To speak or not to speak: The battle for free speech
I remember the excitement of setting up my first Personal Computer and being able to get email.
The potential to connect with people from around the world in an instance was inspiring, as was the sense that the Information Superhighway and World Wide Web were going to transform our world forever.
I also remember being so proud when we opened The Vibe Bar in 1995 that we were providing free internet terminals for people to “surf” the Net on. We had Live Net Casts with artists online. We felt as though we were part of an incredible new movement whereby technology and culture was meshing and merging. We believed we could participate in shaping a bit of the future. Perhaps most importantly, that we had this thrill of freedom.
All those exciting dreams that seemed to reflect the potential of global interconnectivity, for education, exploration, culture and communication are today often viewed with anxiety. From the dark net to foreign cyberattacks or online bullying, we seem to fear so much. One of the areas this has had a profound effect on is how we deal with the issue of speech.
At the same time Stormzy adorns the cover of TIME, Rico Racks – a drill rapper in London – was issued with a special five-year Criminal Behaviour Order preventing him from referring online to words related to drugs. People are being arrested in Britain for things that are said online. This is separate to actions of course, for which there are quite rightly laws to protect us.
The question of limits to what can be said is so very problematic, because unlike a physical attack, it is subjective. We know this about comedy, and so it is too with politics. Yet London has been a leader in not only aiming to be innovative with tech, but also in policing what is said online.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan launched a two-year project from City Hall with five full-time police staff. Some have criticised this “hate speech hub” because of the cost of nearly £2m over two years and a lack of convictions (with six people prosecuted during the period).
However the bigger question surely must be who is monitoring and who is deciding as to what kind of speech is permissible. As Sadiq’s speech at SXSW Festival in 2018 illustrated, he chose to use words such as “dodgy” and “hateful” when explaining the criteria for action being taken – rather than what is actually criminal.
London’s mayor was much more on point when he correctly argued against censoring President Trump’s critics, but the problem is once we have laws promoted to limit speech and other areas of activity, it becomes very difficult to contain them. “London is open” can end up sounding a tad hollow.
There has been further clamping down not just in public online areas but also in private forums. While the human rights organisation Liberty is concerned with the Met Police’s use of facial recognition surveillance, the government has a White Paper aimed at curtailing “harms” that civil liberties campaign groups have argued is enormously concerning for anyone interested in freedom of speech.
Recently, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg appeared before US Congress, and this was widely covered. Less so was the European Court of Justice passing a law that means any of the member states can force Facebook to take down content in every nation state across the world.
One person’s banter can be seen by another as hateful. Crucially though, political ideas and the debates leading to political change have almost always been contentious in their time or offensive to some. The ECJ ruling was brought in on the basis of an Austrian politician being called an “idiot”. While Sadiq’s position on Trump should be applied here too, sadly his position on “dodgy” and “hateful” speech leaves us all susceptible to being at risk of being silenced.
Alan D Miller will be speaking at the session “30 Years of The World Wide Web: Utopia or Dystopia?” at the Battle of Ideas Festival.
Main image credit: Getty.