system is nearing an end, so they’re speed running to dictatorship. The ruling class won’t stop until they own your soul, and everyone is assimilated by the Big Brother™️ borg.
Its like if ‘cruelty squad’ fucked ‘eddington’ or a less optimistic version of the ending of ‘echopraxia’.
I think the real reason it has amped up so much is the mass availability of the capacity to IPTV stream HD or even 4k sports content live. The money in mass media is ALL sports. Everything else we consume made by a traditional media outlet exists to occupy the dead time between sports events historically. When people were pirating Friends episodes, sure, that cost Comcast some DVD sales that were nice to have, but it wasn’t worth too much effort to enforce. When you can stream live sporting events that threatens the entire business model and is an existential threat.