You are more generous about people's motives and character than I am. Yes, we all make mistakes, we all say thing we regret, but the way elements of our society have been trying to control speech, especially in the last year, but really for more than 2 decades is evil.

It is fundamentally wrong in the same way that slavery is fundamentally wrong and for the same reasons. There is nothing more important to freedom and the pursuit of happiness than autonomy. Human society, led by the United States of America, established this as a truth in 1775 with the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents. We have believed this for more than 200 years and it is an ingrained part of our cultural norms and societal values.

It's not like anyone can say they didn't know that free speech mattered. It is being deliberately attacked to control people and your NYT lady is part of it. She knows what she is doing. So, yes, some of it may be attention seeking, but most of it is actually the elites pushing back at the peasants.