Early stages of a police state or totalitarian regime. Consider the mass surveillance of all our communications, that's an absolute hallmark[1] of a police state. And getting people to rat each other out as well, that's shocking. Even worse is how people have accepted this as "normal" and necessary for their safety.

Well, if they will imprison you for the act of reading certain texts and/or web sites here in the UK, then what do you expect, that's a de facto police state, and if the public finds it acceptable or necessary, it shows how much the frog has slowly boiled over the decades.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance "It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes."