I know that reads like I'm being snarky, but I'm not trying to be. Within the last decade in the UK we have had (among others):
- the 2016 Snoopers' Charter
- the 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act
- the 2023 Public Order Act
- the 2023 Online Safety Act
- the 2024 Addendum to the 2016 Snoopers' Charter
Couple that with the whole push to repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, and the fact we've started imprisoning pensioners for holding up signs, and it's really difficult to _not_ see exactly where this leaves us.
I wish I could look away and get on with my life, but I can't - and I'm starting to realise that that is also part of the design. The increasing reluctance to express controversial opinion online isn't an accidental side effect of all of this legislation. It is intended behaviour, the desired outcome.