And Then? A short film about mass surveillance.
Mass surveillance and censorship are escalating worldwide. To highlight the slippery slope and the absurdity of monitoring people without suspicion and a court order, Mullvad produced the short film “And Then?”.
Mass surveillance and censorship will always be a slippery slope. History has shown this time and time again. If authorities have the ability to monitor everyone, they will also do so. This became most evident following Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing, which revealed that once the NSA had the capability to monitor practically everyone on the internet, they chose to do exactly that; they spied on politicians, journalists, and activists, conducted industrial espionage, and recorded and mapped entire populations around the world.
To highlight the slippery slope of mass surveillance, Mullvad produced the short film ”And Then?”. It’s directed by Jonas Åkerlund and serves as a reminder of the absurdity of systems where people are monitored without warrants and without suspicion of a crime.
A spoof on Dude, Where’s My Car – to highlight the corrupt Chat Control proposal.
Our short film is a pastiche of the “and then?” scene from the movie Dude, Where’s My Car starring Ashton Kutcher. The reason we use this scene is that Ashton Kutcher has been a driving force in attempting to pass a mass surveillance bill in the EU. Through his company Thorn, he has lobbied the EU Commission to introduce a law called Chat Control, which would mandate mass surveillance of all communications in the EU: all messaging apps, all images and videos stored in the cloud, all emails and text messages, everything.
Here you can read more about the undemocratic and corrupt methods behind the Chat Control proposal.
And then? Banned on British TV
The United Kingdom is escalating its censorship and mass surveillance. When Mullvad tried to address this with several short ad versions of the “And Then?” film, they were banned on British television. The outdoor ad campaign meant to criticize the TV ban was also largely halted. And then? When our ads were banned on British TV, we finally took them to the streets instead and projected them onto walls in London.
Here you can explore the entire UK campaign.