I think the Online Safety Act recently passed in the UK does technically make proper encryption illegal. Chat platforms are supposed to comply when UK law enforcement asks for logs, and it says something about them needing to be "readable".
This probably mainly just means they should be able to use the backdoors in major platforms. It would be very difficult for them to go after every obscure xmpp provider or whatever, and so far they haven't.
The law says lots of other dumb and quite dystopian stuff like policies every "social media platform" has to follow, which seem to really misunderstand how the internet works. The UK would need to block itself off from most of the internet for any of this to work. One of the main chat platforms I use is just a computer in some German tech enthusiast's house (I think).
Thankfully, Labour got into power in the recent election instead of Conservatives. Their candidate was often called a "Tory with a red tie" since he didn't believe in as serious left-wing policies as other, failed Labour candidates like Jeremy Corbyn. The point though is that hopefully they won't be dropping many more laws like the "Online Safety" ("Ahhh, protect the children because any website can have porn D:") Act.
Ofcom is supposedly in the stages of putting the law into practice though. I hope nothing extreme happens to the UK, but it all sounds pretty horrible to me.
The Intel Management Engine may be able to bypass my computer's firewall and have full access to my memory, but I can pull out the Ethernet cable and cut the power.
From having lived in several European countries I get the impression that the Press being pretty much just partisan Propaganda generally it's not as common as it seems to in the USbe, with the notable exception of Britain (were it's pretty bad all around except the Private Eye which is actually a satirical magazine).
That said, the way for example Orban entrenched his control of Hungary was by controlling the Press.
This might be at least partly why in Europe the Far Right rose outside mainstream parties but in the US it rose inside them (and, curiously, in the UK it started outside, then was picked up by one of the mainstream parties at which point it really took off).
Even if it is made law, it still require legal determination by a competent authority. Such a law can simply be considered ultra vires, since it is not constitutional in a democracy.
Just ignore the fact that the actual technological capacity to accomplish this is being steadily built and deployed behind the curtain while you argue over who gets to control who and how.
No I'm pretty sure those are actual problems. I do not believe, for example, that people with megaphones should be free to tell the masses that Donald Trump won the 2016 election.
Not every "conspiracy theory" is something stupid and made up. Have you not heard of MK Ultra?
There's a good chance some governments are still doing stuff like that, and I'm sure if you found some evidence of something like that and started talking about it, you would be silenced on any major platform because of these laws.
Also, if someone posts something online you think is dumb, do you really think it should just be deleted? Do you think that helps anyone?
Although the actual implemented measures are still privacy and free speech violation and arbitrarily enforceable laws and less oversight for government and police.
Just because the wrapper says less made up things doesn't sadly make the package any different.