ArcaMax

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Covid should have killed off digital freedom. Governments around the world used an overwhelmingly survivable virus to usher in a digital surveillance framework under the pretext of vaccination verification. Now, “child safety” is positioned to finish the job.

Over the past few days, several Western governments have doubled down on requiring government ID to access social media platforms. All to protect the kids, who don’t even have a government ID. Meaning that it’s conveniently adults whose identities get matched to their online activity.

We’ve already seen how quickly these systems expand. Various European countries and Canadian provinces used the Covid crisis to accelerate massive digital identity infrastructures.

Here in British Columbia, for example, your provincial digital ID already links not only vaccination records, but also driver’s licenses, health data, education, land titles, property records, benefits, vehicle registration, insurance, permits, court records and business registrations. Now the menu item being added is online activity. How many people would want their online behavioral record linking up with their other government-managed privileges? Next up, if Europe is any indication: digital wallets and state-backed digital currencies.

Canada’s proposed Bill C-34, or “Safe Social Media Act,” would require identity verification for users over 16 and expand data retention — all framed as protection. Because “child safety” apparently requires building a permanent administrative apparatus to monitor adults.

As if demanding papers before opening a browser tab is really about protection of youth when the same government supports kids’ choosing gender-affirming surgery in the interest of gender expression, promotes government-approved assisted-suicide as a viable option for hormonal teens and even provides them with safe spaces to shoot up their government-funded drug of choice because these same policy geniuses think that’s the best way for them to get clean. This is less about kids seeing a boob online than seeing a controversial take that could lead to civil unrest if it caught on.

In the UK, similar digital regulation is advancing alongside rising domestic unrest tied to long-term social and migration policy failures.

In France, a lawmaker previously noted during parliamentary proceedings a few years ago that China’s social credit system could be a useful behavioral control model. A purely theoretical observation, of course. Which must be why it’s suddenly on the verge of becoming reality virtually everywhere.

France already offers a mobile digital identity system. “France Identité is a mobile app that lets you prove your identity. It’s free and optional and works thanks to your French national identity card,” according to the official site. “Certified digital identity enables you to carry out administrative processes remotely that until now required you to physically go to prove your identity, and it offers a high level of security.”

It also ensures that the state can reliably confirm where you live, which is useful for administrative efficiency, or, depending on temperament, extremely efficient administrative follow-up. Like in Germany, where critics have received visits from authorities, followed by charges and convictions, after insulting political leaders online, including calling the Chancellor a “lying Fritz.”

Because healthy digital discourse now apparently requires knock-and-explain visits.

Meanwhile, across Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, digital ID expansion continues. The Trump administration has objected to similar overreach, though several U.S. states have already adopted age-verification-style measures for online platforms. Others, like Texas, have resisted – for now, at least, which is how these things are usually phrased right before they stop resisting. Florida, Utah and Nebraska have all implemented versions of online ID verification. The pattern is clear enough that it no longer requires interpretation – just varying amounts of time to come to fruition.

At the same time, data centers are proliferating, justified as infrastructure for artificial intelligence. For what kind of AI, exactly? The answers tend to arrive after the architecture is already built. “I’m so pleased that we’re launching PoliceAI, because it will help us unleash the power of what AI can do,” British Crime and Policing Minister Sarah Jones said a few days ago.

Hard pass, thanks. I saw that movie the first time: “Minority Report,” starring Tom Cruise. I also just saw a viral video online of a robot in a blue clown wig inadvertently round kicking a kid at some kind of community event.

Are they going to give that thing a badge and a gun now? If so, then maybe it’s best not to be online to see the carnage — civil rights or otherwise.

Which brings us to the broader trajectory. Some users will comply willingly. Others will route around the system, as they did during Covid-era restrictions. Still others will exit digital spaces entirely. The risk for the government is that they’ll spark an underground movement of dissenters over which they have even less visibility. Or the kind of mass unrest they most fear.

The ecosystem of people who rely on a strictly online audience or clients for their revenues risks imploding. Even if they choose to stay online themselves, others won’t.

If social media does survive government control, it won’t be in its current form. What becomes of so-called free speech once participation comes with the prerequisite of proving that you are allowed to speak in the first place because you have the state’s seal of approval?