--- title: "Freedom of Expression" url: "https://books.mutin.life/7/choose-life-habits-that-feel-good-and-do-good/76/freedom-of-expression" --- # Freedom of Expression Who can claim to hold the truth and be certain of never being wrong? Who can claim to know everything and decide what is good for all of humanity? No one. Those who believe themselves entitled to impose on all of humanity what may be said and what may not be said are dangerous. To be avoided like the plague: they represent an extreme danger. For they are the ones who put in place dictatorships that cause thousands of deaths. There are enough examples in the past to observe and record that as soon as free speech is suppressed under a dictatorship, the number of tortured and dead is disastrous. Moreover, banning certain speech by force only increases the hatred felt by those thus oppressed. Banning free speech triggers hatred and accelerates the escalation of violence. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Preserving freedom of expression It is vital to preserve freedom of expression. It is by communicating with others, by exchanging different ideas and points of view, that we evolve and progress towards better paths. Conversely, cutting off communication freezes the current situation as it is; nothing moves or evolves anymore, everyone remains stuck on their ideas and beliefs, and there is then no hope of improvement. Shutting ourselves away in a microcosm of people who think exactly like us is reassuring and comfortable, because no one contradicts us. On the other hand, it closes the door to any evolution that could have led us to something even better. What is the risk? If we consider our values solid enough, then we are not afraid to listen to opinions different from ours, as long as they are expressed calmly. In the same way, if we want our ideas to be understood and perhaps even adopted, it is necessary to talk about them, to communicate. Always remaining calm. It is an exchange, a sharing of ideas, which brings reflection, and which allows us to evolve — or not. We may hold our positions, but we may also move forward and modify our perceptions and our understanding to build slightly different, or even very different, opinions. On the other hand, if everyone stays in their little social comfort zone, associating only with people who think exactly like them, that is certainly not how the world will get better. Intolerance leads only to wars and conflicts. Closed-mindedness leads only to hatred and violence. So it is not by staying in our circle of people who think exactly like us, refusing to see and communicate with people who have different opinions, that the world will get better. Cutting off communication only generates hatred and contributes to the escalation of violence. Whatever the messages or ideas we wish to communicate, we can communicate them calmly, in a neutral tone. Remaining open and attentive to feedback, while staying calm, whether others' opinions go in the same direction as ours or differ. Communicating calmly and exchanging with people who hold different opinions allows us to reflect, to ask ourselves questions, to move forward while forming our own opinion along the way. The more numerous and varied the exchanges have been, the lower the risk of error and of going down the wrong path. The best way to communicate is to meet face to face, because this allows us to see the other person's behaviour and hear the tone of their voice. Indeed, when we wish to convey a message or make an idea understood, 93% of the content of exchanges passes essentially through body language (55%) and tone of voice (38%). Only 7% of the message passes through words. Written messages, without seeing or hearing each other — and especially very short messages — do nothing but damage, often irreversible. Meeting in person to exchange is the only way to guarantee real understanding of the message we wish to convey, or that our interlocutor wanted to transmit to us. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Communicating calmly and respectfully If we find ourselves facing people who express themselves aggressively, in a violent tone, who generate hatred among their interlocutors and within ourselves, there are two options: - Either we are solid enough to stay calm and try to communicate with these people, attempting to soothe their tone - Or we are too fragile for that, because these people frighten us or make a growing hatred rise within us — and in that case, if we are no longer capable of staying calm, it is better to flee these people and no longer see them. It is indeed less bad than responding with remarks as aggressive as theirs, which only exacerbate the hatred and violence on the other side. It is a real tour de force, and the mark of great inner strength, to know how to stay calm and cool-headed in the face of someone whose tone is rising, or who acts perversely. People who manage to keep their cool are rare, and of great value. If we are not solid enough to stay calm and open-minded and to keep speaking calmly to people with violent behaviour, then the lesser evil is to cut off communication with these people, before letting ourselves be invaded by a hatred that destroys us. When associating with a person, or when listening to or reading certain media, only sows and nurtures hatred within us towards others, or destroys us inwardly, it is up to each of us to be responsible enough to cut off communication with that person, or to stop listening to or reading the information broadcast by those media. Finally, if people or media harass us, it is then a matter for the courts; it is up to each person to call on the forces of order. There is indeed a big difference between: - leaving everyone the freedom to express themselves, leaving anyone who so chooses free to listen to or read their words - prohibiting anyone from forcing someone to listen to them and follow them, through harassment or threats If a person harasses us and does not respect our private life, we can then call on the forces of order. It is in this last case only that the use of force is necessary: as soon as there is verbal or physical assault, or proven harassment. That is the only case where the forces of order intervene: in the case of legitimate defence. To a lesser extent, admittedly — but the establishment of dictatorships often begins there — it is important not to let any form of advertising invade our private lives. It is through this channel that all propaganda begins. Advertising, growing scam attempts and unsolicited propaganda messages increasingly invade our letterboxes, our email inboxes, our phones, our voicemail, our text messages, television, the websites and social networks we consult. It is a form of harassment, against which we should go to the courts and report the prohibited practices via the services currently in place — even if these services are currently completely overwhelmed by the number of complaints and are therefore, for the moment, not very effective. To protect ourselves from advertising, we can at least stop watching television and add an ad blocker to our browsers so we are no longer invaded on the websites we consult. Behind these advertisements that push us to consume ever more things we do not really need are those same lobbies of big industrialists who run countries and the European Union from the shadows. Let us not let them influence us by letting them invade our private lives. Let us know how to put up protective barriers against this kind of forced intrusion into our private lives, which we did not ask for, and which often does not respect the laws currently in place — laws that are unfortunately still too permissive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## The importance of choosing media with a calm and respectful tone Each of us chooses the people we wish to meet, see, and exchange with, according to whether they are people who communicate calmly — or unless we are solid enough to exchange with them calmly. Likewise, each of us chooses the sources of information we wish to watch or read: newspapers, videos, websites... We force no one to read, listen to, or watch any particular media. It is each person's responsibility to choose the media or sources of information they wish to read or listen to. If media — whatever their political colour, or apolitical — advocate violence or generate hatred within us, it is each person's responsibility to stop reading, listening to, or watching them. Take merely a debate between politicians or journalists spitting accusations in each other's faces: it is being responsible not to watch or listen to these outbursts of violence, which then rub off on us by generating hatred within us. Or to choose the even more radical option of no longer listening to or reading the news, cutting ourselves off from the media and no longer knowing what is happening beyond our own neighbourhood: this solution is still less bad than listening to media that generate violence and hatred. In the same way, social networks represent an extreme danger in that the algorithms that select the messages displayed on a user's screen are programmed to show only content matching the interests identified for that particular user. The user will therefore see only messages whose content matches their ideas, their beliefs, their subjects of interest. Not only will they never evolve in their thought patterns, which will stagnate in their current state, but on top of that, this user will have the impression that the whole world thinks like them, since they see only messages they like, without being aware that the algorithms have pre-sorted upstream. This is how many people get indoctrinated into dangerous and extreme systems of thought, which can lead to violence. If we want to avoid this kind of very perverse pitfall, let us flee social networks — or at least all those that spread hatred and aggression. Let us flee the people and the media that generate hatred within us towards others. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## The importance of respecting privacy The more difficult the situation becomes with the dwindling of the Earth's resources, the more the emergence of dictatorships is to be feared. The past does not lack examples of the horrors that totalitarian regimes — of the left as of the right, or even of the "centre" — are capable of when they start monitoring the content of anyone's messages. The slightest misinterpretation, the slightest remark they do not like, and the author ends up in gulags or concentration camps, after being atrociously tortured. It is upstream that we should protect the exchanges we wish to keep private. It is because freedom of expression is constantly under threat that the content of our exchanges should remain hidden. Messaging services in particular should all be private spaces and respect the confidentiality of our exchanges; no one has the right to know the content of our exchanges with others. The content of our messages should therefore be encrypted — that is, indecipherable to strangers. It is therefore wise to opt for messaging services that are encrypted, and ideally end-to-end encrypted, like Signal. An end-to-end encrypted messaging service means that only the authors of the messages hold the keys to decrypt their messages. An encrypted messaging service that is not end-to-end means that the company offering the service holds the keys to decrypt the messages of all its customers. Unfortunately, regarding email, even using services like Proton and Tuta that encrypt end-to-end, the recipients we write to would also need to have opted for the same secure email service. But what hope do we have of convincing everyone to use the same email service? Besides, for the moment the majority of the population is unaware of the importance of encrypting the content of their emails, and mostly uses unencrypted email services. Even if a small group of people decided to use the same end-to-end encrypted email service, it only takes one recipient of an email inadvertently forwarding it to another person using an unencrypted mailbox and — presto — the content of that message has become readable by any intruder or any algorithm. If we truly care about the content of our messages remaining confidential, let us above all not use email. Using encrypted email services nevertheless prevents any employee or any algorithm of the company in question from having access to the content of our messages without even needing a key to decrypt them. Curious how there has recently been very strong attention on the importance of encrypting message content on apps like Signal, whereas for email there is no such requirement. Nevertheless, using an encrypted messaging service is not enough, since under pressure from police authorities, these messaging services can be ordered to disclose the content of our messages, or failing that, our IP addresses. Proton, for example, has already yielded more than once by disclosing the IP addresses of some of its users, leading notably to the arrest of climate activists. Let us keep in mind that using the Internet, the telephone, and to a lesser extent paper mail, always carries a risk of our communications being intercepted. Especially via the Internet and the telephone — it has become so simple for algorithms to automatically harvest personal information about us. If we want to increase our security on the Internet by masking our IP addresses, it becomes essential to use a VPN, and even to combine it with the Tor network. Despite this, security flaws are always possible. If only through one of our contacts, who may have a password too easy to guess, or who unintentionally discloses their password, thus allowing a malicious individual to impersonate them and try to extort personal information from us. Let us keep in mind that even with services that encrypt our data, the authorities in any country are able to change the laws at any time, thereby forcing companies to disclose and decrypt data. If we really want to keep certain opinions, ideas, or any other aspect of our personality private and hidden, we must not disclose them via the Internet, nor by telephone, nor by mail. It may seem exaggerated and paranoid to wish for our conversations to remain private; many indeed like to retort that they have nothing to hide and therefore fear nothing. Nevertheless, the perversity of certain human beings needs no further proof, and history does not lack examples of mass surveillance proving that it is necessary to remain vigilant about the private character of our messages. Why are our personal data continuously monitored and analysed by algorithms? Because it makes it possible to control us better. To constrain us better, subjugate us better, manipulate us better. Directly, by denying us access to certain rights and services if our behaviour is judged "bad". Indirectly and insidiously, by knowing which advertisements to show us to push us to consume ever more, by knowing which speeches to deliver to win votes and be elected, by knowing which news and information feeds to display on social networks and other platforms to spread fear or to push us, through the pressure of the media and other small groups, towards a single, totalitarian mode of behaviour and thought. Why would our personal data be continuously analysed if not to control us? Accepting to be under permanent surveillance is renouncing freedom of expression. *Saying "I have nothing to hide because I am doing nothing wrong" amounts to saying "I don't care about freedom of expression because I have nothing to say."* Edward Snowden Freedom of expression is never "guaranteed": the proof is that messages posted on social networks — thus unencrypted messages, whose authors wish them to be read by as many people as possible — are regularly deleted by the administrators of these social networks because they are judged "unacceptable" or contrary to the "majority line of thought" of the moment. The people at the head of these social networks also sometimes take the decision to delete a user's account outright, removing their ability to recreate an account so that they can no longer express their ideas and opinions on these social networks. Likewise, certain media receive threats from the State (non-renewal of TV channels, fines, criminal prosecution...) when some of their content is judged "unacceptable" in the eyes of those in power at that moment. From there to the same kind of restrictions being applied following the analysis of our private messages by algorithms, there is only one step. An example of the dramatic consequences mass surveillance could produce: *The algorithms that analyse our digital data are able to establish a "score" for each of us, based on criminal records, what we say on social networks, what we buy, and even the score of our friends.* *This score, established from mediocre algorithms, does not represent who we are: we cannot be reduced to our digital data; we are more than that. Only those close to us, who really know us because they regularly see us act before their eyes, are capable of saying whether we are trustworthy.* *If we have a low score, it could prevent us from getting a job, a bank loan, a professional appointment, a visa...* ***Social pressure is the strongest and most subtle form of control.*** *This creates a society where self-censorship and risk aversion are the new norm.* *When algorithms judge everything we do, we must protect the right to make mistakes.* *When everything is memorised by "big data", the right for our mistakes to be forgotten is necessary.* *Privacy is having the right to be human.* Freedom and a healthy lifestyle - Pavel Durov