Censorship 2.0: Why The Fight For Free Speech Is Never Over

-OpEd-

BUENOS AIRES — We protect the right to free speech for two basic reasons.

The first is that it is in principle a sign of personal autonomy, which in turn requires protection from outside interventions, especially by the state. For that reason, constitutions and international laws seek to safeguard it by banning censorship.

In the cases of artists, writers or journalists or anyone else turning this freedom into a lifestyle or professional roadmap, this right is realized, among other actions, through the possibility of expressing themselves without restrictions. Curbs on the freedom of expression are clearly a violation of personal liberties and autonomy as two pillars of any liberal democracy.

The second reason for protecting this freedom is that it is an absolute precondition of democracy as a collective system of government. In democracies, citizens are called upon to decide on public affairs like taxes, healthcare or the scope and nature of legal penalties.

As these policies are forged through representatives, citizens must have access to all necessary information, ideas and opinions to elect them freely and with discernment. To suppress any voice then is to restrict not just a person’s freedom, but the ability of others to make informed decisions on matters of public concern. Restrictions on the freedom of expression are thus an obstacle to proper, autonomous government.

Threat to democracy

Sometimes, censorship is based on an arrogant sense of perfection that deems certain opinions to be unfit for publication (immediately restricting the autonomy of those who express them) or reception by others (supposedly for their own good). Think of a self-styled theocrat who clamps down on alternative beliefs or a puritanical government that bans anything considered obscene or indecent.

Other times, curbs are from leaders who feel insecure and threatened by criticism, or too convinced of their righteousness. Any attack on the freedom of expression as a pillar of democracy and free government can only impoverish the public debate and degrade the quality of decision-taking by the public or their representatives. The English thinker John Stuart Mill believed suppressing dissent to be an obstacle to improving our ideas and even finding solutions to our own problems.

Today, there are equally menacing if softer, but not always subtle, methods.

Such restrictions evidently evolve and mutate in keeping with our vigor in thwarting them. Old-fashioned censorship consisted of banning, or burning, books and locking people up. Today, there are equally menacing if softer, but not always subtle, methods — including the discretionary use of government advertising to finance friendly media, and punish critics.

The Argentine supreme court specifically cites this practice as a form of indirect censorship, pursuant to Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

Enemies of free speech 

The relative success in the fight against this particular method of censorship has prompted the enemies of free speech to seek other ways that are more difficult to pin down legally.

A notable, recent example is to discredit those criticizing the power in place, casting doubt on the veracity of a critic’s claims, or their independence. Accusing critics of taking bribes, for example, aims to either silence those who are most vulnerable to such attacks, or to prevent them from being heard by influencing those inclined to trust the accuser.

The concern here is that when censorship fails to numb and confuse the mind one way, it will seek other ways of spoiling perceptions and blocking free and accountable governance.

The enemies of free speech are certainly creative and adaptable. That is why the work of those who exercise and defend it must be permanent. Every attack on this freedom is a sign of the attacker’s weakness. After all, who fears freedom of expression, if not those who distrust their own convictions or who believe they are the owners of the truth?