I actually upvoted this. It's a well-argued comment, but I'm not convinced.

My sticking point is the word "terrorism" itself. Words are defined by how we collectively use and understand them, and the common understanding of terrorism involves bombs and bullets, not software and surveillance.

I get your logic, however. You're breaking down the definition into intimidation for political ends, and you're not wrong that coercive control is a form of violence. But the leap to calling it "terrorism" just doesn't work for me. It feels like you've reverse-engineered a justification for a word that, on its face, is hyperbolic in this context. It's an authoritarian nightmare, for sure, but it isn't terrorism.

Fair point - but that’s mainly a reflection of how power defines language. The word terrorism was never limited to bombs; it was coined during the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France to describe state violence used to intimidate the population.

We’ve since normalised it to mean only non-state actors with weapons, while the organised psychological violence of governments gets rebranded as “policy.” The fact it’s done by men in suits, with forms instead of grenades, doesn’t make it less coercive - only more efficient and socially acceptable.

If a law deliberately instils fear in civilians to secure political obedience, it meets the core definition. The method evolved; the principle didn’t.

Also part of the reason it doesn’t feel like terrorism to many is bias. We’ve been conditioned to picture terrorists as outsiders with explosives, not officials with conference badges.

I'm inclined to agree. I do feel terrorized by the mere prospect of total surveillance, and I can't imagine that's not the end goal here.

Sorry, but that's talk like that that cheapen the meaning of terrorism. Once you expand it to "targeting civilian or civilian infrastructure", already it's cheapened.

I agree with the expansion of meaning, but that mean nazi resistance was terrorism. Ukraine counterstrike on the crimea bridge/russian raffineries is terrorism. I do think it is, but now i do need to qualify terrorism before using the word.

If we expand to all kind of violence, not only physical, well any new policing laws is terrorism. Laws that increase poverty are terrorism, as poverty is an economic violence exerced by the society on its most frail. Taxation is violence too. I will need to add qualifiers each time i use terrorism, and that cheapen the meaning.

[edit] my la setnence cheapened my argument and could start a new side debate that doesn't interest me, i'm removing it.

While I don't want to defend the application of "terrorism" to chat control, the examples in your second paragraph don't follow from the definition outlined above. Resistance to Nazis was meant to damage military and administrative capabilities. The Crimea bridge is a valid military target. I think Russian refineries, too, could be considered a valid target, since they support the Russian military. But even if they can't be considered valid targets, the question of intention remains.

And while I'm sure there are some people (from opposites sides of the political spectrum) who would agree that poverty-causing laws and taxation are violence, perhaps even terrorism, there also remains the question of intention.

In contrast, the 2011 attacks in Norway, the Unabomber attacks, and anything the Rote Armee Fraktion did aside from robbing banks, all have a very clear intention to primarily affect public opinion, political discourse, and civil society in general.

My doubt in the parent comment's assertations lies in the intention as well. Certainly this policy would cause fear in some way, but I think the intention of this policy really is just a techno-authoritarian power grab.

Yes, I wasn't clear enough. The expansion of meaning 'targeting civilian infrastructure' is done, it's already in the current comprehension of the word, everywhere, and now terrorism is less bad because of it.

The US (and UK I think) tried to extend it to add 'surprise attack on an occupying force', and that didn't work, but if it did, the negative connotation of the word would lessen a lot faster, and you'd see it used as a positive already ('my little terror' could easily become 'my little terrorist' if the negative meaning is dissolved enough).

I agree on everything you say, I wanted to explain my point better.

As others have mentioned, good points.

But we must stop somewhere, else we end up like the people arguing that the most democratic country in the middle east is somehow the apartheid one.

It only works if one looks away from the fact that there are so many more things that need to be declared terrorism first.

And it directly misleads people.