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Christine Lemmer-Webber asks, "what happened to the fight for the Internet?"
That is a pretty damn good question, really. What happend to fighting, period? Remember the Wikipedia blackout in response to SOPA? There's a lot worse than SOPA that's happened since, online and off, but it seems we've collectively lost the will to fight.
There's so much happening at once, for one thing, it feels like there's a massive coordinated attack on internet freedoms. But it also feels like the wind is out of the sails of these fights, which is alarming, because the stakes have never been higher. Who's coordinating all these? What money is pushing it? Palantir? Heritage Foundation types? Large, centralization-enthused orgs like Meta? All of the above? It's hard to tell. But there's certainly a lot of money flowing underfoot.
But it's not just the coordinated attack. The fight itself feels deflated, in ways the fight for the internet hasn't been before. Sure, we have orgs like the ACLU, the Open Rights Group, the EFF, Fight for the Future, the usual suspects all fighting for the rights of the internet. And that's great.
But there's something else.
It feels like people are tired.
They are. I am. We need to get fired up again. Go read her blog, maybe draw some inspiration from her. I think she's still got plenty of fight left.
Wanna respond? Cool. No comments here, though. Catch me on Hachyderm.io or just drop me an email (jzb at this domain works just fine).