In a previous blog post I wrote a concise but complete definition of what I understand the concept of freedom of speech, the right to free speech, to be, in a short and concise format that's handy to refer to. This definition consisted of four rules. In these subsequent posts I'm going to delve deeper into each rule. This post is about rule 1, which said:
You should have the fundamental right to express your opinions in a public forum to anybody who is willing to listen, without impediment or restrictions, and without punishment or negative consequences. (Nobody has to provide the means for you to do this, but neither should anybody try to actively stop you from doing it by deliberately putting obstacles or impediments in your way, or trying to stop the opinions from being heard.)
Public forums vs. private property
People who want to restrict free speech (especially the far left) often present all kinds of objections to the concept, or its definition. I have tried to proactively address every possible objection in these rules.
The right of expression of free speech applies primarily to public forums. Owners of private property have the legal and ethical right to limit who can speak in their property, and what can be spoken. (It's up to the socio-philosophical principles held by each individual who they allow to speak in their property and what they allow them to say.)
Note, however, that some forms of private property are platforms of communication open to the public and, by their nature, can be considered "public forums" even if they are within private property. Perhaps the best example of this is a telephone service: Even though the telephone service, including all the hardware required for people to communicate with each other through that service, is privately owned (unless owned by the government in some countries), it is still a form of public forum, which is open to the public, and which people can use to communicate their opinions to other people.
In this kind of service it should not be the business of the telephone company to listen to and monitor what people are saying to each other, and censor people who are saying things that the company does not approve of. By the very nature of the service being a communication platform open to the public, the service provider should remain neutral in all matters of communication (with any intervention done only when required by law enforcement officials or if the customer breaches the agreed-on usage rules otherwise). Quite naturally the telephone company cannot, and should not, be held responsible for anything that their customers tell each other through their service. Since by the nature of the service it's not the company's business to monitor what people say to each other, consequently the company cannot be held responsible for what is being said, even if it's something illegal. (As already mentioned, the company should intervene only when required by law.)
If a company providing such an open communication platform does start listening to what people are saying and censoring them based on the company's own judgment, then that should change things. In this case the company should be liable for any illegal material that's distributed through their service. This is because the company has now chosen to be the arbiter of what is and is not transmitted through their service, and thus the service has stopped being a public forum and has become a private publication instead. This is in essence no different from a newspaper choosing to publish readers' opinion pieces sent to them: This choice makes them a publisher, not a public forum.
Without impediments or restrictions
A common (and extremely opportunistic) claim, and distortion, about the principle of right to free speech is the notion that it only applies to not physically restraining the speaker or physically and forcefully removing him or her from the public forum. Otherwise people should be free to disturb, disrupt, block or interfere (eg. acoustically or visually) with the expression of opinion, making it hard or impossible to be heard.
It should be very obvious how ridiculous this notion is. If you support freedom of speech, then you support people's rights to express their opinions freely without deliberate interference, impediments, barriers or restrictions. Anybody who wants to listen to the opinion should be able to do so without being deliberately disrupted, stopping the opinion from being heard or understood. It does not matter if you agree with those opinions or not, if you support freedom of speech, you should support people's rights to express their opinions without disturbance and impediment, regardless of how you personally feel about those opinions.
Nobody has to actively provide other people the means to communicate their opinions to others, but conversely nobody should actively seek to stop it from happening, no matter what the means. Disruptive behavior that deliberately stops or hinders people from being able to communicate is not acceptable.
Without punishment or negative consequences
This is, by far, the most important part of the concept of freedom of speech, and its essential core.
The very notion of free speech is that you are able to express your opinions without punishment and without negative consequences. If there is some kind of punishment for your expression of opinion, some kind of negative consequences, then it's not free speech anymore. It's punishable speech. It's restricted speech. It's the complete opposite of free speech.
In terms of the legal aspect of free speech this obviously means that the government should not punish you for your expression of opinion. In terms of the philosophical principle of free speech this means that you respect that person's right to express his or her opinions, and do not deliberately seek to punish that person with some kind of negative consequences. (By "negative consequences" I am not here talking about, for example, you considering that person detestable and despicable, and you becoming extremely antipathic towards that person and wanting to avoid that person. I am, rather obviously, talking about real harm done to that person or his or her life, livelihood or living conditions, caused by people deliberately seeking for that harm to be bestowed upon that person because of that speech.)
Right to free speech includes right to criticism
It's very important to understand that criticism of what has been said is not the sort of "negative consequences" referred to above. In fact, it's the polar opposite: The right to criticism is a core essence of free speech, an integral and fundamental part of it.
Some misguided and misinformed people sometimes argue along the lines of: "Your criticism of what I have said infringes on my right to free speech." This is a complete misunderstanding of what "freedom of speech" means. Freedom of speech most certainly and absolutely includes the right to criticism, the right to criticize what others have said or claimed. It's a core essence of it and arguably the most fundamental part of it. Remove it, and you have pretty much destroyed the entire concept of free speech.
Criticism should not be disruptive and stop the original message from being heard and understood. All opinions should have their opportunity to be expressed in an orderly and peaceful manner, including responses to and criticism of other people's opinions and claims, without being deliberately disrupted and stopped from being divulged.
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