We are often faced with difficult situations in that we have no choice but to choose the necessary evil after comparing and contrasting how beneficial or how bad it can get because the fact remains that any decision we take will have its effect on us. Looking at this week's topic, at first glance I thought I already had a pick, not until I critically analyzed them did I see how difficult it can get to choose between forgoing my freedom of speech or freedom of privacy.
A lot of things will determine my final answer, starting with my location/country. Nigeria's constitution will tell you we all have all these fundamental human rights, right to speech, right to vote and be voted fir, right to privacy, etc. but the problem is after expressing your right, what actions are taken to calm your agitation after speech, and importantly how safe are you. It is not a new story about what happened during the #Endsars protest, when angry Nigerian youths expressed their displeasure over the brutality and criminality of certain groups of the police force, youths from all over the country represented their state with one voice for the government to hear our cry and hearken unto our plea, but what did we get in return? The same government sent armed men to fire at armless civilians, killing the youths that came out to express their grievance, how do you expect us to feel free to express ourselves again when we know that our life is not safe after expressing our right to speech?
As for the right to privacy, what most of us don't know is that in this present age and time, most of our data are being stored in some database every time we click on the "I agree" contract, what about we publishers, we share our lives story every now and then, Facebook, Instagram and the likes are not left out, do you still think that we are that private, except you lived all your life in a very primate environment and never had access to the internet, you are not as private as you think. Yes, there are some levels to privacy and some secrets about an individual could lead to the end of them, but personally, as I said earlier, even though you don't post your pictures online, there is still certain information stored about you online that can be leaked with just a few clicks.
My decision
From the two compared rights above, you can already deduce my choice, it is painful to keep silent when you really want to voice it all out, it is better to make known your worries than die in silence, experience has taught us in this country that your safety after expressing your freedom to speech isn't guaranteed, still, I will rather not die I. Silence or let go of this right even though my safety is not guaranteed, other ears heard the sound of my voice and it will stay etched on their memory.
Another life lesson is that, you are in control to allow any one's hurtful word get to you, if people pry into your privacy, it's either you chose to allow them cause you depression or you ignore, our celebrities are faced with these challenges everyday, people always looking for something in their personal life to put them in the open and to bring them down, but most of them have stayed strong, not backing down, even used the said intrusion into their private life to climb higher in their career.
So that's it for me i will rather lose the right to privacy than to freedom of speech and expression.
