The problem we actually need to solve is how to divorce the concept of free speech from private companies. For some reason, it's almost ubiquitously believed t

The problem we actually need to solve is how to divorce the concept of free speech from private companies. For some reason, it's almost ubiquitously believed that the "Internet" is actually just Twitter, Google, Facebook. How can we, the tech literate, start to explain to our friends/family and eventually the world, that the Internet is actually an interconnected network of computers that no one person or entity controls? Honestly, I fear that even among us, we have large groups of uninformed people who believe companies like Google and Facebook are more than just leaf nodes on the graph, and that worries me. If knowledgable people can be this wrong, how can we expect the uninformed to get this right? I worry about the future of tech, if the discourse on HN is any indication of how the greater tech community feels. The idea that Google is an integral part of using the Internet to express oneself is not only completely wrong, but actively harmful, and I have no clue what to do about it. "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it". John Gilmore's statement has seemingly gone out of vogue, but it remains true. Google cannot stop information (good and bad) from spreading, so why do people think they can, and how do we disabuse Americans (and the world) from the notion that Google has that power?