There is a growing effort to suppress free speech worldwide today in response to a myriad of problems, including "fake news," bullying, and bigotry etc. But censorship isn't the right tool to address such problems and when we welcome an invasion of natural rights and the individual liberty of others, we too also invite that restriction upon ourselves, we limit our own liberty.

How do you tackle ideas and words that you might not like?

You can ignore them or you can respond with more speech in an effort to combat and ultimately influence the opinions of others, introduce better ideas with the hope of potentially changing minds.

There is also the government solution of censorship and punishment in an effort to combat what ideas we might not want to hear; for anyone who violates the rules surrounding what is acceptable speech and what isn't.

We have already seen that the fascist censoring of opinions has the ability to bring them more attention. And what those who favor government censorship might feel is that they are using the restrictions to prevent other people from being persuaded by those ideas they disagree with, which is trying to ultimately using violence to make a decision for other people about what they should believe. And time should have already demonstrated to us by now that no matter the penalty that's threatened, people are going to believe what they want--regardless of the consequences.

The rules that are being introduced to supposedly cut down on this "hate speech" or "fake news" problem etc, can easily be abused and are often just downright confusing. And it's highly hypocritical to use methods of bullying to try and combat the problem of bullying or hate.

These new anti-fake news and anti-hate speech campaigns seek to give the state even more power than they already have to stomp on the individual liberty of the people and that is never a good thing. Hate speech has no universal definition and can ultimately be whatever you would like it to be, it's highly subjective. And so bringing these restrictions in for speech under the guise of battling hate commentary, is a dangerous and slippery slope that could ultimately bring negative consequences to your own well-being. You never know when you might have something to say that you could be prevented from and punished for, because you previously supported the violence against others for what they said.

Pics:
pixabay