Freedom of speech: Where does it start and when should it end?

Over the summer I read the wonderful ‘This Is Not Propaganda’. As you might have guessed by the title, the book was all about controlling the media and political messages. In part one, ‘Cities of Trolls’, the author talks about freedom of speech, and how powerful people can use masses of information to hide messages posted by people disagreeing with them. In this part, a particular section called ‘#ArrestMariaRessa!’ really stuck with me. Maria was the head of a news website in the Philippines during President Duterte’s rise to power. Maria and her online news website would report about Duterte’s vulgar language and eventually his unauthorised killings. Despite producing factually correct articles, Maria was facing online threats. However, after some time she started to notice some patterns and found fake online accounts that would repeat the same messages - eventually, she could even predict when fake stories were about to be posted and created an alarm system for readers of the Rappler. 

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and what do I see on the news? Maria Ressa won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. After looking into it even further I found that she’s also won the Golden Pen of Freedom in 2018, and the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize in 2021 - all for her work on democracy and freedom of speech. This got me thinking about freedom of speech, and just how important it is. So, if you’re still with me after this ridiculously long introduction, I’m going to tell you all about freedom of speech, what it is, and why you should care about it!

Freedom of speech is any one person's right to put across their ideas and opinions without having to worry about retaliation, punishment or censorship. Let's unpack this a little bit more. Retaliation can come from anywhere, whether that be other ‘normal’ people or the government. Punishment could also come from other people or the government, in the form of abuse or fines and imprisonment. Finally, censorship happens when what you’ve said has been suppressed. So in essence, if you can say what you want when you want and not be worried about receiving serious consequences from this, you have the luxury of freedom of speech!

But you might be thinking, ‘surely there are some cases where suppressing opinions is a good thing, right?’ - for example, anti-LGBTQ or racist viewpoints that are being spread to intentionally spread hate. Whilst I agree that nobody should be expressing such thoughts, if you were to take away that person’s right to do so you would be taking away the opportunity for them to learn and educate themselves, not to mention challenging democracy itself. From my own experiences, these people should be able to express their views so that I can challenge them and help them see things from a different perspective. If they’re forced to keep such ideas to themselves, how will they learn that it’s not okay? There’s also the idea that if someone can’t say harmful things, they’re more likely to do harmful things. 

You might also be thinking, ‘what’s a teenager like me going to be able to do about freedom of speech?’. If that is what you’re thinking, you might be surprised to find out that Gen Z (people born after 1996) is the most progressive age group within society and see things like racial and ethnic diversity as a good thing. And it’s true. Since moving to university I’ve been involved in Climate Protests (Greta Thunberg visited my university city!), something I never would’ve considered at home. Concerning freedom of speech, the majority of students do not support free speech restrictions . So there you have it, young people have the power, if we stand up for the things that we believe in, we really can create a better future for everyone!

So that’s just about everything I wanted to say! If you’ve stuck with me this whole time, thank you! This is such an important topic, especially when you look at cheating claims against Putin after he was reelected this year, or in less economically developed countries where the government has much more control of the media than in richer democratic countries. I hope you understand what freedom of speech is and why it’s so important. I also hope you understand that, whilst hate speech is wrong, so is taking away someone’s right to be educated. Think about it - if we couldn’t learn from our mistakes we’d spend our whole lives doing something the wrong way, whereas if we’re told we’re wrong we can change for the better!

Now that you know your rights - I hope you’re inspired! Be who you want to be, challenge people, even challenge yourself! Protest, make change, be a leader! You have a voice, use it! If there’s something you’re passionate about, let everyone know about it, you only get one life.

Be the change you want to see.

Keeley.

1: Pomerantsev, P. (2019). This Is Not Propaganda. Faber & Faber Limited, London. https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Not-Propaganda-Adventures-Against/dp/0571338631
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Ressa#Awards_and_recognition 
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Keeley