Tag Archives: Censorship

Censorship and Freedom of Speech

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Censorship and Freedom of Speech

The other day at a Halloween party I got into a discussion with a fellow who seemed to have a confused idea of the relationship between Censorship and Freedom of Speech. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this misunderstanding both in person and more commonly in the comments section on news articles.

Today I spotted a story that I think highlights people’s confusion and I hope might illustrate the difference for you.

What is the Confusion in Censorship and Freedom of Speech?

The confusion I see fairly frequently is any type of censorship is a violation of freedom of speech. People who make this mistake generally do so because it leads them to believe their political favorites are being denied their freedom of speech through censorship.

In reality, censorship is, in most cases, actually an example of freedom of speech.

The Situation that illustrates the Proper Relationship

How are censorship and freedom of speech connected? I think sports organizations illustrate the real relationship between the two fairly well. The Big 12 athletic conferenced fined Utah Athletic Director Mark Harlan for his pointed criticism of referees after BYU defeated Utah in a football game.

My party friend would certainly argue Harlan is suffering from censorship and a denial of his freedom of speech but this is false.

The freedom of speech issue at stake here is the conference’s ability to apply censorship to members of their organization. If the government came in and fined or imprisoned the conference officials for their punishment of Harlan, that would be a violation of their freedom of speech.

The act of censorship is not a violation of freedom of speech but is actually, in this case, an expression of it. Freedom of Speech is a concept that applies to the government preventing people from speaking out, generally in a negative way about the government, but also more broadly as well.

When the Big 12 censors Harlan, which they are most certainly doing, they are not violating his freedom of speech, they are actually exercising their own.

Any organization, other than the government, can censor people as part of their rules and regulations. Even the government can do so under various circumstances. The Hatch Act prevents government officials from expressing partisanship. This is, obviously, censorship, but it is not violation of freedom of speech.

Are Athletic Organizations right to Censor Criticism of Officials?

This is another question entirely and one I thought I’d touch on briefly. I think everyone should be able to criticize anyone else, slander and defamation excluded, without fear of penalty. But that being said, the people who make the rules for the Big 12 conference are entitled to do so at their whim. As are the other athletic organizations that largely have the same rule in regards to criticism of officials.

Conclusion

None of us like it when someone speaking on a subject with which we agree is censored by an organization, but it is not a violation of freedom of speech. Understanding the relationship between censorship and freedom of speech is part of being free, although so is misunderstanding it.

Tom Liberman

The Government wants to be in the Business of Tech Censorship

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Tech Censorship

The Congress of the United States is haranguing the CEOs of the top technology companies in an effort to justify the tech censorship itch of every politician. The very idea of government choosing what citizens get to read should hopefully make your skin crawl as much as mine. Tech censorship is a bad idea, read on and I’ll tell you why I think so.

Basically, the internet is filled with a bunch of crazy stuff. Go figure. Some idiots choose to believe this nonsense, again, go figure. Because some people are really stupid, the government has decided that I must be protected and the way to do this is to enforce tech censorship. Now, the government has any number of methods by which they can control content, including limited liability laws, which I railed against elsewhere. I’m not going to get into why limited government is vital but I want to focus on the inherent problems with tech censorship.

I think it’s pretty easy to make my case when we simply examine the words of the politicians as they verbally assaulted the CEOs. The tech companies have “too much power.” That’s a rich one coming from politicians who have brutalized the Constitution of the United States, designed largely to limit government power, into a scrap of tissue paper. It is clear politicians don’t want anyone else to have too much power, they find the thought frightening.

The tech companies are accused of, in the same breath, spreading fake news and censoring political speech. Well, when political speech is fake news, it seems irrefutable that we’ve got a Catch 22 on our hands. The proverbial police officer telling a suspect to freeze and raise her or his hands. Tech companies can’t defeat this line of questioning, which is exactly the point. There is nothing the tech companies can do to stop the spread of false information without also censoring political speech. The result of this is that whatever political party happens to be in power can, for all practical purposes, dictate what is “political speech” and what is “fake news”. Do you want politicians making that decision? I don’t.

The answer isn’t giving censorship power to government, the answer is to stop trying to censor at all, you can’t win. The politicians are hoping to trap tech companies by forcing them to censor fake news while calling them out for censoring political speech. The politicians want more power, they want the power to control what you read, what you see. The politicians will stop at nothing to get this power. They are the evil in this situation.

We must dispense with the idea of censorship altogether; despite the fact some people will post vile lies in an attempt to incite violence. We cannot trust government to keep us safe, we must trust ourselves, we must be personally responsible.

Government’s idea of safety is to put us in a dark cave with a plate of food and a bowl of water and then harangue us when we fail to lick its boot and thank it for doing so.

Tom Liberman