Authoritarian regimes are upgrading their playbook — from surveillance cameras and spyware to algorithmic censorship and AI-driven policing. Steven Feldstein, senior fellow at Carnegie and author of The Rise of Digital Repression, joins Bankless to map the expanding world of repression technology.
We cover everything from Nepal’s protest movement to China’s sophisticated censorship stack, the global spyware industry, and the unsettling rise of predictive policing and AI in warfare. Along the way, Feldstein explains how financial repression and social credit systems extend state power into the economic sphere — and where crypto fits into the story of resistance.
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
1:54 The Toolkit of Digital Repression
4:22 Nepal Protests & Freedom Tech
13:32 China’s Integrated Control Playbook
19:48 Who Builds And Sells Repression
28:51 Vendors, Dual-Use, Governance Risks
36:04 Democracies Use These Tools Too
45:00 AI Supercharges Repression
51:57 Crushing Mobilization & 3.5% Rule
58:55 Blunt Backfires, Iran Copies China
1:07:43 How Repression Tech Spreads
1:13:29 Financial Repression, Crypto Workarounds
1:18:48 How To Resist, Practically
1:23:44 Closing Thoughts
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RESOURCES
Steven Feldstein
https://x.com/stevejfeldstein
The Rise of Digital Repression:
How Technology is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance
https://stevejfeldstein.com/
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