@Q.U.I.N.N. @Pawlicker >i think open communication proved to be too powerful for nation states and its been a really protracted fight to revoke it without causing An Event. (i liken it to a game where controllers are trying to maximize the size of a shape without ever touching the death triangle; a shape that causes you to lose, but there is no way to know that you have found it, as intersecting it causes whoever does so to die.)
I think what's worse is they're choosing synthesis over surrender or fighting it, so now you have a public-private blend of oppression where the government part of it makes it inescapable and the corporation part of it makes it unaccountable, and it can shapeshift between the two as needed. See: Palantir and Flock