Free Speech Online is Gutenberg 2.0
With the collapse of censorship and the legacy media we are about to enter a golden age for liberty. We know this because it's happened before.
Since Trump's win it's felt like the entire world transformed.
Partly because Trump is now a battle-hardened firebrand, but mostly because his win showed the elite could throw everything they have -- impeachment, lawfare, 24/7 dictator talk, multiple assassination attempts.
Yet every attack made Trump stronger.
Combined with the post-election collapse in legacy media, it feels like the tide turned. Akin to the fall of the Soviet Union, where Tuesday afternoon everybody was a good Marxist but Wednesday morning nobody ever believed that crap.
In short, we're witnessing a spectacular collapse of the information-control apparatus governments have built up over a century.
The Internet and Free Speech
To be fair, this day was coming as soon as the internet hit the mainstream.
It's easy to forget how excited early internet pioneers were about the democratization of information. Which leads to the democratization of opinion. Which leads to the democratization of government -- control by the people, not the elites.
Consider how it worked before the internet, when opinion was controlled by centralized media: newspapers, then radio, then television.
All those technologies united production and opinion, meaning it took a lot of money to have a voice, whether it's printing presses and hundreds of delivery trucks or radio and TV studios with transmission towers across the country.
These expenses meant the press was sitting ducks for government intimidation, the censorship weapon of choice being licensing. Say the wrong thing and you're off the air.
The internet broke that.
Because for the first time it separated distribution and content. You could have loud voice with a free blog.
The Separation of Money and Voice
That gave us the first golden age of free speech on the internet as newspapers and TV hemorrhaged readers to upstart websites and bloggers.
Outfits like Instapundit, Drudge -- the old Drudge -- Huffington Post or ThinkProgress gave voice to anti-establishment points of view you can't intimidate with broadcast licenses.
Alas, voice and money were re-united with social media starting with Facebook in 2004. Governments immediately went to work, holding the companies hostage with regulatory or legal threats to force them to censor.
For a moment it looked like the internet would be perverted into a literal Big Brother.
Thankfully, censorship was so hamhanded during Covid people revolted, and Elon Musk saw the opportunity to restore free speech. With the other socials now forced to copy or die.
This restored the golden age, this time on steroids given the viral nature of platforms like X. We went from anti-establishment bloggers reaching thousands to viral posts that can reach tens of millions.
What’s Next: Gutenberg 2.0
The last comparable moment in history was the Gutenberg printer in the 1500's. Like the internet, it was dangerous because it lowered the cost of communicating, allowing the spread -- and organization -- of dissent.
Back then governments did all they could to censor, using licensing and even executing people for distributing the wrong pamphlets.
It was bloody for decades, but they ultimately failed spectacularly. Forced to grant constitutional rights and political liberties that nobody could have imagined in 1400.
This time it's bloodless -- so far. And it's going on a much faster timeline -- decades, not centuries.
But if history is a guide, we're about to enter a golden age of liberty. It starts with opening voters’ eyes, and it ends with a government that comes much closer to serving the people.
Every week I write a newsletter on the top stories in economics with regular deep dives into history like the Fall of Rome, the Weimar hyperinflation, or FDR’s Great Depression.
Subscribe for free, or choose $5 monthly to help keep us on the air. And Thank You to current subscribers!
I also make daily videos on economics and freedom, posted on X/Twitter, Youtube, and Rumble.
Also check out my weekly podcast that rounds up all the week’s videos with interviews of key figures in liberty.
Brilliant, as always, Peter, thank you. Gutenberg and his revolution has been on my mind lately in this context. Grateful to you for summing up the brave new world of free speech in your characteristically incisive (and concise) style. Censorship heads have rolled; on deck at the Guillotine: the income tax!
One of the triggers of the US War of Independence - was the British "Stamp Tax" on newsprint - in an attempt to throttle speech by only allowing the printing of "newspapers" on government approved paper, which was sold only to pro-government establishments.