For Millennia exile has been a way for critics to escape the iron fist of tyrants and for regimes to silence naysayers. Yet the way authoritarian regimes interact with dissenting opinions abroad is changing dramatically for the worse.

       Over the past 30 years open borders have created vastly larger diasporas in foreign lands. Technology has amplified individuals’ voices and their connection to their homeland, but also enabled monitoring, intimidation and censorship by distant governments. The result is that the world’s autocracies can now plausibly aspire to control ideas and large numbers of people abroad as well as at home.

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