In the U.S. from about 1999 to 2013, we heard quite a lot about Chinese state control and monitoring of the Internet. In fact, it became a kind of paradigmatic, ideal example of a "bad" state that didn't trust people and had to practice control and monitoring of communications. People would say that restrictive policies and proposals were "like China", and that was a powerful way of criticizing them.
We also heard that the Chinese state was so disrespectful and unreasonable that it was hiring hackers (in the sense of people who break security) and hacking computers all over the world. This was also an example of its commitment to control and monitoring of communications, and its unwillingness to let people have freedom and autonomy.
Since then we learned that Western states are also committed to having the technical means to control and monitor the Internet, although the policies for which they apply these means have usually been different. (The Western states almost never want people to know that they're watching, and they tolerate speech that might threaten social harmony much better.)
Now that we're hearing about a wider range of states building up the tools to monitor and control Internet communications according to their various state policies, there will be an important challenge. Can we transfer the kind of outrage that we felt against the Chinese government to everyone else, or will state control of the Internet be normalized and accepted as inevitable? (The Chinese government often responded to criticism of its Internet control programs by arguing that all other governments did analogous things, maybe just in the context of somewhat different domestic legal systems, and that it was normal and inevitable for states to be able to know and control how people use computer networks.)
We also heard that the Chinese state was so disrespectful and unreasonable that it was hiring hackers (in the sense of people who break security) and hacking computers all over the world. This was also an example of its commitment to control and monitoring of communications, and its unwillingness to let people have freedom and autonomy.
Since then we learned that Western states are also committed to having the technical means to control and monitor the Internet, although the policies for which they apply these means have usually been different. (The Western states almost never want people to know that they're watching, and they tolerate speech that might threaten social harmony much better.)
Now that we're hearing about a wider range of states building up the tools to monitor and control Internet communications according to their various state policies, there will be an important challenge. Can we transfer the kind of outrage that we felt against the Chinese government to everyone else, or will state control of the Internet be normalized and accepted as inevitable? (The Chinese government often responded to criticism of its Internet control programs by arguing that all other governments did analogous things, maybe just in the context of somewhat different domestic legal systems, and that it was normal and inevitable for states to be able to know and control how people use computer networks.)