Freedom of Speech & Expression Should Be Curtailed
FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND EXPRESSION SHOULD BE CURTAILED?
Freedom of speech has been said to be the foundation of modern democracy, and a fundamental part of the Western civilization. According to statistics, pretty much everyone claims to support freedom of speech. The claimed support of freedom of speech is widespread even amongst Muslims, of who over 90% support it. However, I'm positive that the numbers would be different if the question was whether it should be legal to draw cartoons about the prophet Muhammad.
This reveals the unfortunate fact that even though almost everyone claims to support freedom of speech, their definition of freedom of speech is quite restricted. This is of course something that not only Muslims do, but almost everyone. In this text I will define the framework to achieve what I like to call absolute freedom of speech. Even it will have a limited restriction, but only because of the current technological level of our society. I believe with sufficient technology absolute freedom of speech will be possible indeed. As far as I concern, there is not a single nation that does not guarantee “freedom of speech” in their constitution. It is included in pretty much any EU country, in the US, Malaysia, in China and even in North Korea. This shows that the word itself is pretty meaningless, since the custom is to claim to have freedom of speech and still have a widespread censorship system in place. This applies to Western nations too, not only to countries like North Korea where the situation is abhorrent.
By freedom of speech in this context I do not only mean speech, but information in any media, be it a sound recording, a picture or a video and also press. The whole point of freedom of speech is to allow even the crazy, disgusting information to be made available. Some people have the skewed view that freedom of speech should only allow the mutually agreed, fun beliefs, and not the disgusting and offending stuff. But such a view is against the
Freedom of speech has been said to be the foundation of modern democracy, and a fundamental part of the Western civilization. According to statistics, pretty much everyone claims to support freedom of speech. The claimed support of freedom of speech is widespread even amongst Muslims, of who over 90% support it. However, I'm positive that the numbers would be different if the question was whether it should be legal to draw cartoons about the prophet Muhammad.
This reveals the unfortunate fact that even though almost everyone claims to support freedom of speech, their definition of freedom of speech is quite restricted. This is of course something that not only Muslims do, but almost everyone. In this text I will define the framework to achieve what I like to call absolute freedom of speech. Even it will have a limited restriction, but only because of the current technological level of our society. I believe with sufficient technology absolute freedom of speech will be possible indeed. As far as I concern, there is not a single nation that does not guarantee “freedom of speech” in their constitution. It is included in pretty much any EU country, in the US, Malaysia, in China and even in North Korea. This shows that the word itself is pretty meaningless, since the custom is to claim to have freedom of speech and still have a widespread censorship system in place. This applies to Western nations too, not only to countries like North Korea where the situation is abhorrent.
By freedom of speech in this context I do not only mean speech, but information in any media, be it a sound recording, a picture or a video and also press. The whole point of freedom of speech is to allow even the crazy, disgusting information to be made available. Some people have the skewed view that freedom of speech should only allow the mutually agreed, fun beliefs, and not the disgusting and offending stuff. But such a view is against the