Networked communication is a very powerful tool that can give marginalized populations more autonomy within a country. Today, some contried try to restrict the general populations access to internet to control their actions and prevent citizens from gathering. Contries line China and North Korea restrict accesss to more online content than any other countries. [1] These systems prevent anyone within these countries from accessing western media, pornography and VPNs [1]. Similarly, the news and media is also strictly monitored by the government further preventing access to information [1]. One of the most common ways for people to bypass these restrictions is to communicate with another person outside of the restricted network to send the restricted material directly.
In the movie In Time, we see a similar restriction in communication. Despite the society being advanced in so many ways compared to our current society, we only see payphones provided for communicaiton for the general public. The Time keepers have the ability to communicate through the car similar to with cellphones. The lack of communication in the movie keeps people from saving eachother, forcing them to time out and prevent overpopulation.Â
[1] - Paul Biscoff, "Censorship 2023: A global map of internet restrictions" (Comparitech, January 26th 2023) https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/internet-censorship-map/