evilrobots.lol / tech

The Ratchet Clicks Counter

Interactive assessment: how many of the 20 ratchet mechanisms apply to YOUR country? Find out where you are on the grid.

RATCHET POSITION
AWAITING FIRST INPUT
Yes = 1 click, Partially = 0.5, No = 0. Click 20 is inverted (a documented limit on the infrastructure reduces the count).
How to read this: Each row is a chapter of The Ratchet. Answer for your country. The sources for each click are in the body text below — click through to the primary documents. This is a self-assessment, not a survey; nothing is reported anywhere.

Twenty mechanisms. One direction. A ratchet is a mechanism that only turns one way. Each click below is a piece of safety, security, or transparency infrastructure that exists in your country right now. None of them came in unjustified. None of them have ever rolled back.

Score yourself. Each item answers a single question: does this apply where you live? Yes counts. Partially counts half. No is the only way out, and the list of countries with twenty Nos is shorter than you would prefer.

Each click maps to a numbered chapter in The Ratchet (Book 2 of the Evil Robots Series). The sources are the primary documents behind that chapter’s claim. The page does double duty: a reference index (confirm a mechanism, follow the source), and a self-assessment (Yes / Partially / No, score at the bottom).

The 20 Clicks

For each, answer: Does this apply in your country? (Yes / Partially / No)

  1. The Flagging Machine — Does your government fund or coordinate with organizations that flag online content for removal by platforms? (Chapter 1) — Sources: House Judiciary Staff Report on EIP, Washington Post: Stanford’s Top Disinformation Research Group Collapses Under Pressure. Related: Stanford Internet Observatory / EIP / Virality Project — see research-notes for the full pipeline.

  2. The Algorithm — Do platforms operating in your country use engagement-optimizing algorithms that amplify outrage? (Chapter 2) — Sources: The Facebook Files (WSJ series, Frances Haugen disclosures), MIT Tech Review on engagement amplification of moral outrage.

  3. The Kill Switch — Has anyone in your country been deplatformed at the infrastructure level (hosting, payment processing, app stores simultaneously)? (Chapter 3) — Sources: Parler v. Amazon Web Services (court filings, 2021), Operation Choke Point — FDIC Office of Inspector General Audit.

  4. The Money — Can your government freeze bank accounts without prior court order during declared emergencies? (Chapter 4) — Sources: Canadian Emergencies Act invocation, Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) final report, 2023, Bank of Canada on CBDC research. Related dossier: CBDC research — eNaira reversal, digital yuan, BIS quotes.

  5. The Papers — Does your country have or is it building a national digital identity system? (Chapter 5) — Sources: eIDAS 2.0 Regulation (EU 2024/1183) — official journal, UIDAI / Aadhaar enrollment statistics (Government of India), India Stack documentation. Related: research-digital-id.md and research-india-stack.md in the underlying repo.

  6. The Club — Do your country’s senior officials attend invitation-only policy forums (Bilderberg, WEF, CFR equivalents) where policy consensus is built before legislative debate? (Chapter 6) — Sources: Bilderberg Meetings official participant lists, WEF Young Global Leaders alumni directory, Council on Foreign Relations membership disclosures. Related: research-cfr.md, research-elite-networks.md.

  7. The Priest — Are there ideological compliance requirements (ESG, DEI, or equivalents) in your country’s institutional infrastructure? (Chapter 7) — Sources: SEC Climate-Related Disclosure Rule (final rule, March 2024), EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Related: research-esg-corporate.md.

  8. The Embassy — Does a foreign government operate cultural/religious/community organizations in your country that have been documented conducting surveillance? (Chapter 8) — Sources: FBI announcement on Chinese police “service stations” in New York (2023), Safeguard Defenders report on overseas Chinese police stations (110 Overseas). Related: research-diaspora.md.

  9. The Eagle — Does the United States operate military bases, fund NGOs through US-government funding mechanisms, or enforce dollar-denominated sanctions affecting your country? (Chapter 9) — Sources: DOD Base Structure Report (annual), OFAC Sanctions Programs and Country Information, USAID FY country-by-country budget tables. Related: research-american-influence.md, research-anglo-american-axis.md.

  10. The Car — Do vehicles sold in your country contain technology capable of remote disable, location tracking, or behavioral monitoring? (Chapter 10) — Sources: Mozilla Foundation: Privacy Not Included — Cars review (2023), NHTSA Report to Congress on Advanced Impaired Driving Prevention Technology (2024). Related: vehicle-control-infrastructure.

  11. The Office — Does your employer monitor your keystrokes, screen time, or communications? (Chapter 11) — Sources: NYT: How Companies Are Pushing Productivity Tracking, Cornell ILR Brief on Bossware (2022). Related: research-workplace-iot.md.

  12. The School — Are students in your country subject to content monitoring on school-provided devices? (Chapter 12) — Sources: Center for Democracy & Technology: Hidden Harms — Online Student Activity Monitoring (2021-2024 series), GAO Report on K-12 Cybersecurity and Student Data Privacy. Related: research-education-surveillance.md.

  13. The Hospital — Can your health data be sold, subpoenaed, or accessed by law enforcement without your knowledge? (Chapter 13) — Sources: HHS HIPAA permitted-disclosure rules including law-enforcement provisions, HHS Office of Inspector General reports on health data sales. Related: research-healthcare-data.md, research-healthcare-espionage.md.

  14. The Tap — Does your country participate in signals intelligence sharing agreements (Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, Fourteen Eyes, bilateral)? (Chapter 14) — Sources: UKUSA Agreement declassified texts (NSA / GCHQ release, 2010), EFF: Five Eyes overview. Related: research-nsa-snowden.md.

  15. The Watchers — Does your country operate mass metadata collection programs? (Chapter 15) — Sources: PRISM Slides as published by The Guardian (Snowden disclosures, 2013), Section 702 reauthorization congressional record (2024), Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board reports on Section 702. Related: research-nsa-snowden.md.

  16. The Backdoor — Has your country mandated encryption backdoors or lawful intercept capabilities in telecommunications? (Chapter 16) — Sources: UK Online Safety Act 2023 — Section 121 (technology notices), EU CSAM Regulation proposal — client-side scanning provisions, CALEA (US Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act), Salt Typhoon telecom breach disclosures (2024-2025).

  17. The Model — Does your country operate facial recognition surveillance in public spaces? (Chapter 17) — Sources: MIT Tech Review: China’s social credit / surveillance overview, Comparitive: Worldwide facial recognition deployments index, Clearview AI litigation record. Related: research-china-domestic.md.

  18. The Blueprint — Is your country implementing AI governance that includes registration requirements, compute thresholds, or content watermarking mandates? (Chapter 18) — Sources: EU AI Act — Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, US Executive Order 14110 (October 2023, AI safety and trustworthy development), China Generative AI Service Measures (effective August 2023). Related: research-ai-governance.md.

  19. The Counter-Argument — Has your country experienced a genuine foreign disinformation operation, terrorist attack, or child safety crisis that justified the infrastructure in questions 1-18? (Chapter 19) — Sources: ODNI Annual Threat Assessment (most recent), Mueller Report on Internet Research Agency operations, NCMEC CyberTipline annual statistics. Related: research-counter-arguments.md.

  20. The Cat or the Dog — When your government builds safety infrastructure, does it have a documented history of limiting that infrastructure to its stated purpose? (Chapter 20) — Sources: PCLOB findings on Section 702 backdoor searches, DHS Inspector General reports on Disinformation Governance Board, Henan health-code-as-protest-suppression coverage. Related: research-cat-psychology.md and research-counter-arguments.md.

Scoring

Bridges

Sources

All citation links are inline above with the relevant click. The master research index for The Ratchet lives in the book repo at research-notes.md and per-topic research files (research-cbdc.md, research-nsa-snowden.md, etc.) — those are the underlying source dossiers that the inline citations sample from.