The State of Authoritarian Tech | Steven Feldstein

Bankless

[email protected]

Tech News, News, Technology

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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. 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, EARN https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR L2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🌳KGEN | REQUEST A DEMO https://bankless.cc/KGEN-podcast 🐂BULLISH | U.S. EXCHANGE LAUNCH https://bankless.cc/bullish 💠BIT DIGITAL ($BTBT) | ETH TREASURY https://bankless.cc/bit-digital We’re being compensated by Bit Digital (NASDAQ BTBT) for this segment promoting their company and BTBT. The compensation is paid in cash as a one time payment. You can find additional information about Bit Digital and BTBT on their Investor page at https://bit-digital.com/investors --- 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 --- RESOURCES Steven Feldstein https://x.com/stevejfeldstein The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance https://stevejfeldstein.com/ --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Transcript

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0:00.0	Steve Felsing is a senior fellow at Carnegie's Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program
0:07.8	where he focuses on the intersection of technology, human rights, and global politics.
0:11.6	He's also the author of two books, The Rise of Digital Repression, How Technology is Reshaping
0:16.7	Power Politics and Resistance. That came out in 2021. And then an incoming book, Bites and Bullets,
0:22.8	Global, Rivalry, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare coming out next year. We wanted
0:28.3	to get Stephen on the show today to inform us about a subject that we think is just an important
0:32.4	to keep our eyes on, which I'll call the state of authoritarian technology or repression technology,
0:39.8	technology that assist authoritarian states in the repression of its citizenry.
0:44.6	Stephen, to start off this interview, how is the outlook of repression technology? I'll admit
0:50.0	when I wake up at the morning, I don't really think about how mature or sophisticated this
0:54.1	tech sector is on net how mature or sophisticated this tech
0:54.3	sector is on net. How capable is this tech sector today? How fast is it progressing?
1:00.6	It's pretty progressing fast. First of all, thanks for having me on as well. I really appreciate it.
1:05.5	The sector is progressing fast. It's something that I think, you know, it's an interesting arc that we've seen. I would say,
1:12.5	you know, if you go back about 15 years around that time, there was a moment where there was a real
1:17.7	emphasis, I think, on liberation technology, on the idea that different digital tools could
1:22.6	really liberate and empower people to fight back against state control and so forth. And I think there's been a real
1:28.9	reversal since then that governments have gotten clued into the power of these technologies.
1:34.1	These technologies continue to get more effective and cheaper. And things like surveillance,
1:39.4	biometrics, and so forth have become ubiquitous around the world no matter where you are.
1:44.4	So I think what's interesting is that they become more common, they become cheaper to use,
1:48.3	and there's someone that is all around us to a much greater degree.
	...

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