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China is introducing a new law that will require new mobile phone users to scan their faces. The law does not mean that users will scan their faces with their phones, but rater that they will need to scan their faces at the shop where they buy the SIM card. The law is designed to prevent people from participating on the web under an anonymous identity.

China is instituting this new law in order to better monitor its citizens, who are exhibiting increasing unrest. It’s part of a wider project of surveillance and control.

China is walking a fine line between soft autocracy and full autocracy. The social credit system is basically a dystopian nightmare. It turns the population of China into its own Big Brother, with citizens watching over their peers and themselves to ensure social conformity. That’s soft autocracy. But the revelation that the state has been using bird-shaped drones to surreptitiously spy on their citizens. That’s full autocracy. From the article: “The bird-like drones mimic the flapping wings of a real bird using a pair of crank-rockers driven by an electric motor. Each drone has a high-definition camera, GPS antenna, flight control system and data link with satellite communication capability.”

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