[musicale]

> The 30 year old decision to fully privatize the internet without any public speech forums means that we live in a city without any sidewalks or parks or school auditoriums where the First Amendment applies.

The metaphor is interesting but the existence of .gov and .mil domains indicates that the internet isn't fully privatized, while the .edu domain indicates that schools are still on the internet as well. Public schools do seem to have digital auditoriums, and the question of whether first amendment rights are violated in them is an interesting one.

I have noticed that many public libraries have web sites. I like Doctorow's idea of having digital town squares and parks as well, assuming they're not ruined by crime, garbage, pollution and advertising, as many physical spaces are.