Harmeet Dhillon: Biden White House 'flags' Big Tech – here's why digital policing is so dangerous

Controlling the narrative is power. Authoritarian regimes know this well, and ruthlessly employ power to control public discourse and, in turn, the people themselves.

Cuban authorities cut internet service, this week, to quell the spread of pro-freedom demonstrations across its cities. By executive fiat, India recently instituted internet regulations to suppress news about India’s farmers’ protests and COVID public health failures – a decision that some are calling "digital authoritarianism."   If it walks like censorship and talks like censorship – and our government is involved at some level – it is censorship.  And in China, Xi Jinping’s heavy-handed regulation of the internet has been most egregious censoring social media influencers, blocking foreign ideas from entering the country, and even imprisoning dissenting voices for "false news."   If this sounds familiar, it is – throughout modern history, regimes seeking to quell citizen protest begin a repressive crackdown by silencing dissenters, journalists, even ordinary protestors – either through censoring the press or forbidding critical talk.