When me and Wilder wrote a series of articles on How [Slovakia/European union] is preparing to become digital dictatorship of Chinese type, we were called by the believers in the state many things, including that we catastrophize the topic and it's not that bad.
Actually, it is much worse than we expected.
- almost complete removal of privacy in financial communication (yes, it's a type of communication)
- real focused attempts to ban end to end encryption in EU (see the quoted article)
- state controlled censorship that had exactly opposite effects - increase of reach of censored individuals, obscure websites became active telegram channels with thousands of people and further polarization that has potential to kill western liberal democracies at best, start wars in the worst case.
All of course because we think of children and of course some little rent seeking with friends from surveillance corporations.
This is the paradise, where governments are good, politicians not corrupt and the last thing to solve it some pedophiles who would be stupid enough to share illegal materials and groom kids through surveilled channels. You know, like the terrorist who put "for remotely activated explosive device, thank you" into bank transfer reference.
I don't think anyone believes that European union is anything but a bad joke. But on this one, I know I'm wrong.