I see that we’re not going to agree on what is commonly understood to be meant by ‘control’, so perhaps we should leave it there. The hypothetical possibility exists that at some future point some government with an authoritarian bent might legislate to deprive me of some liberty or other: but the niggling worry that such an eventuality might arise doesn’t lead me to believe I’m in any sense ‘controlled’ by government: but there we are, that’s me....Incidentally, the nearest the BBC ever came to government control in the sense I would understand the term came at the improbable hands of Winston Churchill, no less, who in wartime conditions briefly toyed with the idea of taking over the Corporation. Exposed to the dour Scots-calvinist wrath of John Reith, he fortunately thought better of the idea...
Fair enough. We here in the United States as personified by most FReepers live in constant fear that some Marxist may get elected to office (Obama comes to mind) and would begin to attack freedom of speech or the second amendment, etc.
But those administration attacks on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are exactly that - attempts to chill free speech. You can trace government’s attempt to control information distribution back to the dawn of mankind. I’m sure cave wall drawings had to be “approved” before publication.