Reading Time: 4 minutes Freedom of speech is universally regarded as one of the most fundamental human rights. Freedom of expression is generally safeguarded in the legislature of most countries, including our own.
Freedom of speech is universally regarded as one of the most fundamental human rights. Freedom of expression is generally safeguarded in the legislature of most countries, including our own.
According to Article 19, every Pakistani has the right to hold and express their opinion. In the USA, the first amendment to the Constitution prohibits Congress from making any legislature that prohibits free-speech. Similarly, there is a widely held belief that freedom of expression needs to be preserved. In fact, states like China, Russia, and North Korea are criticized for curtailing or putting restrictions on their people’s right to free-speech.
The first recorded instance of this argument came in 399 BC, when philosopher Socrates argued in favor of the protection of free-speech. Ironically, it was also reported that he was persecuted for trying to say that people should be able to say what they wanted.
On June 15th of 1215, King John, under threat of civil war, documented the liberties held by “Free-Men”. The Magna Carta, as it was known, set the basis of individual rights in Anglo-American Jurisprudence. This was one of the first known instances of the protection of free-speech.
Unfortunately, it took a long time for the world to catch on with this ideal. The crime of Heresy or Blasphemy was punishable under the church and the church or state could lump pretty much anything into that or into treason in order to persecute whomever they wished at the time.
A famous case of this was in 1633 when Galileo Galilei was brought before the Inquisition simply for proposing the theory that the Earth went around the Sun. For this he was punished with a lifetime of house arrest.
In 1919, the US supreme court put forward the precedent of when the provision of free-speech could be legally curbed. In 1948, the UN declared free-speech to be a universal human right.
In the modern era, free-speech is largely guaranteed except for when “clear and present danger” can precipitate from it. In most countries, that is.
However, there are complexities with regards to freedom of speech and even supposed bastions of free-speech like the EU nations and the US have exceptions to the freedom of speech rule. In Pakistan, Blasphemy is illegal whereas in the EU there are varying degrees of restriction on Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic expression.
In the Internet age, apps like Facebook and Twitter have taken the space left by newspapers and even mainstream media and have become more of a communication and informational infrastructure utility rather than a private tech platform. This has led to issues of censorship, fake-news, anti-vax rhetoric and misinformation dissemination that has further complicated the issue of freedom of speech.
Furthermore, people have expressed fears of increasing Government or Corporate control over human expression and censorship as either the state (in China and South Korea) or large tech-companies (US, Europe, and countries with supposed “free” internet access) governs what can be said and what can-not.
The last few years has seen the peak of the argument of censorship, specifically internet censorship. The late 2000s and early 2010s saw the touting of online platforms like Facebook and Twitter as beacons of free-speech. The Arab spring in particular largely involved the use of online platforms to disseminate information of government tyranny and uniting of people in protest against it. Then came the condemnation of China and North Korea for maintaining a censored internet and curtailing speech online.
However, the “free-world” itself came under fire in the last few years due to online censorship. The 2016 US election saw rising concerns of Fake-news and Russian interference through the cyber sphere as Donald Trump became elected. This tilted the debate as the largely liberal Democrat left began to voice concerns regarding online platforms being used to spread fake-news and spread disinformation. Furthermore, online platforms allowing hate-speech (which, by the way, is protected under the First Amendment) came under fire for allowing alt-right content.
This began the rising concerns of “shadow-banning” and outright banning of people from online platforms. Now since access to these platforms are not regarded as part of freedom of speech, it is not protected by freedom of speech laws.
Unfortunately, these platforms controlled by tech companies or ISPs are de-facto utilities now since most discourse happens online. For example, Donald Trump was banned from Twitter after the Insurrection at the end of his term and has since almost dropped from the zeitgeist and online space.
Whether justified or not, such censorship like in the case of anti-vax sentiment or even hate-speech is scary since there is a possibility of a slippery slope leading to a society like that proposed in the famous book 1984.
The problem of censorship and fake-news along with free-speech are immensely complex. Who decides what kind of speech has to be curtailed, and who decides what kind of speech is to be punished? Should everyone have access to online platforms that are effectively now the mainstream utility with regards to communication?
Our own country has multiple cases of people being accused of blasphemy and being persecuted for it. As people become more aware of the online space and the state begins exerting control over it, will ISPs and online platforms have to end online anonymity and thus lead to less free-speech?
Let us hope we do not end up in a world where the online world ceases to be a place of freedom and becomes a source of control for our government and corporate over-lords.
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