Freedom of speech.
Are we really free to speak our minds as we see fit?
Are there limits to how much we can express ourselves?
And if yes, what are the boundaries of those limits?
These are some of the questions that the last prompt by the hive learners community on discord for this week, which is-
Over the years, the idea of freedom of speech has seemed to evolve. While people are free to speak their minds, they are also restricted to the kind of things they can say. What are your thoughts on this? Especially how it affects us presently?
"Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction by the government. The right to freedom of expression has been recognised as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law by the United Nations."
Source
I am not a law student so this topic
is a little bit out of my jurisdiction. Lol. But I know that the freedom of speech is one of the basic human rights. The paragraph above clearly defines this concept.
This right is a very fundamental right because without this, we would essentially be living in a fearful, military world. The freedom of speech is one of the hallmarks of democracy. One of the pillars that democracy is built on. Of the people, by the people, for the people.
This freedom of speech is a major factor that makes democratic leaders accountable to the public. The media is free to criticize the government as they see fit in order to call the government out on any wrongdoings of theirs and effect change in society. This is just one of the many benefits of the freedom of speech.
Even though the freedom of speech was designed to be all-encompassing, the right has been modified over the years due to observations. The freedom of speech now holds true except in cases of perjury, libel, slander, pornography, non-disclosure agreements, copyright violations, classified information, confidentiality violation by health professionals, and when it violates the right to privacy and an individual's dignity.
This are the normal cases wherein the right to freedom of speech can be bypassed within the confines of the law. However, in states like Nigeria where the structure of democracy is but a façade put up to mask the totalitarian regime that lies underneath, the freedom of speech means little.
As evidenced by the END SARS protest two years ago, the Nigerian government gives very little shit about the freedom of speech.
Innocent youth took to the streets to plead their case and the federal government employed every means at their disposal with the sole aim of silencing them. They froze people's accounts and banned Twitter to prevent the coordination of these protests across the nation. All these culminated in the unleashing of trained, armed military personnel against defenseless innoce ta who were just trying to live!
In the wake of that event, news outlets that failed to publish falsified and twisted news were reprimanded and fined. The government denied all these despite overwhelming evidence that points otherwise.
Till date, no one has been held accountable for that incident. It's all just very sad, really.
Speech is free, until it isn't.