I suggest a different observation: the point is impede people travels. Now imaging other riots, against a dictatorship, in a world of connected, remotely controllable cars, YOUR (mine) new car.
Now imaging the same in a cash-less world where few controls cash flows/exchange and what they can do to a country economy.
Now imaging the same in a country where votes are digital, on someone servers.
I can keep going but the point is that in the past no dictator can really rule alone, nothing can really keep a society under a dictatorship except willing/accepting people's mind. With actual king of "progress" who actually is no much new nor innovative nor a "natural tech evolution" we add new weapons in few hands. As long as we are all powerless or all super-heavy armed there is anyway a balance of power. As long as the balance of power shift, no matter current intentions and personal honesty and will, we are heading in a very dark age.
Do remember yourself this evolution is human, not technological, we can have connected cars who are hosts, personally handled by their formal human owner, connected just to him/her in a classic client-server manner. We can have networks of independent hosts who exchange thing (hey, we already have it since decades!) instead of a network with few giants hubs and all the rest depending on them. The only point is choosing how to evolve. Actually someone have chosen for their own interests, like IBM in the past, GAFAM thereafter, while most people have had even no clue in what's happening... Maybe it's time to start think about the possible near-term and mid-term future...