What Is Free Speech?
The History of a Dangerous Idea
Fara Dabhoiwala
Audiobook narrated by Matthew Spencer
Having read it
★★★★☆
Academically it probably stands as a decent treatise but, aside from it being clearly well-researched and written it seemed, surprisingly for me, a bit too historical.
Having said that, the (audio)book got better as it went on (or that I started listening a bit more intently!) and those historical foundations brought a bit more context to modern times’ use and management of free speech. They also supported lots of good points as it steadily moved through its last half, raising and putting forward some very sensible and powerful approaches to collectively bettering how society and its people use and can safely, sensibly and actively be aware of it so as to develop free speech’s rights and responsibilities (and not use neoliberalism, the free market, America or its First Amendment, as a lesson in how to do that).
[...] the history of free speech matters. The richer our collective understanding of how and why, over the last three hundred years, we’ve conceived of and come to stand for ‘free speech’, the better equipped we’ll be to safeguard its future.
Here’s an appendix to my review above: Initially I transcribed bits that I thought were good and insightful (given this title was listened to) and then, a month or so later, I noticed that my local library had an actual printed hardback available to borrow. So, for the sake of completeness, I checked my transcribing attempt and, despite some errant punctuation (on both sides!) and a paragraph or two not being recognised (by me!), it was pretty close; all the points I recorded are good ones and well worth reading, a bit like the book itself!
A good passage
[...] the theory of free speech has always lagged behind its practice – greed, technological change and political expediency invariably outpace lawmakers and philosophers.
Free speech is a dangerous idea, for two reasons. One, is its potential to unsettle orthodoxy, give voice to rebels and iconoclasts, and rouse people to action. That is why we tend to celebrate it. But the other reason is more troubling. Throughout history this, resonant ideal has also been perpetually manipulated by the powerful, the malicious and the self-interested – for personal gain, to silence others, to sow dissension or subvert the truth.
Freedom of expression also can take many forms – from clothing and behaviour to film, music, cartoons and art of all kinds. But its modern history is especially bound up with the medium of print.
A second good passage
[...] But since the middle of the twentieth century in America, the increasing omnipotence of the First Amendments’s modern doctrine has gradually crowded out alternative legal and popular presumptions. Over the past few decades, its clumsy formulation has bolstered an increasingly libertarian popular attitude to personal expression. This used to be just a national phenomenon but more recently the rise of the internet has made it into a global problem.
Legally, private entities like Facebook, YouTube, X and other social media companies are not bound by the terms of the First Amendment. Yet nonetheless, as American businesses, their own policies, around the world, instinctively replicate the popular understanding of its principles. That is partly why they happily censor ‘obscenity’ (traditionally not protected by the First Amendment), yet have been much less concerned about their amplification of dangerous scientific and medical misinformation. It is also why they have been particularly reluctant to moderate any kind of ‘political’ speech, irrespective of falsehood or harm. After all, the Supreme Court has long held that political opinion is sacrosanct, and that ‘under the First Amendment, there is no such thing as a false idea’.
[...] it likewise helps explain why the treatment of hate speech by American social media companies has been so lax and erratic ? for, again, unlike in other countries, to express violently racist, antisemitic, or equivalent views is in the United States [of America] treated presumptively as legally protected free speech. In other words, it is not just the immense greed of internet giants that explains such failings, nor the intrinsic difficulty of judging these matters at scale, but the fact that their policymakers intuitively conceive of ‘free speech’ in a particular, libertarian, modern American way. Now imagine if, instead, the United States’ constitution explicitly warned against the abuse of speech, upheld the paramount importance of truth, and treated free expression as a balance between rights and responsibilities. That is the final reason it matters that its exceptionalism is, in fact, a historical accident. Not unlike the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, the First Amendment was brought to life long after its bloodline had died out. But now, we’re stuck with it.
A third good passage
[...] Even repellant ideas and fierce disagreements must be expressed in non-abusive language. None of this is easy or natural; all of these protocols have had to be laboriously invented, refined and upheld by generations of scientists and scholars. But that’s the point. Trust and authority have to be earned and constantly revalidated. To establish facts and advance the truth requires not just individual effort but lots of collective rules and agreement. In other words, the closest approximation to our popular ideal of the marketplace of ideas as a generator of truth is scholarly freedom of enquiry and debate – but what that looks like up close is the opposite of the venal, free-for-all, click-bait gutter of the real-world public sphere. Instead of absolute liberty of expression the real, truth-seeking marketplace depends on all sorts of regulation.
That may seem like a paradox, but it isn’t really. It’s the logical outcome of considering what freedom of enquiry might be for, and how we collectively could best pursue that aim. Different ends require different means. Free speech, too, can have various different aims. Its history does not suggest that greater freedom of expression automatically leads to better outcomes, that liberty of speech should necessarily be allowed to trump other principles, or even that it is best conceived of only as an individual right, rather than as a public or collective good. In fact, that history always leads us back to harder and more fundamental questions. What should ‘freedom’ mean, and whose freedom are we talking about? What are our aims as a society, and how can we advance them? What do we do when those ends conflict with each other or, we ourselves cannot agree? What kinds of communication help or hinder us in resolving those problems? Just talking in the abstract about ‘free speech’ won’t get us very far; nor will setting up legal doctrines in how communication really works in the world. Only by perusing those ever-evolving basic questions can we truly begin to grasp what free speech is, could be or should be – and hence, to arrive at a better understanding of ourselves, and each other.