Yeah, I share your feeling that it feels thought-policey and troubling. But my guard is just a little bit up in the other direction too, maybe because I saw this right after this thread, where a guy was in an online argument with a woman and essentially threatened her family by driving to another city, finding her dad in the hospital, and taking a selfie next to him... Then he posted it in a public comment thread where she would see it.

With that information, it's clear that he's the bad guy... But I can see how if we just heard his side, with all of the condemning details omitted, it could be super easy to get baited into reacting like "Wtf, you can't even take a selfie in this country anymore?"

His defense was "I was merely trying to win an online argument," which thankfully, the judge thought was nonsense. I don't think it was dystopian for the cops to show up at his house and say "You've done some harmful things online, and here are some consequences." (I actually don't know if cops showed up or he just got a court date or what, but you know what I mean)

So there are many ways that this story isn't equivalent to that story, but I was already primed to be like... "Oh okay well what were the posts?" The window of potential reactions is pretty wide based on the answer to that.