As it was, is it?

AI Chatbots Are Learning to Spout Authoritarian Propaganda

Seventy percent of the world’s internet users who live in places where the state has blocked major social media platforms, independent news sites, or content about human rights and the LGBTQ community,

And too many more lining up to join that club.

In the early days of the Internet there was a great deal of utopian optimism about the network's ability to surmount the restrictions of governments — note this Wired piece about John Perry Barlow and his Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace — but now things seem to be up for grabs. Barlow remains a little more optimistic than I.

But still there's hope.