It came to my attention that Amnesty International Norway (a bit contradictory name..) have a freedom of speech day, namely today. Several of the blogs that I frequently read have posted some thoughts on the topic – so I thought I would set of and both think and write some on the topic.

Freedom of speech is probably one of the foundational human rights that we have, at least in the western world. The internet as we know it is based on this – everyone can say whatever they want and reach out to everyone else. However that is somewhat misleading. Cencoring of the internet is sadly an increasing trend. Governments, ISPs and even small scale businesses cencor pages. Although most of us agree that some pages on the web should be taken away it is not that easy to decide who should take this decision – is it the majority, the elected government, the unelected government – or is it someone else.

The Pirate bay (spec)trial is raging in the news – everyone has an opinion, and everyone should be entitled to one – but are they? Are everyone entitled to externalize and publish their thoughts? Well, the plain answer is, sadly, no. Why? Well, fear is probably the most common reason, secondly greed. Fear that someone may get information that you hold secret. Secondly a desire to have at least what you have, or preferably even more of what you have.

A bit on the philosophical lane there – anyway. I support strongly the freedom of speech – but also the freedom to choose! If someone utter something I don not want to hear, then I would like to have the freedom of choosing not to hear them – however I would like to have the possibility.

End up in having the feeling that I haven’t covered anything in this post, but probably some of my thoughts on freedom of speech is captured here:)