Users of the Internet in the United States are starting to experience what millions of others in many other nations have dealt with since the widespread deployment of the world-wide web:

Fear.

As the web evolves, an increasing amount of control is being exercised, or at least recognized as an opportunity that maybe wasn’t really achievable until more modern generations of client & server technologies emerged.

Even a simple Tweet becomes a questionable, yet enticing, click…

Excellent plan. If you want to talk and it's risky, go to a public computer, far from home & work, and start here: https://t.co/IvVdo4gUOV. https://t.co/ozKjnBOed2

— Barton Gellman (@bartongellman) December 12, 2016

This is an experience I haven’t really felt – at least not since being a teenager galavanting around AOL chat rooms where literally everything was a risky click – but it is a relatively common way of life for so many already. When there’s so much unchecked information about us out amongst the world, it becomes really easy for someone to create their own narratives based on your search history, browsing history, bookmarks, online chat histories, et al.

I think all most of us can do is continue doing whatever we can to keep the web a free & openly accessible place, and try our best to create safe places to congregate with one-another.