We're Sleepwalking into Digital Authoritarianism: The Rise of Cyberpunk Fascism
This isn’t some far-off dystopian nightmare. It’s already here, unfolding in slow motion while most people go about their day like nothing’s happening.
It’s a Monday morning. I’ve dropped my daughter off at nursery, and on the drive home, I put on LBC. Nick Ferrari is going off about Elon Musk or Donald Trump—again—doing something that’s triggered mass outrage. Fatigued, I listen on. I get home, do a quick round on Reddit, X, and Threads before logging into work. Yes, I’m a social media addict, but I hate echo chambers even more. If you don’t hear what everyone is saying, how do you know what the actual spread of discourse looks like?
I look into whatever the outrage of the day is, and sure enough, the same pattern. More red flags. More alarm bells ringing in my head from all the history lessons and all the reading I’ve done. There’s something that’s been gnawing at me for a while. I haven’t talked about it much, but the more that happens, the more I feel like it’s time to say it out loud. We’re watching the rise of authoritarianism in real-time. We’ve all read about fascism creeping in, but looking at the state of things right now, it feels closer than ever before in my lifetime in the West.
Pages from 1984 and Brave New World are playing out before our eyes. Social media, which was supposed to connect us, has made us more isolated, more addicted, and worse—easier to manipulate. We’re not just consuming content, we’re being programmed. For those of us paranoid enough, we second-guess ourselves constantly, check all sources, and try to piece together our own version of the truth. We know better than to take anything at face value. As The X-Files used to say, “Trust no one.”
But here’s another saying—when people tell you who they are, believe them. What I’m seeing and hearing sounds an awful lot like the formation of an authoritarian oligarchy that sees anyone with a net worth under a million as an NPC. That’s not hyperbole, that’s what their actions suggest. When financial institutions can freeze accounts without due process, when governments and Big Tech work together to decide what is and isn’t acceptable discourse, when political parties try to frame opposition as a mental illness, the pattern is clear.
Look at the Republican push to classify "Trump Derangement Syndrome" as a legitimate mental disorder. That’s not just some fringe talking point. That’s the kind of thing regimes do when they want to neutralise critics without having to argue with them. China already does this, locking up dissidents in psychiatric hospitals. Russia brands its critics as extremists and enemies of the state. The U.S. is sliding down the same path, just dressed up differently.
And if that wasn’t alarming enough, the Republican Party is openly embracing Christian nationalism—a movement that aims to dismantle the separation of church and state and impose a theocratic rule. Book bans targeting LGBTQ+ literature and racial history aren’t just about parental rights, they’re about controlling what people are allowed to think. Right-wing lawmakers are pushing laws that would allow states to override federal protections on same-sex marriage and reproductive rights. Some have even floated the idea of criminalising contraception. This isn’t democracy. This is the blueprint for a Christofascist state.
It’s happening in plain sight, but most people are too distracted to notice. Governments and corporations have realised that brute force isn’t even necessary when they can just tweak the algorithms, adjust the search results, and demonetise dissenters into silence. Social media companies shadowban content they don’t like. Banks cut off financial access for people who step out of line. And every time someone warns about it, they’re dismissed as paranoid.
At the core of all of this is a war on empathy. Empathy is a threat to authoritarian control because it builds bridges, fosters understanding, and makes it harder to dehumanise groups of people. That’s why the right-wing movement is so focused on turning basic human decency into something radical, something dangerous. Caring about refugees? You’re a traitor to your country. Speaking up for marginalised communities? You’re a woke extremist. Believing that people deserve healthcare, fair wages, and basic dignity? That makes you a socialist menace.
The goal is to make compassion look weak, to turn kindness into a liability. When people stop seeing others as human, it becomes easier to justify oppression. This is why the far-right constantly stirs up culture wars, because the more divided people are, the easier they are to control. If they can make people hate each other over race, gender, sexuality, or religion, then they don’t have to worry about people looking up and realising who the real oppressors are. It’s the same strategy every authoritarian movement has used—distract the public with internal conflict while consolidating power at the top.
It starts small, so people accept it, remember the proverbial story about the frog in the boiling pot of water... First, it’s about public safety. Then it’s about curbing hate speech. Then, before you know it, your ability to function in society depends on how well you conform. At some point, dissent isn’t just frowned upon, it’s fucking dangerous—to your career, your finances, your ability to exist online. And if you can’t exist online, you can’t exist, period.
We’ve seen this pattern before, just without the technology. Look at history. The playbook never really changes, it just updates for the times. In the past, oppressive regimes needed secret police, censorship bureaus, and informants on every street corner. Now? They don’t need any of that. AI does the monitoring. Social pressure does the policing. And because it’s happening quietly, piece by piece, most people won’t realise the walls have closed in until they’re already trapped.
This isn’t paranoia. It’s pattern recognition. Look at Canada freezing bank accounts during the trucker protests. Look at the EU’s Digital Services Act, which hands over unprecedented control of online speech to government regulators. Look at China’s social credit system, where everything from your financial access to your travel options depends on good behaviour. The West isn’t immune. It’s just better at packaging it as progress.
The absolute fucking cherry on the cake is that this system doesn’t even need a dictator. AI-enforced compliance, automated speech moderation, and financial controls don’t require a central figure issuing orders. The system runs itself. Algorithms decide what’s acceptable. AI flags content for removal. Entire industries shift toward self-censorship to avoid the risk of being cut off. And all of it happens under the guise of keeping people safe.
People won’t resist because it won’t feel like oppression. It’ll feel like convenience. Everything will seem fine—until the day you step out of line. Maybe you say the wrong thing. Maybe you donate to the wrong cause. Maybe you don’t update your profile with the latest mandated slogan of the month. Suddenly, you notice things aren’t working the way they used to. Your reach is throttled. Your payments take longer to process. Your job applications mysteriously disappear.
No one will need to drag you away in the middle of the night. You’ll just find yourself locked out of society, and most people won’t even realise it’s happening to you. They’ll assume you must have done something wrong. That’s how it works. The system doesn’t need force, it just needs silence. And it’s already happening.
So what can we do? First, stop normalising it. Stop pretending this is just how things are. Every inch of control that gets handed over is another inch that will never be returned. We need decentralised tech, financial autonomy, and independent platforms that aren’t controlled by the same handful of corporations working with governments to tighten the grip. Write to your member of parliament, be politically informed, don’t rely on partisan news sources and above all think critically.
This isn’t some far-off dystopian future. It’s happening now. If people don’t wake up soon, there will come a day when speaking out will just be fucking impossible.
I hope that this is just paranoia, but a little paranoia helps I guess when these people behave as they do right in front of all of us, what else are we to think?