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Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media
A global history of free speech, from the ancient world to today
Hailed as the “first freedom,” free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat.
In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech’s many defenders—from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Rāzī, to the anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells and modern-day digital activists—Mchangama reveals how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Yet the desire to restrict speech, too, is a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all stripes.
Meticulously researched and deeply humane, Free Speech demonstrates how much we have gained from this principle—and how much we stand to lose without it.
Hailed as the “first freedom,” free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat.
In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech’s many defenders—from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Rāzī, to the anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells and modern-day digital activists—Mchangama reveals how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Yet the desire to restrict speech, too, is a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all stripes.
Meticulously researched and deeply humane, Free Speech demonstrates how much we have gained from this principle—and how much we stand to lose without it.
528 pages, Audiobook
Published February 8, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
February 4, 2022
One Of The Most Thorough Histories Of The Field I've Come Across. This is exactly what the title here says - easily one of the most thorough histories of the concepts of free speech I've ever seen, from their earliest incarnations into where the two competing versions came into their own in Athens - more unlimited, though not without certain hypocrisies - and Rome - more elite controlled and even, as the title notes, into the realm of social media, Donald Trump, and even (with a few scant sentences) COVID-19. Timed a bit interestingly (and without any way to know beforehand) so close to the Neil Young / Joe Rogan spat over Spotify, this is truly a strong history for anyone who claims to promote the ideal, one that shows that pretty well everyone who does or ever has has been a hypocrite to some degree or another regarding the topic. Indeed, if any real critique can be had here, it is that Mchangama, even while noting the cenorious actions of social media giants of late, fails to note that corporations can have a chilling effect on the free speech of their employees and those they do business with (hello, Spotify and too many businesses to list here). Though he does at least touch on the idea as it relates to modern academia and yes, cancel culture. There are also a few throwaway lines late re: "fact checkers" and COVID "misinformation" that are more YMMV level on, but which in the end aren't substantial enough to warrant a star deduction over. This is, again, absolutely a book that anyone who claims to love free speech should absolutely read. Very much recommended.
April 9, 2022
I find this book extremely hard to review.
On one hand, it's a full-blown chronicle of how the rights of free speech (FS) have been breached across the ages (and the definition of FS is quite loose, so you can find many cases of political oppression of all kinds here).
On the other hand, it doesn't answer ANY important questions related to FS. Bah, I think it doesn't even try to capture them. And doesn't even do that in the historical/philosophical context (what was the understanding of FS from an ethical standpoint at a given time, in a given society) - at least not in a degree I'd expect.
That's why the book left me disappointed and I find it hard to recommend it.
On one hand, it's a full-blown chronicle of how the rights of free speech (FS) have been breached across the ages (and the definition of FS is quite loose, so you can find many cases of political oppression of all kinds here).
On the other hand, it doesn't answer ANY important questions related to FS. Bah, I think it doesn't even try to capture them. And doesn't even do that in the historical/philosophical context (what was the understanding of FS from an ethical standpoint at a given time, in a given society) - at least not in a degree I'd expect.
That's why the book left me disappointed and I find it hard to recommend it.
April 30, 2022
Free Speech must ride on a free lunch
Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world recently purchased the social media giant Twitter and said that his decision to buy Twitter was due to the progressive erosion of free speech. Free speech is a much-debated topic since it is closely monitored and regulated not only by social media but also by most democratically elected governments. In this book, the author says, that free speech is still an experiment, and no one can guarantee the outcome of providing a free, equal, and instant voice. It seems like free speech is an abstract and theoretical principle when confronted with tangible threats and harms. But despite its flaws, a world with less free speech will also be less tolerant and less democratic. A commitment to free speech should have a zero-tolerance policy toward organized threats, intimidation, and violence by groups seeking to establish parallel systems of authority. History has too many examples, Christians were once a small and persecuted sect during the first two hundred years after Christ, but when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, heretics and non-believers were severely persecuted. In the ninth century CE, Ibn al-Rawandi rejected Muhammad’s prophecy and Islamic doctrines without any serious retribution. If he were alive today, his life and liberty would be severely threatened, and in Muslim countries, he would have been in violation of blasphemy laws and punished by death.
Free speech is the bedrock of democracy, and free exchange of ideas is essential in human endeavors and advancement. It promotes democracy, equality, and societal harmony. Most governments also have a legal system where free speech is distinguished from hate speech. The debate then would be where free speech becomes hate speech. But the laws in most democratic societies are fluid, because hateful or discriminatory speech becomes hate in specific contexts that directly causes imminent and serious harm to a group of a particular race, gender, their beliefs, or national origin. The "hate speech" at best is ineffective and counterproductive because this allows democratic governments, social media, and private organizations to monitor “hate speech” and regulate such behaviors. It turns out that free speech and human rights are different in the eyes of the law. In many West European countries and all Muslim countries, questioning about the Muhammad and Islamic teachings are considered hate speech, while one can questions any other religion and its teachings freely and that never becomes a hate speech. It appears that questioning about Islam incites violence from Muslims and jihad terrorism, hence, to avert such a violence, countries make hate speech laws. But there is no threat of violence from people of other faiths when their religions are discussed openly and honestly.
The author discusses the free speech in the context of history and doesn’t discuss much about the digital world where social media have dominated people’s lives. The reading is a little heavy, you need patience with the author’s narratives.
Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world recently purchased the social media giant Twitter and said that his decision to buy Twitter was due to the progressive erosion of free speech. Free speech is a much-debated topic since it is closely monitored and regulated not only by social media but also by most democratically elected governments. In this book, the author says, that free speech is still an experiment, and no one can guarantee the outcome of providing a free, equal, and instant voice. It seems like free speech is an abstract and theoretical principle when confronted with tangible threats and harms. But despite its flaws, a world with less free speech will also be less tolerant and less democratic. A commitment to free speech should have a zero-tolerance policy toward organized threats, intimidation, and violence by groups seeking to establish parallel systems of authority. History has too many examples, Christians were once a small and persecuted sect during the first two hundred years after Christ, but when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, heretics and non-believers were severely persecuted. In the ninth century CE, Ibn al-Rawandi rejected Muhammad’s prophecy and Islamic doctrines without any serious retribution. If he were alive today, his life and liberty would be severely threatened, and in Muslim countries, he would have been in violation of blasphemy laws and punished by death.
Free speech is the bedrock of democracy, and free exchange of ideas is essential in human endeavors and advancement. It promotes democracy, equality, and societal harmony. Most governments also have a legal system where free speech is distinguished from hate speech. The debate then would be where free speech becomes hate speech. But the laws in most democratic societies are fluid, because hateful or discriminatory speech becomes hate in specific contexts that directly causes imminent and serious harm to a group of a particular race, gender, their beliefs, or national origin. The "hate speech" at best is ineffective and counterproductive because this allows democratic governments, social media, and private organizations to monitor “hate speech” and regulate such behaviors. It turns out that free speech and human rights are different in the eyes of the law. In many West European countries and all Muslim countries, questioning about the Muhammad and Islamic teachings are considered hate speech, while one can questions any other religion and its teachings freely and that never becomes a hate speech. It appears that questioning about Islam incites violence from Muslims and jihad terrorism, hence, to avert such a violence, countries make hate speech laws. But there is no threat of violence from people of other faiths when their religions are discussed openly and honestly.
The author discusses the free speech in the context of history and doesn’t discuss much about the digital world where social media have dominated people’s lives. The reading is a little heavy, you need patience with the author’s narratives.
April 13, 2022
Söz azadlığının tarixinə aid yazılmış çox gözəl bir kitabdır. Kaş bu kitabı keçən il media savadlılığı təliminə qatılmazdan əvvəl oxuyaydım. 💚💙💚
July 4, 2022
Free speech is the one human right that is absolutely essential to establish freedom and democracy, but it is also a right that is more or less constantly under attack. As Jacob Mchangama shows in this review of the history of free speech, it is also something that has be permitted only rarely throughout history, and never perfectly. One problem is that those who argue the most passionately in favor of free speech (lookin at you John Milton) ten to turn around and shut down free speech once their side is in power and they want to silence the opposition. Or, in the case of people like Robespierre, chop off the heads of those who say things you don’t like. Mchangama takes his history right up to the present day where the internet has become the no man’s land in our battles over this fundamental right.
February 16, 2022
The best and probably most important book of the year
May 6, 2022
This is a great history of free speech, and is specifically really just a history, vs. a coherent philosophical argument about free speech or advocacy for it. Mostly interesting to me on the time around Gutenberg and the following hundreds of years in Europe. The "social media era" is not really amenable to history (as it's ongoing), and there wasn't enough content for the early history/classical period (although to be fair, free speech was highly limited then...). I'd already studied free speech in the US context from colonial to constitutional period and various legal decisions, but the book does a good job of covering this too.
March 17, 2022
Free speech is one of the most treasured possessions Americans have. At the moment, it may seem as though it is receding. Large corporations can take away your voice at any time, leading to a slippery slope.
The unfortunate thing about free speech is that everyone has a voice. If my expertise is worth as much as another person’s ignorance, then why learn anything? Why should I trust this news source when it only exists for clicks? That is one of the reasons I avoid Twitter and Facebook like the plague.
Free Speech is a book by Jacob Mchangama. It explores the history of the idea from our records. It goes through chronologically, covering Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Islamic Caliphates, Christian nations, and more. Major shakeups in free speech occur all the time, with the largest amount happening from religion.
Innovations in information distribution lead to upheavals as well. The printing press led to cheaper books, while the internet is still changing the face of society.
Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
The unfortunate thing about free speech is that everyone has a voice. If my expertise is worth as much as another person’s ignorance, then why learn anything? Why should I trust this news source when it only exists for clicks? That is one of the reasons I avoid Twitter and Facebook like the plague.
Free Speech is a book by Jacob Mchangama. It explores the history of the idea from our records. It goes through chronologically, covering Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Islamic Caliphates, Christian nations, and more. Major shakeups in free speech occur all the time, with the largest amount happening from religion.
Innovations in information distribution lead to upheavals as well. The printing press led to cheaper books, while the internet is still changing the face of society.
Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
January 14, 2022
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Actual Rating = 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
Free Speech is an exhaustively researched history of free speech throughout human history, from ancient days through to modern. The author presents all the times the ideals of free speech has popped up in society and, sadly, how often those ideals have been crushed.
Mchangama also does an excellent job highlighting that free speech is essential to tolerance and how free speech has historically been the primary tool available to oppressed groups seeking an end to tyranny.
If I had a complaint about this text, it would be that the writing is a bit dense. This is a book that you read slowly, sitting with the information, versus rushing through. I'll be interested to see if they end up making an audiobook version, as I could see that being a good format for the content.
Actual Rating = 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
Free Speech is an exhaustively researched history of free speech throughout human history, from ancient days through to modern. The author presents all the times the ideals of free speech has popped up in society and, sadly, how often those ideals have been crushed.
Mchangama also does an excellent job highlighting that free speech is essential to tolerance and how free speech has historically been the primary tool available to oppressed groups seeking an end to tyranny.
If I had a complaint about this text, it would be that the writing is a bit dense. This is a book that you read slowly, sitting with the information, versus rushing through. I'll be interested to see if they end up making an audiobook version, as I could see that being a good format for the content.
April 24, 2022
This is one of those books that everyone should read.
July 26, 2022
I can’t express how difficult it is to get me to enjoy a book that’s about history, but this book from Jacob Mchangama kept me engaged the entire time. Personally, I think it’s extremely important for all of us to read books about free speech because there’s something innate that makes us want to censor and deplatform people that we need to fight against. In this book, Jacob details the history of free speech from around the world, and it definitely accomplished the goal of reminding me why free speech is so important. Whether it was religion vs science, the rich vs the poor, or the Nazis and Communists, Mchangama shows the horrors of what happens when free speech isn’t allowed. He also shows how people like Hitler and Stalin were able to weaponize “being silenced” only to turn around and take away free speech when they were in power.
The entire time I read this book, I just kept thinking, “I don’t think people realize just how awesome free speech is and why it’s so important.” Mchangama did an amazing job, and I don’t know how anyone can read this book and think that limiting speech is a good idea. I highly recommend it, especially if you think people should be silenced or deplatformed.
The entire time I read this book, I just kept thinking, “I don’t think people realize just how awesome free speech is and why it’s so important.” Mchangama did an amazing job, and I don’t know how anyone can read this book and think that limiting speech is a good idea. I highly recommend it, especially if you think people should be silenced or deplatformed.
May 10, 2022
Danish author, Jacob Mchangama, is executive director of a think tank in Copenhagen and through much research he details the history of free speech throughout the world. Far too often free speech is limited, as when elitists maintain authoritarian power, restrictions are placed on counter opinions. The book covers religion, censorship, heresy, the printing press, which led to banned books and black markets and much more. Apparently in the early 1700’s Scandinavia became the first region in the world to protect free speech and later in the 18th Century, Denmark was the first country to outlaw censorship of the press.
I did not mind that the chapter format did not strictly follow a chronological order. Parts of the book were revealing and quite interesting. When America’s Founding Fathers created the Constitution the Federalists, who favored centralized power, wanted restrictions on free speech, whereas the Anti-Federalists favored states’ rights and freedom of speech for the common citizen. It was the Anti-Federalists, who championed the Bill of Rights with free speech as the most important element.
My disappointment came at the end of the book when Mchangama covered America in the 21st Century, noting the effects on of high-tech media monopolies, the internet, hate speech and the cancel culture movement. At this critical point Mchangama takes a bold stance on current American politics. I believe that this research is flawed, as he does not have a grasp on the lack of trustworthiness of American media, which places himself on the wrong side of history. Additionally, I wish the author had touched upon the firm rule of fair law, as I believe free speech is lacking when corruption is permitted.
This first edition was printed in February in February 2022 and since checking out this library book on April 22nd, as if by magic, free speech has fully captured the national spotlight. On April 25th the board of directors at Twitter approved the sale of the company to Elon Musk, whose full intent is to enhance freedom of speech for all and promote transparency. Two days later (April 27th) President Biden created a Disinformation Governance Board to control speech, headed by executive director Nina Jankowicz to act as the “Ministry of Truth”. (Mchangama mentioned that in 1922 Russia under Lenin, established a censorship bureau called Glavlit to protect the Communist Party.)
My paternal grandfather was born in Copenhagen and as his first grandson we formed a very strong bond. During World War I he proudly enlisted with the Marine Corps infantry and fought to defend American values including freedom of speech. It was apparent that his love for Denmark was surpassed by his admiration for America.
I did not mind that the chapter format did not strictly follow a chronological order. Parts of the book were revealing and quite interesting. When America’s Founding Fathers created the Constitution the Federalists, who favored centralized power, wanted restrictions on free speech, whereas the Anti-Federalists favored states’ rights and freedom of speech for the common citizen. It was the Anti-Federalists, who championed the Bill of Rights with free speech as the most important element.
My disappointment came at the end of the book when Mchangama covered America in the 21st Century, noting the effects on of high-tech media monopolies, the internet, hate speech and the cancel culture movement. At this critical point Mchangama takes a bold stance on current American politics. I believe that this research is flawed, as he does not have a grasp on the lack of trustworthiness of American media, which places himself on the wrong side of history. Additionally, I wish the author had touched upon the firm rule of fair law, as I believe free speech is lacking when corruption is permitted.
This first edition was printed in February in February 2022 and since checking out this library book on April 22nd, as if by magic, free speech has fully captured the national spotlight. On April 25th the board of directors at Twitter approved the sale of the company to Elon Musk, whose full intent is to enhance freedom of speech for all and promote transparency. Two days later (April 27th) President Biden created a Disinformation Governance Board to control speech, headed by executive director Nina Jankowicz to act as the “Ministry of Truth”. (Mchangama mentioned that in 1922 Russia under Lenin, established a censorship bureau called Glavlit to protect the Communist Party.)
My paternal grandfather was born in Copenhagen and as his first grandson we formed a very strong bond. During World War I he proudly enlisted with the Marine Corps infantry and fought to defend American values including freedom of speech. It was apparent that his love for Denmark was surpassed by his admiration for America.
March 7, 2022
Mchangama's book looks at the history of free speech both as an idea and in practice from Ancient Greece to the present day. A rich, detailed book it is the perfect primer for anyone interested in the long and often contested history of free speech and its relationship to forms of government.
"Such outbreaks of "elite panic" may reflect real concerns and dilemmas, but it is notable that they tend to erupt whenever the public sphere is expanded and previously marginalized groups are given a voice." 6
"For Athenians, the state did not exist as a separate entity from the people. Free speech was thus an inherent part of the Athenian political system and civil culture, rather than an individual human right protecting one against the state, as we tend to understand it modern liberal democracies." 12
"The Athenians had two distinct but overlapping concepts of free speech. Isegoria referred to equality of public, civic speech, while parrhesia can be translated as "frank" or "uninhabited" speech. Isegoria was exercised in the Athenian Assembly-the ekklesia where each session opened with the question, "who wishes to speak?" Paarhesia allowed the citizens to be bold and honest in expressing their opinions even when outside the assembly and extended to many spheres of Athenian life including philosophy and theater." 13
"Despite the elitist political model of Rome, the idea of liberty, or libertas, had a special place in Roman hearts and minds." 23
"In any event, since Athenian democracy and Roman republicanism had long since died, the burning question Christianity raised was not about the limits of political speech but rather the issue of religious tolerance, which would dominate debates over the limits of speech and thoughts for centuries." 30
Milton's "Areopagitica, a plea for press freedom...censorship led to 'the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities, in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might be yet further made, both in religious and civil wisdom." 105-106
"...where the Leveller Colonel Thomas Rainsborough made the case for universal suffrage and democracy." 109
"Before 1650, the major fault line dividing Europeans was confessional-adherence to a particular denomination's beliefs." 117
"The most striking development in the practice of censorship in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was that it passed from the church to the secular heads of state..." 118
"The flood of print created an irresistible urge to share and discuss the news and novel ideas in the many new venues of Europe's emerging public sphere...London coffee houses were egalitarian in nature. What mattered was the intellectual output you brought to the table-not the size of your wallet nor the purity of your bloodline." 119
"In his hugely influential Commentaries on the Laws of England from the late 1760s, he [Blackstone] argued that press freedom was "essential to the nature of a free state." But this only entailed a protection against prepublication censorship, not against subsequent punishments." 123
"...the most influential argument for free speech was a series of letters published in the London Journal between 1720 and 1723. Known as Cato's Letters...Letter 15...opened with this stirring salvo: "Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom: and no such thing as publick liberty, without freedom of speech." 124
"In November 1737, Franklin published an article, "On Freedom of Speech and the Press," in which he argued, "Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when the support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins." 152
"Chapter 2 of Mill's On Liberty is hailed by many as the foundational text on the importance of free speech. Of course, several of Mill's arguments had been made much earlier." 214
"Helped by the gradual introduction of the steam press in the 1840s, newspapers were on the way to becoming the first truly mass media in history." 225
"As we have learned, free speech has always been the first target of authoritarians who intend to subvert democracy...This ancient pattern is repeating itself in the twenty-first century, during which free speech has systematically eroded in Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Serbia, Brazil and India-the six countries that have suffered the worst autocratization in the past decade..." 328-329
"Harvard professor of history Seri Plokhy compared China's response to that of Soviet Russia to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, noting that, "lack of freedom of speech helps turn potential disasters into real ones and national tragedies into international cataclysms." 334
"In short, the internet promised to bring about an era of universal free and equal speech, with cyberspace as a global agora." 350
"These centralized platforms can act as choke points for "undesirable" content, as Alex Jones found out. David Kaye has noted that "a centralizing internet dominated by corporative imperatives...is friendlier to censorship...than the horizontal web of blogs and websites." 354
"...an what Jonathan Rauch has called an "epistemic crisis" with truth itself at risk..." 359
"But while online expression may sometimes lead to real-life harm, it does not necessarily follow that placing restrictions on free speech is an effective remedy." 371
"Madison warned that "some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing: and in no instance is this more true, than in that of the press." 387
"Such outbreaks of "elite panic" may reflect real concerns and dilemmas, but it is notable that they tend to erupt whenever the public sphere is expanded and previously marginalized groups are given a voice." 6
"For Athenians, the state did not exist as a separate entity from the people. Free speech was thus an inherent part of the Athenian political system and civil culture, rather than an individual human right protecting one against the state, as we tend to understand it modern liberal democracies." 12
"The Athenians had two distinct but overlapping concepts of free speech. Isegoria referred to equality of public, civic speech, while parrhesia can be translated as "frank" or "uninhabited" speech. Isegoria was exercised in the Athenian Assembly-the ekklesia where each session opened with the question, "who wishes to speak?" Paarhesia allowed the citizens to be bold and honest in expressing their opinions even when outside the assembly and extended to many spheres of Athenian life including philosophy and theater." 13
"Despite the elitist political model of Rome, the idea of liberty, or libertas, had a special place in Roman hearts and minds." 23
"In any event, since Athenian democracy and Roman republicanism had long since died, the burning question Christianity raised was not about the limits of political speech but rather the issue of religious tolerance, which would dominate debates over the limits of speech and thoughts for centuries." 30
Milton's "Areopagitica, a plea for press freedom...censorship led to 'the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities, in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might be yet further made, both in religious and civil wisdom." 105-106
"...where the Leveller Colonel Thomas Rainsborough made the case for universal suffrage and democracy." 109
"Before 1650, the major fault line dividing Europeans was confessional-adherence to a particular denomination's beliefs." 117
"The most striking development in the practice of censorship in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was that it passed from the church to the secular heads of state..." 118
"The flood of print created an irresistible urge to share and discuss the news and novel ideas in the many new venues of Europe's emerging public sphere...London coffee houses were egalitarian in nature. What mattered was the intellectual output you brought to the table-not the size of your wallet nor the purity of your bloodline." 119
"In his hugely influential Commentaries on the Laws of England from the late 1760s, he [Blackstone] argued that press freedom was "essential to the nature of a free state." But this only entailed a protection against prepublication censorship, not against subsequent punishments." 123
"...the most influential argument for free speech was a series of letters published in the London Journal between 1720 and 1723. Known as Cato's Letters...Letter 15...opened with this stirring salvo: "Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom: and no such thing as publick liberty, without freedom of speech." 124
"In November 1737, Franklin published an article, "On Freedom of Speech and the Press," in which he argued, "Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when the support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins." 152
"Chapter 2 of Mill's On Liberty is hailed by many as the foundational text on the importance of free speech. Of course, several of Mill's arguments had been made much earlier." 214
"Helped by the gradual introduction of the steam press in the 1840s, newspapers were on the way to becoming the first truly mass media in history." 225
"As we have learned, free speech has always been the first target of authoritarians who intend to subvert democracy...This ancient pattern is repeating itself in the twenty-first century, during which free speech has systematically eroded in Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Serbia, Brazil and India-the six countries that have suffered the worst autocratization in the past decade..." 328-329
"Harvard professor of history Seri Plokhy compared China's response to that of Soviet Russia to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, noting that, "lack of freedom of speech helps turn potential disasters into real ones and national tragedies into international cataclysms." 334
"In short, the internet promised to bring about an era of universal free and equal speech, with cyberspace as a global agora." 350
"These centralized platforms can act as choke points for "undesirable" content, as Alex Jones found out. David Kaye has noted that "a centralizing internet dominated by corporative imperatives...is friendlier to censorship...than the horizontal web of blogs and websites." 354
"...an what Jonathan Rauch has called an "epistemic crisis" with truth itself at risk..." 359
"But while online expression may sometimes lead to real-life harm, it does not necessarily follow that placing restrictions on free speech is an effective remedy." 371
"Madison warned that "some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing: and in no instance is this more true, than in that of the press." 387
August 21, 2022
Mchangama takes a deep dive into those who profess to love free speech....until that free speech is used to pillory them. From Socrates to leading American politicians of the Revolutionary period on to the present day, the author finds ample material of undermining public discord when the fires get a little to close. He did occasionally lose me. Going with the popular, "the Inquisition wasn't THAT bad" theme, the author reports a less than impressive kill rate during that rather touchy time. However, I doubt that would bring you comfort if you were the one being tortured and then burned at the stake.
March 2, 2022
Overall impressive history of free speech, traced mainly from its origins in the agora to its contemporary place in the Constitution and online. Balanced read that charts an interesting path through history, though I’m still left looking for answers on how to solve the current social media accelerating hyper partisanship / disinformation problem. Restriction of speech, broadly speaking, is never the answer.
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May 29, 2022The Great Disruption
In the mid-fifteenth century, something happened that would eventually dislodge the Catholic Church’s grip over Europe. It all started when an industrious goldsmith by the name of Johannes Gutenberg developed the printing press.
Few individuals have had so large an impact on world history as Gutenberg. From his workshop in Mainz, the printing press spread like wildfire. By the end of the century, there were 1,700 printing presses operating in cities across Europe from Lisbon to Kraków. In the span of only 50 years, these printers would produce more books than all the scribes of Europe had written in a millennium – and they were just warming up.
As book production skyrocketed, the price of books plummeted. A manuscript that had once cost the same as a vineyard could be picked up for the price of a loaf of bread. The upshot of this new affordability was that it rapidly increased access to the written word for huge swathes of the population. As a result, literacy rates began to shoot up, and economic growth and innovation soon followed.
But new technologies also bring new problems. Initially, Western rulers like the Habsburgs and Tudors embraced this new technology. The church even went so far as to christen it as a “divine” art. But they soon changed their tune when it became painfully apparent that printing had the potential to seriously disrupt the established order. It wouldn’t take long before the revolutionary power of the press would be showcased to its fullest when an opinionated monk called Martin Luther stepped onto the world stage.
In 1517 CE, Luther sent a letter to the archbishop of Mainz; it contained his now-famous list of 95 theses criticizing the Catholic Church. The Letter mainly criticized the practice of promising people a shorter stay in purgatory in exchange for a fee – a practice that Luther felt quite reasonably to be a scam. But he also went further, questioning the church’s legitimacy.
Luther was certainly not the first person to take aim at the church, but being born on the right side of the printing revolution, Luther had a leg up on the rest. The press picked up Luther’s ideas and, pretty soon, they spread like a sixteenth-century meme throughout Christendom. And so the reformation began.
Luther and the press were a match made in heaven (or, if you side with the church, in hell). It can actually be shown that the more printing presses a city had, the more likely they were to break from the Catholic Church and turn Protestant.
Both the church and state authorities attempted to push back, banning Luther’s works, but it was too little too late. Not even Luther himself could have stopped the reformation, which had a mind of its own.
But Luther could hardly have predicted the full consequences of what he had unleashed. By encouraging ordinary people to search out the truth for themselves, he inspired a slew of new religious sects. And the improved literacy rates among people who read the Bible also empowered them to read texts beyond scripture, laying the foundations for even more heterodox thinking.
In the end, even Luther himself tried to put the brakes on what he’d started. He stressed that good Christians ought to heed those sections of the Bible that emphasize respect for authority. He even, ironically, advocated for censorship of divergent Protestant sects.
Of course, in retrospect, it was naive of Luther to expect that after empowering citizens to read and democratizing the Bible, everyone would get in line. After all, if the pope doesn't have the singular authority to determine the truth, why should a constipated German monk?
Luther was certainly not the only person in history to transition from champion of free speech when his own ideas were under threat, to persecutor of religious dissent once he had achieved power and influence. Luther’s situation speaks to the almost universal temptation to view free speech as a right for oneself but not for others. It’s a temptation that is perhaps embedded in human psychology, and it’s one we would do well to resist.
---
Weimar Republic
The legacy of the Enlightenment can still be felt today. We’ve inherited its spirit of curiosity and reason in the form of the scientific method. And we’ve institutionalized its sense of freedom and tolerance to foreign ideas in the constitutions of our liberal democracies.
But we need to stay vigilant. History shows that progress doesn’t always take a direct path. The freedoms we enjoy now are always at risk of entropy. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a liberal democracy has fallen back into tyranny.
A century ago, Germany witnessed exactly that. Wedged between an authoritarian monarchy on one side and a totalitarian dictatorship on the other, the Weimar period of German history was a short-lived, but nevertheless remarkable, interlude of freedom and democracy.
Admittedly, it was a democracy built on shaky foundations. Rising out of the ashes of defeat in the First World War, it was a period plagued by economic instability and political violence. Between 1918 and 1923, it experienced no fewer than five coup attempts and over 350 assassinations by right-wing extremists.
But, despite this, it was also a relative golden age of free thought and liberty – and it proved fertile ground for great advances in science and culture. The Weimar period produced nine Nobel Prize winners, including the Jewish Albert Einstein. It was also a period of major gains for women, who were granted the vote and equal rights.
But it wasn’t to last. Some people have argued that the Weimar Republic’s tolerance of free speech was partly responsible for its demise. According to the argument, if only the republic had done more to silence right-wing speech and propaganda, then its usurpation by the Nazis and all the horrors they inflicted could have been avoided. Many commentators today still appeal to this logic to justify censorship of radical ideas.
But, as we’ll see, this reasoning is misguided for a number of reasons. For one thing, the Weimar authorities actually did try to silence Hitler and his supporters. They banned him from making speeches, and they censored newspapers that carried his messages. But often, all they managed to achieve was to increase interest and sympathy for Hitler, who presented himself as the innocent victim of state repression. In the end, Hitler himself concluded that the prohibitions on him boosted his popularity overall.
Even though free speech was enshrined in the Weimar constitution, it was able to censor Hitler and other groups it deemed too radical thanks to a fatal loophole. Article 48 of the constitution stipulated that citizens’ fundamental rights could be suspended in the event of a serious threat to public order. This emergency law was intended to protect the democratic government. But what it actually did, once the Nazis came to power, was hand them legal recourse to silence all dissent and strangle the very system it was supposed to uphold.
The first voices to be shut down were the communists and liberal left, who were banned from publishing their newspapers and holding assemblies. Initially, the political right was on board with this development, but they soon regretted their support when the Nazis turned on them, too. One by one, every other political party was forced to dissolve. In just six months, Hitler transformed Germany from a vibrant democracy into a one-party dictatorship.
It would be too reductionist to say that Germany’s collapse into totalitarianism was caused solely by the Weimar Republic’s policy of censorship. It’s nevertheless informative to consider just how counterproductive it was to censor dangerous ideas – and how it actually paved the way for someone to come along and abolish free speech entirely.
The failure of the Weimar republic to prevent the rise of fascism through censorship should give pause to us today. Those voices that demand limits to free speech in order to suppress dangerous ideas and organized hate may be doing more to support them than they think.
---
Present Controversies
In the Weimar period, the only way you could really get your voice out there was by speaking on the radio or publishing a newspaper, which obviously wasn’t accessible to everyone. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, even the most marginalized members of society are empowered to speak.
Just as the printing press made information accessible to new groups of people, so too, has the internet connected people and ideas like never before. And, like the printing press, the internet has been just as disruptive.
Owing to its ability to bypass traditional forms of censorship, the internet has been able to penetrate oppressive regimes and provide information and power to people previously left in the dark. All over the world, citizens were suddenly unmuted, no longer merely passive recipients of propaganda. In short, the internet promised to bring about a new golden age of free speech; it professed to serve as a sort of cybernetic version of the Greek agora.
Nothing captured this optimism better than the Arab Spring. In 2010, when a Tunisian street vendor called Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest against his government, the horrific image was caught on camera and soon went viral across the internet. This sparked mass protests, and within a month, Tunisia’s dictator fled the country. Shortly after, several other North African and Middle Eastern states were aflame with public protests, all fueled by social media, which spread ideas and served as a highly effective platform for organizing.
Yet the Arab Spring was not an unequivocal success, as it provoked cornered dictators to fight back. Of all the countries that participated in the Arab Spring, only Tunisia had a happy ending. The others either declined into civil war or suffered even more stifling repression. What’s more, the Arab Spring prompted other authoritarian regimes, such as China and Russia, to ramp up censorship of the web.
It might have been inevitable that regimes whose power was threatened by the internet would invest in ways of controlling it. But what’s more surprising is that even within liberal democracies, calls for censorship are growing.
Now that the internet’s honeymoon period is over, its dark side has become far more visible. Hate speech, online abuse, and conspiracy theories are just some of the ills that politicians and journalists have been sounding the alarm about. Some have gone as far as to declare an “epistemic crisis,” a crisis of truth.
Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are already deleting disinformation by using algorithms that automatically target sensitive words and images. Although these steps to eradicate harmful speech may be well-intentioned, they nevertheless represent a worrying trend.
For one thing, it gives states and tech companies the power to determine what’s true and what isn’t. What’s more, it’s not even clear that censorship is an effective remedy to the problem. One 2017 study showed that extremism is exacerbated by intense public repression, which provokes greater hostility and polarization. Censoring people online also prevents the possibility of offering reasoned counterpoints and discussion, which some studies suggest can be effective at tempering radical viewpoints.
It just goes to show that the solution to intolerant free speech may simply be even more free speech. We shouldn’t allow the dark side of free speech to obscure the many positives it can bring.
Still, even the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has admitted that the status quo is untenable. He’s currently working on a solution to democratize the web again and take it back from the tech companies that have commercialized it.
If history has anything to say, Berners-Lee is on the right track. A less centralized internet is likely to be one that’s much harder to censor and thus more friendly to free speech.
In the mid-fifteenth century, something happened that would eventually dislodge the Catholic Church’s grip over Europe. It all started when an industrious goldsmith by the name of Johannes Gutenberg developed the printing press.
Few individuals have had so large an impact on world history as Gutenberg. From his workshop in Mainz, the printing press spread like wildfire. By the end of the century, there were 1,700 printing presses operating in cities across Europe from Lisbon to Kraków. In the span of only 50 years, these printers would produce more books than all the scribes of Europe had written in a millennium – and they were just warming up.
As book production skyrocketed, the price of books plummeted. A manuscript that had once cost the same as a vineyard could be picked up for the price of a loaf of bread. The upshot of this new affordability was that it rapidly increased access to the written word for huge swathes of the population. As a result, literacy rates began to shoot up, and economic growth and innovation soon followed.
But new technologies also bring new problems. Initially, Western rulers like the Habsburgs and Tudors embraced this new technology. The church even went so far as to christen it as a “divine” art. But they soon changed their tune when it became painfully apparent that printing had the potential to seriously disrupt the established order. It wouldn’t take long before the revolutionary power of the press would be showcased to its fullest when an opinionated monk called Martin Luther stepped onto the world stage.
In 1517 CE, Luther sent a letter to the archbishop of Mainz; it contained his now-famous list of 95 theses criticizing the Catholic Church. The Letter mainly criticized the practice of promising people a shorter stay in purgatory in exchange for a fee – a practice that Luther felt quite reasonably to be a scam. But he also went further, questioning the church’s legitimacy.
Luther was certainly not the first person to take aim at the church, but being born on the right side of the printing revolution, Luther had a leg up on the rest. The press picked up Luther’s ideas and, pretty soon, they spread like a sixteenth-century meme throughout Christendom. And so the reformation began.
Luther and the press were a match made in heaven (or, if you side with the church, in hell). It can actually be shown that the more printing presses a city had, the more likely they were to break from the Catholic Church and turn Protestant.
Both the church and state authorities attempted to push back, banning Luther’s works, but it was too little too late. Not even Luther himself could have stopped the reformation, which had a mind of its own.
But Luther could hardly have predicted the full consequences of what he had unleashed. By encouraging ordinary people to search out the truth for themselves, he inspired a slew of new religious sects. And the improved literacy rates among people who read the Bible also empowered them to read texts beyond scripture, laying the foundations for even more heterodox thinking.
In the end, even Luther himself tried to put the brakes on what he’d started. He stressed that good Christians ought to heed those sections of the Bible that emphasize respect for authority. He even, ironically, advocated for censorship of divergent Protestant sects.
Of course, in retrospect, it was naive of Luther to expect that after empowering citizens to read and democratizing the Bible, everyone would get in line. After all, if the pope doesn't have the singular authority to determine the truth, why should a constipated German monk?
Luther was certainly not the only person in history to transition from champion of free speech when his own ideas were under threat, to persecutor of religious dissent once he had achieved power and influence. Luther’s situation speaks to the almost universal temptation to view free speech as a right for oneself but not for others. It’s a temptation that is perhaps embedded in human psychology, and it’s one we would do well to resist.
---
Weimar Republic
The legacy of the Enlightenment can still be felt today. We’ve inherited its spirit of curiosity and reason in the form of the scientific method. And we’ve institutionalized its sense of freedom and tolerance to foreign ideas in the constitutions of our liberal democracies.
But we need to stay vigilant. History shows that progress doesn’t always take a direct path. The freedoms we enjoy now are always at risk of entropy. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a liberal democracy has fallen back into tyranny.
A century ago, Germany witnessed exactly that. Wedged between an authoritarian monarchy on one side and a totalitarian dictatorship on the other, the Weimar period of German history was a short-lived, but nevertheless remarkable, interlude of freedom and democracy.
Admittedly, it was a democracy built on shaky foundations. Rising out of the ashes of defeat in the First World War, it was a period plagued by economic instability and political violence. Between 1918 and 1923, it experienced no fewer than five coup attempts and over 350 assassinations by right-wing extremists.
But, despite this, it was also a relative golden age of free thought and liberty – and it proved fertile ground for great advances in science and culture. The Weimar period produced nine Nobel Prize winners, including the Jewish Albert Einstein. It was also a period of major gains for women, who were granted the vote and equal rights.
But it wasn’t to last. Some people have argued that the Weimar Republic’s tolerance of free speech was partly responsible for its demise. According to the argument, if only the republic had done more to silence right-wing speech and propaganda, then its usurpation by the Nazis and all the horrors they inflicted could have been avoided. Many commentators today still appeal to this logic to justify censorship of radical ideas.
But, as we’ll see, this reasoning is misguided for a number of reasons. For one thing, the Weimar authorities actually did try to silence Hitler and his supporters. They banned him from making speeches, and they censored newspapers that carried his messages. But often, all they managed to achieve was to increase interest and sympathy for Hitler, who presented himself as the innocent victim of state repression. In the end, Hitler himself concluded that the prohibitions on him boosted his popularity overall.
Even though free speech was enshrined in the Weimar constitution, it was able to censor Hitler and other groups it deemed too radical thanks to a fatal loophole. Article 48 of the constitution stipulated that citizens’ fundamental rights could be suspended in the event of a serious threat to public order. This emergency law was intended to protect the democratic government. But what it actually did, once the Nazis came to power, was hand them legal recourse to silence all dissent and strangle the very system it was supposed to uphold.
The first voices to be shut down were the communists and liberal left, who were banned from publishing their newspapers and holding assemblies. Initially, the political right was on board with this development, but they soon regretted their support when the Nazis turned on them, too. One by one, every other political party was forced to dissolve. In just six months, Hitler transformed Germany from a vibrant democracy into a one-party dictatorship.
It would be too reductionist to say that Germany’s collapse into totalitarianism was caused solely by the Weimar Republic’s policy of censorship. It’s nevertheless informative to consider just how counterproductive it was to censor dangerous ideas – and how it actually paved the way for someone to come along and abolish free speech entirely.
The failure of the Weimar republic to prevent the rise of fascism through censorship should give pause to us today. Those voices that demand limits to free speech in order to suppress dangerous ideas and organized hate may be doing more to support them than they think.
---
Present Controversies
In the Weimar period, the only way you could really get your voice out there was by speaking on the radio or publishing a newspaper, which obviously wasn’t accessible to everyone. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, even the most marginalized members of society are empowered to speak.
Just as the printing press made information accessible to new groups of people, so too, has the internet connected people and ideas like never before. And, like the printing press, the internet has been just as disruptive.
Owing to its ability to bypass traditional forms of censorship, the internet has been able to penetrate oppressive regimes and provide information and power to people previously left in the dark. All over the world, citizens were suddenly unmuted, no longer merely passive recipients of propaganda. In short, the internet promised to bring about a new golden age of free speech; it professed to serve as a sort of cybernetic version of the Greek agora.
Nothing captured this optimism better than the Arab Spring. In 2010, when a Tunisian street vendor called Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest against his government, the horrific image was caught on camera and soon went viral across the internet. This sparked mass protests, and within a month, Tunisia’s dictator fled the country. Shortly after, several other North African and Middle Eastern states were aflame with public protests, all fueled by social media, which spread ideas and served as a highly effective platform for organizing.
Yet the Arab Spring was not an unequivocal success, as it provoked cornered dictators to fight back. Of all the countries that participated in the Arab Spring, only Tunisia had a happy ending. The others either declined into civil war or suffered even more stifling repression. What’s more, the Arab Spring prompted other authoritarian regimes, such as China and Russia, to ramp up censorship of the web.
It might have been inevitable that regimes whose power was threatened by the internet would invest in ways of controlling it. But what’s more surprising is that even within liberal democracies, calls for censorship are growing.
Now that the internet’s honeymoon period is over, its dark side has become far more visible. Hate speech, online abuse, and conspiracy theories are just some of the ills that politicians and journalists have been sounding the alarm about. Some have gone as far as to declare an “epistemic crisis,” a crisis of truth.
Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are already deleting disinformation by using algorithms that automatically target sensitive words and images. Although these steps to eradicate harmful speech may be well-intentioned, they nevertheless represent a worrying trend.
For one thing, it gives states and tech companies the power to determine what’s true and what isn’t. What’s more, it’s not even clear that censorship is an effective remedy to the problem. One 2017 study showed that extremism is exacerbated by intense public repression, which provokes greater hostility and polarization. Censoring people online also prevents the possibility of offering reasoned counterpoints and discussion, which some studies suggest can be effective at tempering radical viewpoints.
It just goes to show that the solution to intolerant free speech may simply be even more free speech. We shouldn’t allow the dark side of free speech to obscure the many positives it can bring.
Still, even the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has admitted that the status quo is untenable. He’s currently working on a solution to democratize the web again and take it back from the tech companies that have commercialized it.
If history has anything to say, Berners-Lee is on the right track. A less centralized internet is likely to be one that’s much harder to censor and thus more friendly to free speech.
May 14, 2022
Jacob Mchangama wrote an excellent history of free speech book from the Greek time all the way to modern times. Each chapter explores an important period in history with regards to how technological or societal changes have changed the limit to free speech, such as what the printing press brought to the world and especially Europe. He writes about significant figures who tried to advance free speech, sometimes more for their own gains than for greater good, but with the unintended benefits of advancing free speech to society. He also analyzes how governments and powerful entities throughout times have responded to free speech advancement. What they did to prevent any threats to their authorities? For example, the Ottoman Empire stopped the printing press from entering their world, which avoided religious fights that Europe experienced but prevented future development that the exchange of ideas provided.
Most of his examples remain the western world, such as Europe and the United States, with a few examples in other places - the Muslim world for example. I wish he would have documented a bit more on other areas of the world than the Western world. It probably would have been a much larger book. The last part of the book analyzes in more details how other Non-European countries are responding to the modern communication revolution, such as how Chinese and Russian governments are censoring the World Wide Web. I feel blessed to live in a country that still value and protect free speech.
His writing style is very academic and yet the writing flows very well. The book is well documented read without being too dense or obscure. While being a strong supporter of free speech he acknowledges some of the issues faced by allowing everyone to speak their mind. At the same time he makes a strong case against the tendency of governments to censor as soon as they think that free speech will cause issues to their authority or society, and the consequences of doing that. At this point many of us have heard about how disinformation is a problem to the well being of a vibrant democracy, and how that hurts minorities. Yet regulations have unintended effects and are being weaponized by authoritarian regimes to censor any discussion. The lab leak theory being an example where the western media shut down anyone talking about it for fear of discrimination until that was proved to be worth being explored. The CCCP was probably more than happy to support the western media. As a consequence the Western media unintentionally supported an authoritarian regime for fear of being seen racist. Be aware when someone starts saying that we should police free speech. It starts well until that becomes too rigid, and people’s rights are infringed.
Most of his examples remain the western world, such as Europe and the United States, with a few examples in other places - the Muslim world for example. I wish he would have documented a bit more on other areas of the world than the Western world. It probably would have been a much larger book. The last part of the book analyzes in more details how other Non-European countries are responding to the modern communication revolution, such as how Chinese and Russian governments are censoring the World Wide Web. I feel blessed to live in a country that still value and protect free speech.
His writing style is very academic and yet the writing flows very well. The book is well documented read without being too dense or obscure. While being a strong supporter of free speech he acknowledges some of the issues faced by allowing everyone to speak their mind. At the same time he makes a strong case against the tendency of governments to censor as soon as they think that free speech will cause issues to their authority or society, and the consequences of doing that. At this point many of us have heard about how disinformation is a problem to the well being of a vibrant democracy, and how that hurts minorities. Yet regulations have unintended effects and are being weaponized by authoritarian regimes to censor any discussion. The lab leak theory being an example where the western media shut down anyone talking about it for fear of discrimination until that was proved to be worth being explored. The CCCP was probably more than happy to support the western media. As a consequence the Western media unintentionally supported an authoritarian regime for fear of being seen racist. Be aware when someone starts saying that we should police free speech. It starts well until that becomes too rigid, and people’s rights are infringed.
April 7, 2024
Qué gran libro sobre la libertad de expresión y su historia. La lucha por la libertad de expresión, un derecho tan complejo, tan valioso y tan vulnerable, es una cruzada que va más a allá de las fronteras políticas. Este libro nos invita a considerar este derecho no como una batalla partidista, sino como una cuestión esencial de la dignidad humana.
El libro aborda el complejo tema del principio y el derecho a la libertad de expresión, destacando las diversas luchas que han surgido en su defensa, sobre todo en Occidente. Comienza con una mirada a la Antigüedad, incluyendo las ideas de Sócrates, la isēgoría, la parrhēsía y la libertas romana, y continúa explorando periodos tan variados como la Edad de Oro del Islam, la época medieval, la invención de la imprenta y la influencia de figuras como Lutero y sus contemporáneos en la Reforma. El libro examina también los acontecimientos que condujeron a la Ilustración, la lucha estadounidense por la libertad, las diversas revoluciones y los efectos de ideologías del siglo XX como el comunismo, el fascismo y el nazismo sobre la libertad de expresión. En la segunda mitad del siglo XX, se analizan los debates y las decisiones de los líderes mundiales sobre este derecho. Por último, se alcanza la era de Internet, abordando los debates actuales sobre la libertad de expresión en diferentes esferas, desde los gobiernos hasta las plataformas de redes sociales en línea. El libro ofrece así una visión global de este complejo y relevante tema.
De este exhaustivo estudio sobre la libertad de expresión pueden extraerse varias lecciones (para ser breve me limitaré solo a unas pocas).
• En primer lugar, la historia sugiere que los esfuerzos por reprimir o limitar la libertad de expresión son ineficaces, al menos a largo plazo, y en muchos casos, contraproducentes.
• Además, existe la tendencia paradójica conocida como «la maldición de Milton» —por el poeta y ensayista inglés John Milton—, en la que quienes defienden con vehemencia la libertad de expresión caen en la trampa de silenciar a otras personas y reprimir selectivamente ciertas voces y expresiones. Esta maldición ocurre especialmente si se llega a ser una autoridad o una figura de liderazgo. Se trata de una contradicción a la que muchos podemos ser susceptibles.
• Otra observación pertinente es cómo los gobiernos y las autoridades pueden promulgar inicialmente leyes contra el discurso de odio con buenas intenciones, solo para emplear esas mismas leyes para reprimir opiniones discrepantes y expresiones no deseadas, categorizándolas convenientemente como «discurso de odio» y controlar así el escenario de la expresión.
• Por último, la lectura de este libro le lleva a uno a reflexionar sobre la naturaleza cíclica de la historia, en la que los patrones y los desafíos en torno a la libertad de expresión se repiten a través de los tiempos. La historia se repite y se repite y se repite y se repite... Esta repetición histórica sugiere que lo que hoy se nos presenta, o lo que se nos pueda presentar en el futuro, no es nada nuevo y es una continuación de las luchas y los dilemas que han existido desde tiempos remotos.
Así, se ofrece una perspectiva enriquecedora sobre la libertad de expresión que puede alterar significativamente la comprensión del lector sobre esta cuestión. Y si después de leerlo no se aprecia plenamente la importancia de este principio, puede ser útil volver a examinar su contenido. El libro puede ser especialmente relevante para quienes estén contemplando cuestiones relacionadas con la restricción de la expresión o el silenciamiento de las personas, ya que ofrece una oportunidad para la reflexión y el análisis detallado de este principio fundamental. Provoca una profunda gratitud hacia quienes han luchado y, en algunos casos, incluso han perdido la vida en aras de la libertad de expresión a lo largo del tiempo.
El libro aborda el complejo tema del principio y el derecho a la libertad de expresión, destacando las diversas luchas que han surgido en su defensa, sobre todo en Occidente. Comienza con una mirada a la Antigüedad, incluyendo las ideas de Sócrates, la isēgoría, la parrhēsía y la libertas romana, y continúa explorando periodos tan variados como la Edad de Oro del Islam, la época medieval, la invención de la imprenta y la influencia de figuras como Lutero y sus contemporáneos en la Reforma. El libro examina también los acontecimientos que condujeron a la Ilustración, la lucha estadounidense por la libertad, las diversas revoluciones y los efectos de ideologías del siglo XX como el comunismo, el fascismo y el nazismo sobre la libertad de expresión. En la segunda mitad del siglo XX, se analizan los debates y las decisiones de los líderes mundiales sobre este derecho. Por último, se alcanza la era de Internet, abordando los debates actuales sobre la libertad de expresión en diferentes esferas, desde los gobiernos hasta las plataformas de redes sociales en línea. El libro ofrece así una visión global de este complejo y relevante tema.
De este exhaustivo estudio sobre la libertad de expresión pueden extraerse varias lecciones (para ser breve me limitaré solo a unas pocas).
• En primer lugar, la historia sugiere que los esfuerzos por reprimir o limitar la libertad de expresión son ineficaces, al menos a largo plazo, y en muchos casos, contraproducentes.
• Además, existe la tendencia paradójica conocida como «la maldición de Milton» —por el poeta y ensayista inglés John Milton—, en la que quienes defienden con vehemencia la libertad de expresión caen en la trampa de silenciar a otras personas y reprimir selectivamente ciertas voces y expresiones. Esta maldición ocurre especialmente si se llega a ser una autoridad o una figura de liderazgo. Se trata de una contradicción a la que muchos podemos ser susceptibles.
• Otra observación pertinente es cómo los gobiernos y las autoridades pueden promulgar inicialmente leyes contra el discurso de odio con buenas intenciones, solo para emplear esas mismas leyes para reprimir opiniones discrepantes y expresiones no deseadas, categorizándolas convenientemente como «discurso de odio» y controlar así el escenario de la expresión.
• Por último, la lectura de este libro le lleva a uno a reflexionar sobre la naturaleza cíclica de la historia, en la que los patrones y los desafíos en torno a la libertad de expresión se repiten a través de los tiempos. La historia se repite y se repite y se repite y se repite... Esta repetición histórica sugiere que lo que hoy se nos presenta, o lo que se nos pueda presentar en el futuro, no es nada nuevo y es una continuación de las luchas y los dilemas que han existido desde tiempos remotos.
Así, se ofrece una perspectiva enriquecedora sobre la libertad de expresión que puede alterar significativamente la comprensión del lector sobre esta cuestión. Y si después de leerlo no se aprecia plenamente la importancia de este principio, puede ser útil volver a examinar su contenido. El libro puede ser especialmente relevante para quienes estén contemplando cuestiones relacionadas con la restricción de la expresión o el silenciamiento de las personas, ya que ofrece una oportunidad para la reflexión y el análisis detallado de este principio fundamental. Provoca una profunda gratitud hacia quienes han luchado y, en algunos casos, incluso han perdido la vida en aras de la libertad de expresión a lo largo del tiempo.
June 29, 2022
Surprisingly disappointing. I would have liked a discussion of how the concept of free speech evolved as part of our developing understanding as individuals and personhood. Conspicuously missing at all is a mention of the CIA and how it may be involved in social media for its own purposes. Orange man is bad, of course, and astonishingly (on my first edition, '20, p. 372) "multiple studies have found that "fake news" is neither as pervasive nor as detrimental as many assume... comprising only about 0.15 per cent of Americans' daily media diet." I must indeed be living in a parallel country.
May 21, 2022
I really enjoyed this book and made me realize the slippery slope on censuring “disinformation”. Looking forward to next phase of less concentration of media platforms and more peer to peer to enable yet more openness in way we exchange news. And hopefully we can engage in meaningful dialogue without threat of retaliation.
March 16, 2022
This book is a survey of free speech in different societies over the last 2000 years. It starts in ancient Greece and then Rome before jumping forward to the Abbasid Dynasty and then early modern Europe. It looks at the printing press and Martin Luther, the British colonies in America followed by the United States, the French Revolution, Weimar Germany, the Soviet Union and eventually moving up to modern day social media. Mchangama makes a powerful and persuasive argument that free speech is essential to free society. Governments that curtail free speech to prevent harmful speech ultimately do more damage.
His most persuasive argument is that the Weimar Republic passed laws to silence Hitler. The laws probably helped his popularity and were then used against his critics when he took power. He also points out that despots and tyrants inevitably curtail free speech. He uses examples of Stalin, Mao, Putin Erdogan, Al-Sisi, Putin and the Chinese Communist Party. Almost all of them promise free speech, but actually shut anything down that criticizes them. He points to the United States as the champion of free speech, but is concerned that recent trends have undermined that. His criticism comes more from the left than that right, as he thinks a free press and lack of censorship were important parts in undermining Donald Trump, no champion of free speech himself. But he thinks the shutting down of potentially offensive speech is counterproductive and undermines a core principle of our society.
He is also concerned about policing the internet. Mchangama is definitely no fan of Trump, but is concerned that his ban from mainstream social media was done in a completely opaque way. He calls it "moderation without representation", which is a great term. His suggestion is to decentralize the internet so no-one has that kind of censoring power.
Mchangama's book reads like a very well-researched and documented sermon on the value of free speech and a free press. I highly recommend it.
His most persuasive argument is that the Weimar Republic passed laws to silence Hitler. The laws probably helped his popularity and were then used against his critics when he took power. He also points out that despots and tyrants inevitably curtail free speech. He uses examples of Stalin, Mao, Putin Erdogan, Al-Sisi, Putin and the Chinese Communist Party. Almost all of them promise free speech, but actually shut anything down that criticizes them. He points to the United States as the champion of free speech, but is concerned that recent trends have undermined that. His criticism comes more from the left than that right, as he thinks a free press and lack of censorship were important parts in undermining Donald Trump, no champion of free speech himself. But he thinks the shutting down of potentially offensive speech is counterproductive and undermines a core principle of our society.
He is also concerned about policing the internet. Mchangama is definitely no fan of Trump, but is concerned that his ban from mainstream social media was done in a completely opaque way. He calls it "moderation without representation", which is a great term. His suggestion is to decentralize the internet so no-one has that kind of censoring power.
Mchangama's book reads like a very well-researched and documented sermon on the value of free speech and a free press. I highly recommend it.
June 22, 2022
I was pleased to discover that this was not just a white history of free speech. Jacob also traces developments in the Muslim world and briefly, other parts of the world.
Despite this, there is a glaring omission of the impact of the Mongol Empire under Genghiz Khan where not only free speech was promoted, but the freedom of religion, equality for women as well as the sharing of technology. It is hoped that a future edition will include this important historical epoch.
Free speech is often misunderstood and this work provides clarity as it travels through the ages to the modern-day challenges of the internet and social media.
This is an important book contributing to the conversation about where we should head in the future.
Despite this, there is a glaring omission of the impact of the Mongol Empire under Genghiz Khan where not only free speech was promoted, but the freedom of religion, equality for women as well as the sharing of technology. It is hoped that a future edition will include this important historical epoch.
Free speech is often misunderstood and this work provides clarity as it travels through the ages to the modern-day challenges of the internet and social media.
This is an important book contributing to the conversation about where we should head in the future.
July 17, 2022
Great, great book on the history of free speech. He breaks down the progress of free speech through the centuries until the high point we experienced at the turn of the century. Then he gives evidence as to why we’re on the downslope of the bell curve of free speech progress.
For classically liberal folks like me, this will be the scariest book you read all year
For classically liberal folks like me, this will be the scariest book you read all year
July 15, 2022
Good history of freedom of speech since the days of Ancient Greece and of press freedom since the printing press was invented, told from a pro-free speech perspective. An amazing amount of alternating progress and regress through the ages. Some interesting analysis about the state of press freedoms during the beginning of communism in Russia and the beginnings of Naziism in Germany, and how that affected those transitions.
September 24, 2021
Excellent historical and philosophical defense and treatise of free speech. Timely and, sadly, very, very necessary
September 5, 2023
At he best point in the book, Jacob Mchangama has written a surface level analysis of the history of free speech, a histography that never manages to reach beyond an entry-level high school civics class. It's an analysis that's completely devoid of nuance, stances and points.
And at worst, Mchangama has written some of the worst historical analysis I've read in a long time.
The first two thirds of Free Speech: A Global History from Socrates to Social Media belongs to the latter. Mchangama's overview of history is admittedly well researched and written in an approachable and easy to under stand manner. But even with all the research and examples that Mchangama manage to cram into the book, he never manage to tie it all together in a satisfactory manner. As such, this the start of the book is just a timeline of how speech have been controlled in Europe from ancient Greece up till today, with a few detours to the Middle East during the Islamic Caliphate and China.
Where it all begins to fall apart is when Mchangama reached the Weimar Republic and the conditions that lead to the Nazi Party ceasing power. Mchangama's analysis of free speech and the political rise of Adolf Hitler might be the least self-aware analysis I've ever read. And that's saying a lot.
Essentially, Mchangama wants to avoid the "Weimar fallacy" by dispelling the myth about how the free and open speech in Weimar lead to the Nazi propaganda machine to churn out antisemitism, anti-Communism, etc.. without hinderance.
I will agree with Mchangama in so far as this being a really shallow and ahistorical conclusion to make, but Mchangama's own conclusion is somehow even worse.
Mchangama reaches what can at best be said to bet the opposite conclusion, saying that it was the censorship of Nazi, Socialist and Communist outlets during the Weimar Era that made the Nazi censorship possible. Weimar censorship walked so Third Rich censorship could run. Considering the Hitler's own writing in Mein Kampf, this conclusion is completely ahistorical, seeing how Hitler's own disdain for free speech and "degenerate" culture preceded the censorship campaign of the Weimar state, the Nazi's disdain for free speech can hardly be put down to "the other's did it first." Mchangama also at no point acknowledges the difference between the reactive censorship of the Weimar Republic and the proactive censorship of the Third Reich. To Mchangama it's all just censorship.
Now, such a terrible analysis could be forgiven or passed over if it was kept at that, but Mchangama keeps returning to it later on, when he touches in deplatforming on social media. Referencing the everpresent Streisand Effect and the Weimar Republic, Mchangama argues that removing controversial figures from social media serves to amplify their voices rather than removing them from the public sphere. And while I can't say if Mchangama is right or wrong in this conclusion, I can say that it's based on a completely wrong premise.
This isn't helped by Mchangama trying to strengthen his argument with various studies, but completely misreading what those studies say or citing studies that reach incompatible conclusions. For example, Mchangama cites a French study that states that less than 1% of posts on Twitter/X contains fake news. Now, determining what constitutes fake news aside, in the context the study is cited in is about the reach of fake news, not the number of posts containing fake news, which means that Mchangama's point goes out the window when you remember that Mchangama not 50 pages early mentioned that social media posts containing fake news where 70% more likely to be shared. So even if the number og fake new posts is low, the reach that these posts can get is disproportionate to posts with actual news.
The debate that Mchangama presents about free speech on social media is also incredibly shallow, and that mainly comes to the forefront when Mchangama doesn't differentiate between violence and censorship enforced by the state and violence perpetrated by private actors to censor criticism. Be it Twitter, Meta, ISIS or the People's Republic of China, it's all the same to Mchangama.
Now an argument could certainly be made in this regard, but Mchangama never makes that argument. And that also means that Mchangama never really engages with the paradox that is freeing speech on privately owned social media platforms. Wouldn't it be limiting the free speech of Meta to tell them that they should allow all speech on their platform?
And at worst, Mchangama has written some of the worst historical analysis I've read in a long time.
The first two thirds of Free Speech: A Global History from Socrates to Social Media belongs to the latter. Mchangama's overview of history is admittedly well researched and written in an approachable and easy to under stand manner. But even with all the research and examples that Mchangama manage to cram into the book, he never manage to tie it all together in a satisfactory manner. As such, this the start of the book is just a timeline of how speech have been controlled in Europe from ancient Greece up till today, with a few detours to the Middle East during the Islamic Caliphate and China.
Where it all begins to fall apart is when Mchangama reached the Weimar Republic and the conditions that lead to the Nazi Party ceasing power. Mchangama's analysis of free speech and the political rise of Adolf Hitler might be the least self-aware analysis I've ever read. And that's saying a lot.
Essentially, Mchangama wants to avoid the "Weimar fallacy" by dispelling the myth about how the free and open speech in Weimar lead to the Nazi propaganda machine to churn out antisemitism, anti-Communism, etc.. without hinderance.
I will agree with Mchangama in so far as this being a really shallow and ahistorical conclusion to make, but Mchangama's own conclusion is somehow even worse.
Mchangama reaches what can at best be said to bet the opposite conclusion, saying that it was the censorship of Nazi, Socialist and Communist outlets during the Weimar Era that made the Nazi censorship possible. Weimar censorship walked so Third Rich censorship could run. Considering the Hitler's own writing in Mein Kampf, this conclusion is completely ahistorical, seeing how Hitler's own disdain for free speech and "degenerate" culture preceded the censorship campaign of the Weimar state, the Nazi's disdain for free speech can hardly be put down to "the other's did it first." Mchangama also at no point acknowledges the difference between the reactive censorship of the Weimar Republic and the proactive censorship of the Third Reich. To Mchangama it's all just censorship.
Now, such a terrible analysis could be forgiven or passed over if it was kept at that, but Mchangama keeps returning to it later on, when he touches in deplatforming on social media. Referencing the everpresent Streisand Effect and the Weimar Republic, Mchangama argues that removing controversial figures from social media serves to amplify their voices rather than removing them from the public sphere. And while I can't say if Mchangama is right or wrong in this conclusion, I can say that it's based on a completely wrong premise.
This isn't helped by Mchangama trying to strengthen his argument with various studies, but completely misreading what those studies say or citing studies that reach incompatible conclusions. For example, Mchangama cites a French study that states that less than 1% of posts on Twitter/X contains fake news. Now, determining what constitutes fake news aside, in the context the study is cited in is about the reach of fake news, not the number of posts containing fake news, which means that Mchangama's point goes out the window when you remember that Mchangama not 50 pages early mentioned that social media posts containing fake news where 70% more likely to be shared. So even if the number og fake new posts is low, the reach that these posts can get is disproportionate to posts with actual news.
The debate that Mchangama presents about free speech on social media is also incredibly shallow, and that mainly comes to the forefront when Mchangama doesn't differentiate between violence and censorship enforced by the state and violence perpetrated by private actors to censor criticism. Be it Twitter, Meta, ISIS or the People's Republic of China, it's all the same to Mchangama.
Now an argument could certainly be made in this regard, but Mchangama never makes that argument. And that also means that Mchangama never really engages with the paradox that is freeing speech on privately owned social media platforms. Wouldn't it be limiting the free speech of Meta to tell them that they should allow all speech on their platform?
April 10, 2024
La libertà d'espressione e la maledizione di Milton
L'autore ripercorre l'avventura della libertà d'espressione partendo dalle civiltà mesopotamiche e arrivando praticamente sino al giorno in cui il libro è andato in stampa. Ovviamente il resoconto si fa più dettagliato mano mano che ci avviciniamo al presente, dato che sotto Hammurabi c'era poco da esprimersi liberamente mentre oggi la questione è dibattuta sempre più vivacemente, nel bene come nel male.
Almeno tre cose emergono dal libro.
La prima è che sin da quando, nell'epoca moderna, la questione della libertà d'espressione è diventata centrale, praticamente dopo l'avvento della riforma protestante e il pluralismo religioso e poi col lento smantellamento dell'autoritarismo monarchico, molti hanno perorato il diritto di parlare liberamente, ma quasi tutti si affrettavano poi a individuare delle eccezioni. Libertà di parola sì, ma quasi mai per tutti. In passato le eccezioni riguardavano specialmente il trono e l'altare: bisognava reprimere i discorsi sediziosi, quelli che potevano minare l'obbedienza dei sudditi verso l'autorità, incitare alla sovversione e alla ribellione; e poi c'era ben poca tolleranza per le eresie, la blasfemia e, peggio ancora, l'ateismo, una bestia nera praticamente fino all'Ottocento. I tempi cambiano e oggi ci sono nuovi mostri fatti di parole da combattere. I limiti a ciò che non si può dire e che richiedono l'intervento di polizia e tribunali possono accomunare tutte le fedi politiche, come può essere il negazionismo dell'olocausto; ma poi ci sono battaglie più di fazione, ed è così che la sinistra vuole spazzar via i "discorsi d'odio" contro le minoranze, mentre magari la destra se la prende con le "teorie gender" che rischiano di traviare i bambini. A ognuno il suo.
La seconda cosa è che storicamente quasi tutti sostengono la libertà d'espressione finché, privi di potere, ne subiscono i limiti, ma poi cambiano improvvisamente idea quando il potere lo ottengono. È quella che l'autore chiama "maledizione di Milton", visto che proprio l'autore del Paradiso perduto aveva fatto questo brutto percorso. Semplificando, si è libertarî all'opposizione ma si diventa fascisti una volta al governo. Ed è un copione che si è ripetuto costantemente, almeno sin dall'avvento del cristianesimo in Europa, coi perseguitati di ieri che diventano rapidamente persecutori d'oggi. E chissà se mai questo ciclo verrà spezzato. C'è però da dire una cosa, ovvero che, almeno alle nostre latitudini, è da tempo che non si rischia più la condanna a morte solo per aver scritto un libro, cosa che invece avveniva qualche secolo fa.
Da ultimo, nei capitoli finali, l'autore si lancia in una appassionata e condivisibile difesa a oltranza dei benefici di una libertà d'espressione intesa nel suo senso più largo, i cui benefici sono molteplici e comunque superiori agli svantaggi e i rischi che può generare e che certo nessuno nega. Si tratta di una questione estremamente dibattuta, anzi, sempre più dibattuta nei decennî recenti, stretti come siamo tra il fanatismo politico di sinistra che ha tracimato dalle università americane contagiando frange sempre più ampie della società, l'ascesa apparentemente inarrestabile di una destra cupa, sprezzante e autoritaria, il terrorismo religioso incapace di accettare la sfida di laicità e secolarismo e deciso a punire anche con la morte i colpevoli di blasfemia.
Molte pagine del libro sono dedicate a mostrare come, per rivitalizzare un tessuto democratico in progressivo logoramento, la soluzione non sia cedere alla tentazione di tappare la bocca a chi lo minaccia, anzi. Viene fatto l'esempio, con riferimenti documentati, della Germania degli anni Venti del secolo scorso, in cui le autorità della Repubblica di Weimar non restarono con le mani in mano di fronte all'avanzata del nazismo e dell'estremismo politico in genere, ma tentarono anzi di frenarlo con raffiche di decreti repressivi, con le leggi contro l'antisemitismo, coi seguaci di Hitler processati per le loro affermazioni. Emblematico il caso delle trasmissioni radiofoniche, al tempo il mezzo di comunicazione più all'avanguardia e diffuso: fino al 1933 i nazisti non vi ebbero accesso in alcun modo proprio perché lo impediva lo Stato, che deteneva il pieno controllo delle trasmissioni. Ma questa quarantena mediatica non impedì comunque a Hitler di arrivare al potere e, a quel punto, trovarsi già pronto su un piatto d'argento il monopolio sulle comunicazioni. Cosa successe dopo, purtroppo, lo sappiamo tutti.
L'autore ripercorre l'avventura della libertà d'espressione partendo dalle civiltà mesopotamiche e arrivando praticamente sino al giorno in cui il libro è andato in stampa. Ovviamente il resoconto si fa più dettagliato mano mano che ci avviciniamo al presente, dato che sotto Hammurabi c'era poco da esprimersi liberamente mentre oggi la questione è dibattuta sempre più vivacemente, nel bene come nel male.
Almeno tre cose emergono dal libro.
La prima è che sin da quando, nell'epoca moderna, la questione della libertà d'espressione è diventata centrale, praticamente dopo l'avvento della riforma protestante e il pluralismo religioso e poi col lento smantellamento dell'autoritarismo monarchico, molti hanno perorato il diritto di parlare liberamente, ma quasi tutti si affrettavano poi a individuare delle eccezioni. Libertà di parola sì, ma quasi mai per tutti. In passato le eccezioni riguardavano specialmente il trono e l'altare: bisognava reprimere i discorsi sediziosi, quelli che potevano minare l'obbedienza dei sudditi verso l'autorità, incitare alla sovversione e alla ribellione; e poi c'era ben poca tolleranza per le eresie, la blasfemia e, peggio ancora, l'ateismo, una bestia nera praticamente fino all'Ottocento. I tempi cambiano e oggi ci sono nuovi mostri fatti di parole da combattere. I limiti a ciò che non si può dire e che richiedono l'intervento di polizia e tribunali possono accomunare tutte le fedi politiche, come può essere il negazionismo dell'olocausto; ma poi ci sono battaglie più di fazione, ed è così che la sinistra vuole spazzar via i "discorsi d'odio" contro le minoranze, mentre magari la destra se la prende con le "teorie gender" che rischiano di traviare i bambini. A ognuno il suo.
La seconda cosa è che storicamente quasi tutti sostengono la libertà d'espressione finché, privi di potere, ne subiscono i limiti, ma poi cambiano improvvisamente idea quando il potere lo ottengono. È quella che l'autore chiama "maledizione di Milton", visto che proprio l'autore del Paradiso perduto aveva fatto questo brutto percorso. Semplificando, si è libertarî all'opposizione ma si diventa fascisti una volta al governo. Ed è un copione che si è ripetuto costantemente, almeno sin dall'avvento del cristianesimo in Europa, coi perseguitati di ieri che diventano rapidamente persecutori d'oggi. E chissà se mai questo ciclo verrà spezzato. C'è però da dire una cosa, ovvero che, almeno alle nostre latitudini, è da tempo che non si rischia più la condanna a morte solo per aver scritto un libro, cosa che invece avveniva qualche secolo fa.
Da ultimo, nei capitoli finali, l'autore si lancia in una appassionata e condivisibile difesa a oltranza dei benefici di una libertà d'espressione intesa nel suo senso più largo, i cui benefici sono molteplici e comunque superiori agli svantaggi e i rischi che può generare e che certo nessuno nega. Si tratta di una questione estremamente dibattuta, anzi, sempre più dibattuta nei decennî recenti, stretti come siamo tra il fanatismo politico di sinistra che ha tracimato dalle università americane contagiando frange sempre più ampie della società, l'ascesa apparentemente inarrestabile di una destra cupa, sprezzante e autoritaria, il terrorismo religioso incapace di accettare la sfida di laicità e secolarismo e deciso a punire anche con la morte i colpevoli di blasfemia.
Molte pagine del libro sono dedicate a mostrare come, per rivitalizzare un tessuto democratico in progressivo logoramento, la soluzione non sia cedere alla tentazione di tappare la bocca a chi lo minaccia, anzi. Viene fatto l'esempio, con riferimenti documentati, della Germania degli anni Venti del secolo scorso, in cui le autorità della Repubblica di Weimar non restarono con le mani in mano di fronte all'avanzata del nazismo e dell'estremismo politico in genere, ma tentarono anzi di frenarlo con raffiche di decreti repressivi, con le leggi contro l'antisemitismo, coi seguaci di Hitler processati per le loro affermazioni. Emblematico il caso delle trasmissioni radiofoniche, al tempo il mezzo di comunicazione più all'avanguardia e diffuso: fino al 1933 i nazisti non vi ebbero accesso in alcun modo proprio perché lo impediva lo Stato, che deteneva il pieno controllo delle trasmissioni. Ma questa quarantena mediatica non impedì comunque a Hitler di arrivare al potere e, a quel punto, trovarsi già pronto su un piatto d'argento il monopolio sulle comunicazioni. Cosa successe dopo, purtroppo, lo sappiamo tutti.
July 29, 2022
This book changed my mind about free speech in three ways. First, I am now more of a free speech absolutist than I was when I started reading the book. Second, I am less shocked by the erosion of free speech we are seeing around the globe. And third, I am more appreciative of how much our speech is protected in Western liberal democracies.
I give the book 4 stars because it is very engaging while covering a great amount of detail about the history of free speech globally.
Why the book turned me into a free speech absolutist
Before reading the book, I was squarely in the "hate speech should not be protected" camp. Genuine hate speech is abhorrent. Nothing good comes from it, and plenty bad comes from it, so why not outlaw it?
The error in my thinking was that I was not thinking through the unintended consequences of outlawing hate speech. This book corrected that error by showing how, again and again throughout history, bans on hate speech not only fail to work, but also end up being used as weapons against the very groups they were supposed to protect.
Take Weimar Germany, for example, which banned anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda and for a time banned Hitler from public speaking. These bans succeeded in shutting down some hateful speech, but they turned Hitler into a martyr, who himself acknowledged that the bans increased his fame and popularity. Later, when Hitler seized power, he weaponised the earlier suppression of Nazi speech, using it to justify laws that suppressed anti-Nazi speech.
In other words, a well-meaning attempt to shut down abominable hate speech backfired badly.
Why the book made me less shocked by the erosion of free speech we are seeing around the globe
The book uses the term "free speech entropy" to describe the retraction of free speech that often follows an expansion. The pattern is repeated throughout history, often driven by the "elite panic" about dangerous ideas finding their way into the minds of masses. So what we are witnessing in some countries that appear to be going backwards is nothing unusual.
On the upside, if we look at the overarching arc of history, at least in the Western world, it bends towards greater free speech.
Why the book made me more appreciative of the amount of free speech that we do have
Free speech is rare, not only historically, but in today's world. As the book makes clear, most people still live in countries with heavy restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of speech in general. Those of us who live in a country in which we can publicly criticise the government without fear of imprisonment are exceedingly fortunate.
I give the book 4 stars because it is very engaging while covering a great amount of detail about the history of free speech globally.
Why the book turned me into a free speech absolutist
Before reading the book, I was squarely in the "hate speech should not be protected" camp. Genuine hate speech is abhorrent. Nothing good comes from it, and plenty bad comes from it, so why not outlaw it?
The error in my thinking was that I was not thinking through the unintended consequences of outlawing hate speech. This book corrected that error by showing how, again and again throughout history, bans on hate speech not only fail to work, but also end up being used as weapons against the very groups they were supposed to protect.
Take Weimar Germany, for example, which banned anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda and for a time banned Hitler from public speaking. These bans succeeded in shutting down some hateful speech, but they turned Hitler into a martyr, who himself acknowledged that the bans increased his fame and popularity. Later, when Hitler seized power, he weaponised the earlier suppression of Nazi speech, using it to justify laws that suppressed anti-Nazi speech.
In other words, a well-meaning attempt to shut down abominable hate speech backfired badly.
Why the book made me less shocked by the erosion of free speech we are seeing around the globe
The book uses the term "free speech entropy" to describe the retraction of free speech that often follows an expansion. The pattern is repeated throughout history, often driven by the "elite panic" about dangerous ideas finding their way into the minds of masses. So what we are witnessing in some countries that appear to be going backwards is nothing unusual.
On the upside, if we look at the overarching arc of history, at least in the Western world, it bends towards greater free speech.
Why the book made me more appreciative of the amount of free speech that we do have
Free speech is rare, not only historically, but in today's world. As the book makes clear, most people still live in countries with heavy restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of speech in general. Those of us who live in a country in which we can publicly criticise the government without fear of imprisonment are exceedingly fortunate.
August 14, 2022
If you are looking for a narrative that highlights the fragility of free speech then this book likely fills that need. However, if the reader is looking for a deeper philosophical dive in free speech and the historical debate surrounding this fundamental pillar of democracy, this book will likely come up short.
The first three chapters fly through Socrates, Demosthenes, Cicero, Avicenna, Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII, and many other important thinkers and politicians with less than paragraph introductions given to each before moving on. To avoid getting bogged down in Greek or Roman or Islamic or early Church thought that is best for the book’s purpose but those chapters serve merely as a very brief intro rather than a history.
It is the later parts that likely are of most interest to the reader and also the chapters where Mchangama best illustrates his point. Free speech is messy, it is difficult, it is often targeted by the same people who once championed it. While once again quickly flying through important figures (Washington, Jefferson, Mill, de Gouges, Pitt, etc) and important periods (Napoleonic France, American slavery, British colonialism, Russian communism, etc.), Mchangama highlights how very few, if any, individuals are pure champions of free speech. More often these individuals are reflective of the larger attitudes in England, US, France, etc. where increases in freedom of speech are subsequently met with opposition and backsliding.
He ends the book with another rapid look around the world at all the countries limiting free speech, the leaders imprisoning journalists, and the ineffective free speech protections in places like the UN and EU. Social media and the Internet are addressed, as are some very quick alternatives like blockchain.
At the very least the book should serve as a reminder that free speech protections are rare and we should view them with a strong libertarian perspective if we want society to continue on its long, messy, at times violent, journey towards a future with more individual freedoms. Rolling back freedom of speech protections for reasons such as protecting religious groups or stopping hateful messages does not accomplish what those supporting such ideas are led to believe.
The first three chapters fly through Socrates, Demosthenes, Cicero, Avicenna, Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII, and many other important thinkers and politicians with less than paragraph introductions given to each before moving on. To avoid getting bogged down in Greek or Roman or Islamic or early Church thought that is best for the book’s purpose but those chapters serve merely as a very brief intro rather than a history.
It is the later parts that likely are of most interest to the reader and also the chapters where Mchangama best illustrates his point. Free speech is messy, it is difficult, it is often targeted by the same people who once championed it. While once again quickly flying through important figures (Washington, Jefferson, Mill, de Gouges, Pitt, etc) and important periods (Napoleonic France, American slavery, British colonialism, Russian communism, etc.), Mchangama highlights how very few, if any, individuals are pure champions of free speech. More often these individuals are reflective of the larger attitudes in England, US, France, etc. where increases in freedom of speech are subsequently met with opposition and backsliding.
He ends the book with another rapid look around the world at all the countries limiting free speech, the leaders imprisoning journalists, and the ineffective free speech protections in places like the UN and EU. Social media and the Internet are addressed, as are some very quick alternatives like blockchain.
At the very least the book should serve as a reminder that free speech protections are rare and we should view them with a strong libertarian perspective if we want society to continue on its long, messy, at times violent, journey towards a future with more individual freedoms. Rolling back freedom of speech protections for reasons such as protecting religious groups or stopping hateful messages does not accomplish what those supporting such ideas are led to believe.
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