[johnchristopher]

You are mistaking free speech with access to the media.

Private meshes usage doesn't grant mass media attention so I don't see why a bunch of hackers communicating freely on their little line grant them a better "free speech to change things" than the other 99%. Private meshes aren't tools to raise awareness but tools to have a different network. It all depends on the message you want to send and the recipients you want to reach.

Right now private meshes users are much less than 1% of the population anyway.

But it could grow fast in dense urban zone. I can foresee some weekends of hacking and configuring routers at home for the coming months.