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Liberty
You might speculate that free speech is danger when an opinion piece in the New York Times expresses concern for people in a democratic society not being able to express view points counter to cultural expectations. You know free speech is in danger when the back lash from said ‘opinion piece,’ from cancel culture to the elites, publicly demand New York Times staff be terminated. One can argue there is no balanced news. You either have far right or far left, but rarely anything that is balanced that makes sense. Right chastises left, left chastises right; what’s a person to believe? Medium addresses that in unexpected ways. Average people sharing their thoughts and opinions come together to read and write and clap and dissent with comments. This is, in practice, democracy at the basic social level. Medium articles may sometimes be rants, emotion laden thought bombs, but you know it’s from the people, by the people, for the people- and success is determined not always by eloquence of prose, or fancy words, but by people feeling kinship. Being able to relate to someone who is being genuine, that’s what the public wants, and its something governments and the old gate keepers of information are failing to understand. It is they who are calling for censorship, not the masses.