The recent publications of the drafts of two long-awaited legislations on regulating usage of internet have stoked some debate on the likely impact of those on citizens and businesses. However, not much has been said about the government’s motivation and objectives behind the sudden rush in legislating these laws, which should have been enacted years ago. Both of these draft laws - the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) Regulation for Digital, Social Media and OTT Platforms, 2021 and the Data Protection Act, 2022 - have a common principle, which is to allow the government ever more control on everything we do over the internet. Hence, the draft OTT regulations have more provisions to allow state surveillance over contents on the ground of security of the state, instead of giving freedom to citizens to enjoy cyberspace without fear. Similarly, instead of affording greater protection to an individual’s privacy rights, many of the proposals under the draft dat...