Sounds like the normal thing in China. Make something illegal, don't enforce it, if someone's saying something you don't like then enforce it specifically against them, keeps everyone else in line.
Selective enforcement of laws in very common in many countries. If they enforce is too harshly then people will protest. For example exceeding the speed limit while driving.
Several of the towns which depended upon speed traps for their funding found out that the Internet is a good resource for letting people know to avoid an area.
This will be interesting when self-driving cars don't ever disobey traffic laws.