Before China soundly disproved it with their great firewall, one of the early assumptions about the internet was that it would naturally route around censorship

Before China soundly disproved it with their great firewall, one of the early assumptions about the internet was that it would naturally route around censorship. This would allow for people in less free societies to read about and interact with people in more democratic societies, eventually causing them to demand their own countries become more democratic. This was also supposed to end war, since democratic countries don't generally war with one another. It was a blissful naiveté.