I’ve had success acting like a high-pressure marketer to my family. It’s what the regime does, and it works.

First, you get or download an alternative product without asking anyone.

Second, you ask them politely the first time to try it.

Third, if they do not listen, you paralyze their brains and activities with a fight until they listen. Trump does this to great effect on the conservative base.

When you deal with people who don’t care about protecting their privacy, you’re dealing with people who have authoritarian values. You have to be an authoritarian to them because that’s what they’ve been conditioned to respond to.

Actually, I have a whole sublemmy dedicated to promoting exactly this.

https://lemmy.ml/c/Dergism

What the article is describing is actually a mark of a state withering away if military commanders start turning into warlords. It appears to be in the incipient phases.