I've been wondering how and when our masters in the capitalist class would come after dissident bloggers like me. In the so-called "liberal democracies" they still much prefer indirect methods, frequently in legal form as cover, to deal with dissidents or people who interfere with profit opportunities of the ruling capitalist class. Here is another effort negotiated in secrecy by our masters to interfere with the internet, which was developed with taxpayer money, on behalf of corporate interests.
U.S. telecommunications corporations bitterly oppose net neutrality because, under this principle, they can’t speed up or slow down online content according to who pays them, or doesn’t, for special treatment. And any dilution of net neutrality opens the floodgates to censorship of the Internet, whether government or corporate.
.... That the Trade In Services Agreement, or the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), have to be negotiated in total secrecy, with only corporate lobbyists having access to texts or meaningful input, speaks for itself. The empty shell of formal democracy under capitalism gets ever emptier.