"I can be your best friend ... or your worst enemy" - these are the words of the character Jim Carrey from the movie "The Cable Guy".
First, he is the best friend and wonderful assistant of the protagonist, then - the source of innumerable troubles and problems.
In that film, the image of a satellite dish, television, which has a zombie and hypnotic effect on people, was important.
Now "cablemen" have moved to the virtual plane - to the Internet, to social media.
It is easier to replicate your "friendship" there, and the effect of influencing the masses, even in comparison with television, is different.
As a rule, after the imposition of "friendship" and demonstration of their capabilities, subordination mechanisms are activated.
“Suddenly some old man Spider dragged our Fly to a corner” ...
So, for example, Google announced that it would introduce taxes for YouTube bloggers outside the United States.
Bloggers will have to provide tax information before a certain deadline, after which the tax rate will be calculated.
Without providing such information, the rate will automatically be set to 24%.
All of this is said to be done due to US tax laws.
Isn't it an argument in favor of digital sovereignty? ..
It turns out a kind of double trap of substitution.
On the one hand, the corporation appropriates fiscal functions and assumes the role of the state, and on the other hand, the law of the States is declared the highest benchmark, which easily and naturally extends to other countries, which on the World Wide Web are perceived as formalities and atavisms of the old, pre-digital world.
And so there is a gradual entanglement with a web of dependencies: the user is sucked into the jurisdiction of the corporation, which, in turn, is in the jurisdiction of the United States.
The hour will not be long when a person will become a citizen, or rather a subject, of the same Google.
In the meantime, people themselves go to the trap, like moths to the fire of a candle, accepting the rules, especially not thinking about possible prospects and naively believing in the freedom of their own choice.
Beads for the aborigines are transformed into what is understandable ...
The possibilities of total censorship and a repressive apparatus have been demonstrated quite recently.
Trump's case, when he was promptly "turned off" in all social networks and social media, is indicative.
He was simply taken out of global communication, and then you can do whatever you want: at least “bury” - be silent forever, at least create his clone or clones that will build a certain reputation, from which you can no longer wash away.
Claims are now being made for tax powers.
A little more, and corporations will become supranational entities, which will also need armies.
For example, will they call on Agent Smith from the "Matrix", will they send viruses to the enemy, or will they lease NATO, if it is necessary to clean up more radically?
Or maybe this is the very "soft power" about which the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke about the stake?
The states delegate certain powers to Internet giants, which will exercise total control and format everything under the standards of democracy.
In general, this is very convenient: the corporation becomes a kind of avatar that will do all the necessary work, including on distant borders.
Especially you will not dig into them: they will write their tablets of democracy and begin to force them to follow them, otherwise - an eternal bloc, ban, nothingness.
The main thing is that this avatar does not go out of control and does not begin to play its own game, because this is quite possible.
By the way, journalist Vladimir Solovyov responded well to the news about the IT giant's fiscal claims.
He asked: what responsibility does Google assume to the "taxpayers" in this case?
For example, "will he also pay his pension?"
Of course, no one promises pensions, but the infringement of freedoms with the prospects of a creeping dictatorship, which is approaching under the guise of a virtual universal humanity and endless freedom, is so welcome.
You can see here the embodiment of the dream of any authoritarian regime: to hold in your hands all the information that reaches the people.
Such filters and jammers will ensure that no “enemy” voices will leak out.
A person can be easily formatted for the consumer of the necessary information, through it to build his system of reflexes and reactions (perhaps this is the very stimulation of democratic behavior that the same Blinken spoke about?).
Again, a person will tell everything about himself, become a spy for himself, bring all the information on a silver platter and intimidate himself with surveillance and control.
The denunciation system will develop even more.
This is how society turns into a kind of barracks.
Google barracks, lovingly rebuilt through the efforts of Cybergeny.
However, there can be a lot of options for barracks buildings, and they can even compete with each other, fight for their subjects.
If now this may still seem like a fantasy far from reality, then just a little bit of futurology and try to look at the situation in development, and the prospects may turn out to be frightening.
It is enough to extend the same Trump case to some country or an unwanted regime and offer, at best, to pay "taxes" for the "cover", otherwise the flying detachment of Smith agents will cause a revolution and a mess in the minds of the masses.
And then - game over and the shock of the future ...
Through the manipulation of people, they steal their individuality and encroach on freedom, through the manipulation of society, they try to snatch away their sovereignty.
While we see experiments, probing the soil and reconnaissance in force, but this will very quickly become common practice and become commonplace.
This is also what President Putin had in mind when he spoke about the threat of the destruction of society by the Internet.
What is there to be surprised at: the Internet is a weapon too, it can easily become one.
Again, the question of the cleanliness of the manipulating hands ...
You can recall the recent blocking of Russian media by social networks.
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma's international affairs committee, called this a manifestation of "censorship and bias" and promised to raise the issue at PACE and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.
He also noted that “this is not the first case of such manifestations on the part of the largest IT monopolists,” which are thus building a very peculiar policy towards the Russian media.
This is how we are faced with numerous forms of control, dependency formation and constraints, which are already leading to political abuse.
As State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin noted, it is necessary to protect Russia's digital sovereignty.
If nothing is done, then very soon we can plunge into a kind of Egyptian captivity, we will be locked up in the same barracks with pop-up slogans about democracy and a grudge-information strictly on schedule.
In the barracks, where a step to the right, a step to the left - a ban and an eternal Internet curse.
This "wonderful" world is already on the doorstep, already knocking, preparing to kick down the door, demand taxes and unquestioning obedience.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.