I love when authoritarian nations just block internet. India did it in Kashmir for a fuckton of time, and it was practically unusable for a longer period (2G speeds). they also do it at even little bit of protests. How dare the citizens protest their own governments, no, no internet for you! ---- The world will be a better place without these govts.
India is particularly trigger happy with blocking the internet at the first sign of trouble in any city or region. Makes me wonder what will happen to the internet - and politics - once generative AI tools are sufficiently advanced and easy to use. It’s already easy to rile up people with Whatsapp forwards. Imagine how easy it would be if the Whatsapp message comes with an inflammatory AI generated video.
As a simple example, just look at how in the USA, inventor of the internet, QAnon has gained zealous, violent supporters, over a bunch of intentionally cryptic messages and literal keyboard mashing to form a "code".
Look at the Reddit frontpage for an example of how easily people will believe the supposed context provided with a video. It usually takes hours for someone to actually check and comment "actually, this is a video from 2009 from another country" somewhere way down the bottom of the discussion thread. In private chat groups, this type of checking is almost entirely absent.
Why bother using AI when you can take an old video, add a title referring to a recent event, and spreading it around on social media? Good AI is expensive, lies are cheap.