Astonishing individual freedom (a bad thing, actually). For years, the internet free speech debate went something like this: one group of people in a position of power censored another group of people with less power. The less powerful group yelled “hey, what about free speech?”, and Team Yay Censorship rebutted with “stop crying, private companies are not bound by the First Amendment.” Now, the exact question of free speech in the context of oligopoly social media giants has never been litigated in our highest courts. But assuming political censorship of this kind would stick if given the chance, shopping center cases upholding a right to political protest on private property all be damned, it would still not address the contentious heart of the matter. For the most part, no one is fighting over the legal tradition of “free speech.” For years, we’ve been fighting over “free speech” the value, with legality a clever bit of cover. Historically, separate from law, Americans have valued the right of their neighbors to political dissent, and we’ve looked back on violations of this norm with considerable shame. This is why, until now, censors have run from the argument in honest terms. We all grew up believing political censorship is evil, and so proponents of the stuff have had to lie about their real intentions, likely to themselves as much as to the rest of us. But this week, awash in a thousand “Elon Musk is doing violence by talking” think pieces, it became clear beyond all doubt that free speech — the shared value — is dead. Arguments departed entirely from questions of law, and were made explicitly on behalf of political censorship as a moral good in the pages of our most storied institutions.

Back in February, with the internet thick in a Joe Rogan Says Stuff controversy, Ben Thompson noted his sense that the value of speech, something he cared a great deal about, was no longer shared. “My position lost,” he concluded. Last week, after Elon Musk bought a massive stake of Twitter, “threatening” workers at the speech platform with speech, Thompson reiterated his position, this time pointing to the New York Times, which appeared to make his case:

The plan jibes with Mr. Musk’s, Mr. Dorsey’s and Mr. Agrawal’s beliefs in unfettered free speech. Mr. Musk has criticized Twitter for moderating its platform too restrictively and has said more speech should be allowed. Mr. Dorsey, too, grappled with the decision to boot former President Donald J. Trump off the service last year, saying he did not “celebrate or feel pride” in the move. Mr. Agrawal has said that public conversation provides an inherent good for society.

Their positions have increasingly become outliers in a global debate over free speech online, as more people have questioned whether too much free speech has enabled the spread of misinformation and divisive content.