The Russian Vision of Technology
I've spent my entire life immersed in Western technology (yes, since birth). People of my generation could not escape it anymore. When I was born the Soviet Union still existed (it's existent still, in some form), and moreover it was still considered formidable.
Reading about the direction the Russian Internet has taken under Putin, more so since the invasion of Ukraine, it's not limited to selective restrictions on Net access and GAFAM. It's a lot like Western things, including CCTV and all sorts of imported-from-China gadgetry. In a lot of ways the urban Russian deployment of technology outpaces the West's - more so when it comes to the more oppressive uses and misuses. The same is true when one examines the situation in China, whose political system resembles Russia's in all but terminology, they're not just neighbours and strategic allies.
There are many "useful idiots" who upon claiming that the West is oppressive and hostile (e.g. towards "freedom") migrate to Russia of Soviet satellites such as Georgia. They want to think that "getting away" from NATO or "Big Brother" means diving into a system like China's and Russia's. Then they realise why many people from these countries strive to get out, pine to escape to the West (even at risk to their lives and their family's lives).
From what I can gather, based on research and curation of news, Russia's surveillance is very extensive. Before Edward Snowden was naturalised as Russian (around the same time Russia invaded Ukraine and freedom of expression was just a theoretical thing for sadists) he used to speak out about Russian surveillance. He too was a target (both of surveillance by Russia and surveillance by the US). In the name of "protecting" him he was spied on very extensively. In terms of free speech, well... people who are made aware (or made to assume) they're being listened to will speak very differently. In that respect, surveillance and free speech blend like water and sand. One might argue that a mass surveillance regime is, implicitly at least, a form of self-censorship regime.
The companies that do the surveillance in Russia are many of the West's (GAFAM included), plus some Russian firms like telecom companies and Internet outfits. A lot of the physical equipment they all rely on (in Russia, Europe, north American etc.) is manufactured in China, no matter if the label (brand) on that equipment is Chinese in origin or not.
Escaping surveillance does not mean defecting or leaping passed the iron curtain. It means escaping a developed civilisation to a so-called "developing" (euphemism for under-developed) country, wherein the matrix of social control is "under-developed" or "still under development" (encouraged using "humanitarian" funds). Solving crimes in such countries might be hard; that actually puts at risk many journalists and politicians (greater incentive to commit crime when the prospects of getting caught are low). But the problem is generally not reducible to a flag or some allegiance; the problem typically boils down to technology itself, with grotesque manifestations such as social control media.
The bottom line is, maybe what people who seek to lessen oppression isn't different tech but "no-tech". From what I can gather, there is still no "privacy-preserving" mobile phone (they virtually all need to connect to some towers, some more often than others) and computers will always transmit a lot of data to peers or networks, with encryption typically done at endpoints and not in a way that precludes decryption and analysis at some remote location.
We're not saying technology itself is the problem; it's just that the way it's implemented was meant to serve parties other than the person purchasing and deploying this technology (lithography isn't to be done at people's homes; they're reliant also on underwater cables and satellites). It's something to be aware of; vigilance impacts decisions and actions. █
