I mean, amateur radio was illegal to encrypt. That encryption ban could have theoretically also happened to the internet with just a few changes in legislation in a different timeline.

If, say the US and rest of North America, and the European Countries, along with Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, basically if most of the democratic world somehow in an alternate timeline just went batshit crazy and become authoritarian. What would the internet even look like. Would the internet even exist?

I mean, the US was supposedly a liberal democracy tried to ban PGP. A full fledged authoritarian US would’ve imprisoned many of those PGP and Free Software authors. HTTPS would’ve have a government root certificate on every computer, phone, tablet, smartwatch. Signal would’ve been illegal…

Is this alt-timeline too far fetched?

I mean its not even too late for this to happen starting like right now 2025, right?

  • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org
    8·
    2 days ago

    if most of the world were under authoritarian regimes instead of liberal democracies?

    Well, most of the world is actually under authoritarian regimes and not liberal democracies.

    So what is it what you are asking?

    • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world
      8·
      2 days ago

      Well, most of the world is actually under authoritarian regimes and not liberal democracies.

      Not the parts where 90% of the research and development for our current information technology was done.