The turmoil and disruption in societies now is part of a process of change when traditional gate-keepers lose power, he says. “And I believe that a much stronger signal to counter hatred and racism by civil society coming together mobilising, rather than entrusting the state with the power to punish certain views.” “It is certainly true that it also allows and amplifies in an age of social media those with hateful voices, but we can also mobilise and use free speech to counter those movements. When facing real and imagined crises this tendency of what I call elite panic of governments to say, Oh, we're faced with a crisis, we have to crack down on speech.”įree speech serves as one of the “most powerful engines of human equality and dignity that human beings have ever stumbled upon," he says.Ī collective response to hateful speech is more powerful than any government-mandated crackdown, he says. It's based on real concrete examples of government overreach.
“So, it's not this abstract principle that has been taken to the extremes. “One of the reasons why Americans have developed a very robust protection of free speech is because if you, for instance, were to go back 100 years, you could be sent to prison for 10 or 20 years if you opposed American involvement in World War I. He believes the defence of free speech in the US has been a powerful force for change. “The problem though is restrictions on free speech is that part of the problem, or is the cure worse than the disease?” Free speech brings with it harm and costs but restricting it is dangerous, Mchangama tells Kim Hill.
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