No.13751
>Would it be the outright end of anonymous forums based in Western countries? Is it even enforceable? Will people revolt to decentralized/distributed protocols?
It would be a disaster.
I'm unsure of precisely how enforceable it would be, but I'm certain they'd make a serious attempt which would have a major impact. The reason they do this is practical; they are all murderous criminals of the highest degree, and it frightens them that people know about it and discuss it. With this in mind, their efforts to criminalize speech and enforce mass surveillance will obviously be very serious ones.
You already see very bad effects in the UK. Florida has adopted some fraction of UK-like laws, and now Spacehey (an independent social media site) is de facto banned in both places.
>What would be the future of online discussion?
More of the worst - an even greater push towards centralization on large sites controlled by US MIC contractors, and free reign for their bots/ops.
To this day, the best discussions are on small forums which have been untouched by the algorithms and ops, but the design of this government suppression includes the aim of separating people and alienating them from one another, and it necessarily is ruthlessly antagonistic towards community and coherence.