I'm not American but I think the underlying (philosophical) support for the type of liberty (of expression) that Mill is talking about is probably weaker than at some points in the past. I see more comments on Reddit bemoaning the 1st amendment usually indirectly but sometimes explicitly. The spirit of the old quote (usually misattributred to Voltaire) by Evelyn Beatrice Hall - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" seems to be really out of favour these days.
On top of that, the power that corporations are able to exert over public discourse is probably at an all time high. Newspapers were often/usually owned by elite interests but a lot of the street level debate used to take place in forums they didn't control (i.e. face to face). Now both the newspapers and the discussion platforms themselves are controlled by basically the sets of same people. There's a reflex to say "Well, YouTube banning you isn't censorship, just a private entity making a decision not to host your content" and that's true but it's not quite the full story. If Facebook, Google, Apple, et al all ban you (and particularly if your ISPs refuse to host your content or the payment processors refuse to handle your accounts) then that is not too far from the level of influence governments have when banning things. When people like Alex Jones are "de-platformed" we might chuckle (or cheer) as he's either a huckster or a lunatic (and possibly both) but you don't need much imagination to see that the same thing could happen to anyone else deemed to be too radical/dangerous in the future. Fortunately the internet is still very fragmented and there are probably thousands of hosts I could go to put up my website if I wanted. But if AWS/GCloud/Azure/Alibaba end up dominating the market completely will that alternative exist in the future? And even if it does if everyone is getting their news from Facebook/Twitter then maybe they will delete any mentions of my call for a general strike anyway.
Again, to be clear - that does not mean that there is less liberty today. There is unquestionably more. But the direction of travel in both these areas is concerning.
I'm not American but I think the underlying (philosophical) support for the type of liberty (of expression) that Mill is talking about is probably weaker than at some points in the past. I see more comments on Reddit bemoaning the 1st amendment usually indirectly but sometimes explicitly. The spirit of the old quote (usually misattributred to Voltaire) by Evelyn Beatrice Hall - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" seems to be really out of favour these days.
On top of that, the power that corporations are able to exert over public discourse is probably at an all time high. Newspapers were often/usually owned by elite interests but a lot of the street level debate used to take place in forums they didn't control (i.e. face to face). Now both the newspapers and the discussion platforms themselves are controlled by basically the sets of same people. There's a reflex to say "Well, YouTube banning you isn't censorship, just a private entity making a decision not to host your content" and that's true but it's not quite the full story. If Facebook, Google, Apple, et al all ban you (and particularly if your ISPs refuse to host your content or the payment processors refuse to handle your accounts) then that is not too far from the level of influence governments have when banning things. When people like Alex Jones are "de-platformed" we might chuckle (or cheer) as he's either a huckster or a lunatic (and possibly both) but you don't need much imagination to see that the same thing could happen to anyone else deemed to be too radical/dangerous in the future. Fortunately the internet is still very fragmented and there are probably thousands of hosts I could go to put up my website if I wanted. But if AWS/GCloud/Azure/Alibaba end up dominating the market completely will that alternative exist in the future? And even if it does if everyone is getting their news from Facebook/Twitter then maybe they will delete any mentions of my call for a general strike anyway.
Again, to be clear - that does not mean that there is less liberty today. There is unquestionably more. But the direction of travel in both these areas is concerning.