Comment by fsckboy
12 days ago
I parsed this entirety as a single noun cluster: "the old guard of free speech and privacy activists on the internet"
and to me that can be summed up as "the EFF", and the EFF is decidedly left whinge, and does not attract the support of others who are concerned about free speech.
free speech on the pre-web internet didn't really need a group, it was a given and generally accepted by all parties
But in that case, the EFF didn't go to be rightie libertarians. They if anything may have gone further left, it's just that they no longer champion free speech. Which is basically what I said, just applied to the group rather than individuals.