[xxpor]

>countries such as the U.S. have censored plenty of books, etc. in the past.

The modern interpretation of the 1st amendment as being fairly absolute is only 50-100 years old. Don't forget the federal government had political prisoners for protesting against the US getting involved in WW 1, and the HUAC and McCarthy hearings were blatantly unconstitutional under modern jurisprudence.

We don't even need to talk about the Alien and Sedition acts, passed right after the 1st amendment was ratified!

[pjc50]

Or the Comstock acts. At one point it was illegal to distribute information on contraception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws#State_laws_on_bi....

[jbishop156]

That's true. It did take the US 200 years to come to the correct interpretation of First Amendment being damn near absolute. Shameful as that delay was, we progressed in the right direction.