Free Speech

I’ve just had a long weekend away in the Baltics; first stop Tallinn in Estonia. It’s a delightful city. Very pretty, compact and with plenty of history. The history of the last few hundred years is entwined with their large neighbour to their east, Russia. Because the Ruskies have repeatedly occupied the land known today as Estonia. Prior to that the Germans, Swedes and Danes have all taken turns in claiming the country as their own. But today, happily for the Estonians, they have full independence. And they’d like to keep it that way. Which is why they are so pro-Ukraine. The yellow and blue flag of their former SSR brothers far to the south fly all over Tallinn. They know Russia well. They aren’t fooled by Russian ‘reassurances’. They joined NATO, along with Latvia and Lithuania for good reason.

On my travels, I’m always drawn to sites and museums with 20th century historical significance. In Tallinn, I found the old KGB HQ, in a lovely corner building in the Old Town. Less lovely were the cells in the basement, a place of horror for thousands of Estonians who had the misfortune to pass through there. When the Soviets came east and invaded the country, tens of thousands of Estonians found themselves travelling west, to gulags*. It was a compulsory one way trip. Few survived the experience. Their crimes? Working in the wrong sort of profession. Belonging to the wrong sort of club. Or just saying the wrong sort of thing within earshot of the wrong sort of person.

Folk of the 21st century in the west don’t seem to me to have much of a grasp of what free speech really means. Or the difference between censorship and moderation. An increasing chunk of total internet traffic in 2024 belongs to outraged antivaxxers/Trumpists/right-wingers/Brexiters/conspiracy theorists whining on and on about how Zuckerberg or some other digital bogey man has ‘censored them and denied them their human right of free speech‘ by deleting posts that are racist or otherwise go against the T&Cs of the platform. Who knew there were so many loons out there? I recently saw a comment on Facebook calling Zuckerberg a communist. And I just thought ‘fucking hell’. Shortly after, on the same thread, a perfectly intelligent friend who is something of a free speech absolutist put up a defence of hosting child porn. What direction do you take these conversations from there?

A lot of the same folk are lauding Elon Musk as a champion of free speech. I don’t think that that is how history will record him. Providing a service designed to allow criminal activity to proceed unhindered rarely ends well. These nutters also like Trump, which I find odd because he’s spent most of the last decade making various threats against a multitude of organisations and persons, should they print or say something he doesn’t like. Which is an actual, real life threat to free speech. That’s what free speech is all about. The right to express yourself without fear of interference by a public authority**. No more than that. No one has the right to use a private platform. Or to force others to listen. Instagram isn’t a human right. And if one does find a platform, particularly social media, to be utterly objectionable, then quit it. Close the account. Delete your profile. Say goodbye.

That’s what I’ve done with Twitter/X. What was a once useful service has become riddled with hate, criminality, spam and misinformation. It’s gone that way because it’s a reflection of the mind and personality of it’s owner, Elon Musk. I’ve kept my account open, but with all the content deleted, to keep my handle. But for now, I’m a Bluesky type of dude.

* Reading the stories of what the Soviets did in the middle of last century and what Russia is doing in this century, you’re rather taken by how little changed those folk are.

** There are always reasonable legal restrictions to free speech.