Freedom of speech: No such thing Rural Ramblings
Long and loud and passionate are the cries for freedom of speech but, in my opinion, and especially given my profession, there is no such thing. Freedom of thought, well that’s another matter entirely.
Freedom of speech is dictatorial states is not something that is a right and saying the wrong thing will get you alternative accommodation right quick and in a hurry and sometimes worse. Yes, in democracies, one has much freer reign to say more but even then there are boundaries, legal, moral and ethical that can get you in trouble.
Sometimes you might want to say something to a family member or friend but you don’t say it because it may hurt them. Saying something that is untrue about someone or something, like a corporation, and that will could get you into the world of slander.
Take things a step further and target, people, races, governments and more with hateful rhetoric and that will possibly get you into the scope of criminality, even in democratic countries.
There have been laws about writing and publishing for a long, long time and social media platforms run very close to and often over that line often. Of course, post something controversial nowadays and that will get one noticed. As Oscar Wilde said, “There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.” I guess that’s social media in a nut shell. Some people, many people even, find the gossip and thrill of social media addictive. For myself, being an unsocial git anyway, it’s “meh.” I have no desire to gossip and even less so to document my life for the benefit of other people when likely no one is interested anyway.
Elon Musk is set to buy Twitter for U.S. $44 billion and take the company private citing he wants to see “freedom of speech.” Honestly, I don’t think this is a good business move for him and it doesn’t matter how much Twitter relaxes the rules, everywhere it operates it must abide by the laws of the land, not least the European Union (EU), with which a falling out will be expensive and damaging. I think that if Twitter becomes a platform for spreading false information and potentially libelous rhetoric then a lot of people, advertisers and organisations will distance themselves and vote with their feet. I have a Twitter account but I rarely use it, I may be one of them. Could there be room in the market for a serious competitor to Twitter? One might think so but I couldn’t possible comment. I would not be surprised if this deal didn’t go through.