When Wilder and I wrote a series of articles "How Slovakia/EU is preparing for a Chinese-style digital dictatorship", people told us that we were stressing too much and that it wasn't so bad after all.
If you read it now, it's already a description of reality and it's getting worse at the same time. They already have facial recognition cameras in the Czech Republic, people are already having their bank accounts closed for their opinions, ...
We can still say what we think, until someone cancels us or the state doesn't assess that we are spreading disinformation, then the state will cancel us with all its power...
It is no longer true that China is totalitarian and the West is an island of freedom. At the moment it's more like China is just a few years ahead.