@Dazzer: "who defines good governance?

That is also an important question. There is both the "content" of the governance, and the "quality" (or effficiency) in which it is provided.

For example, a society based on slavery could be considered to be well governed, if it functions without problems. But it would still be slavery.

From western point of view (or at least mine), China's own notions of it's "good governance" are fake, because negative news here are blocked from being investigated and reported, and good news are propagandized.

"what are normal interactions on the internet? "

As I tried to describe in earlier comment, "normal" behaviour on internet would indeed not be healthy, because this world overall is really not a healthy place for humans.

Internet itself is a product of humans manipulating our surroundings. We destroy nature and harness its resources to produce electricity to run it, and invented much of the related technology as by-products of finding new ways to rule each other.

There is no reason to expect that these negative aspects of human behaviour or development would just shut off once all that is built and we get to roam on this thing we created.

Even the gods that we have created continue to amount to human corpses, so there is no reason to expect internet to be some kind of angel to save us from our sins.

the words pot and kettle spring to mind

Thought I'd bounce this column - as the USA just signed a bill allowing them access to all data on servers owned and operated by US firms overseas, called the CLOUD act - which was actually endorsed by companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc but still excoriated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a US organization advocating privacy laws and rights.

This means all your data from gmail, microsoft outlook etc, yahoo, iCloud.com, etc - all may now be sucked in to the US government's global data surveillance programs, allegedly at the sole discretion of the US Department of Justice's honesty, integrity, and ethics.

This begs the question - "Who's watching the watchers?"

Anyway - the point was - your online privacy has been and always will be an illusion. The CLOUD bill somewhat supersedes the previous "legal" activity, which required political approval to do allegedly legal things.

Keep in mind, the USA legalized global kidnapping (rendition), torture (aggressive interrogation), and remote assassination of US Citizens abroad, without due process of law as guaranteed by the US Constitution, in the "interest of national security".

The USA government already has a data sharing agreement in place with the UK. Other countries - not so sure...but this allows the government to directly order US firms and their foreign subsidiaries to comply.

Please note - I'm NOT criticizing the USA's policies - merely pointing out the difference between the public's perceived illusion and reality.

have you even looked at any newspapers this week?

I'm a fully paid up member of the public. I've never had any illusions about privacy or lack of it; here, at home or in the USA. Are you trying to teach grannies to suck eggs or just having another 'go' despite your pointed protestations to the contrary?

Assume all things are being viewed.