"free speech a weapon of War"

New Zealand prime minister condemned for calling to regulate free speech as a 'weapon of war' at UN.
At the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, Ardern announced a new initiative “to help improve research and understanding of how a person’s online experiences are curated by automated processes,” saying the work, done in partnership with companies and non-profits, will be “important in understanding more about mis- and disinformation online – A challenge that we must as leaders address.”

There is nothing in the Online Harms White Paper that defines what ‘harm’ is. In 1859 John Stuart Mill drew a clear distinction between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ harm. This proposed legislation makes no such distinction. ‘Harm,’ is whatever the state says it is.
“international partners are also developing new regulatory approaches”
This is a global initiative. There’s no escape. Combined with EU’s Internet censorship legislation there’s no doubt freedom of speech in Europe will soon be over.
“established a regulatory framework that tackles this range of online harms”
https://in-this-together.com/online-harms-white-paper/

The Internet..
Probably the best known invention to come out of DARPA is the internet. Indeed, if it weren’t for ARPANET, as the internet’s ancestor was known, you wouldn’t be reading this article right now.
The seeds of ARPANET were sown by JCR Licklider, a psychiatrist and computer scientist who in a 1963 memo to colleagues at ARPA described the concept of an “Intergalactic Computer Network”, where many computers are networked together. While he acknowledged some of the limitations of existing programming languages and technology to create such a network, Licklider managed to persuade fellow ARPA scientists Ivan Sutherland and Bob Taylor of the importance of developing the technology.

In 1966, funding was secured to create a computer network and three years later, ARPANET truly came online. It wasn’t until the creation of the World Wide Web at CERN in Geneva in 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee, thought, that the internet really started to explode from the world of research institutions and some businesses into the ubiquitous utility it is today.