Normal People are Beginning to Acknowledge Their Loss of Free Speech on the Internet
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I had an interesting conversation with my neighbor a few days ago. He is a self-proclaimed liberal who I recognize as being unusually socially and politically aware. He asked me how I have been keeping busy these days, and among other things, I mentioned this blog. At that point, he expressed his consternation over the loss of free speech on the Internet. He said he rarely uses the Internet, except for Twitter, and he then proceeded to tell me about the video that had been taken off the Internet of the senator speaking on the floor of the US Senate. He also expressed his concern over the US seizing domain names of several Iranian websites (see also). He did not feel a US entity should have the power to reach into another country where US laws do not apply.
My neighbor expressed dismay over his feeling that even liberals no longer have free speech on the Internet. I joked that liberals thought they should be able to take away the free speech of others, but they did not think others should be able to do the same to them. At that point, he quoted the saying about the Nazis, "First they came for the Jews. Then they came for the Catholics..."
