Perhaps it was naive to expect the legal institutions of market societies to be the site at which general resistance to capitalism’s expansion could take practical form. In China, where data platforms have emerged in close alliance with the state, there are signs of the state intervening to insist on some privacy standards, but at the same time, it is well-known that platforms consistently give the Chinese state access to their data.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 557