We must not shy away from the fight for free speech

Far more people believe in free speech than are willing to risk defending it. That must change.

When I first read John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, as a starry-eyed young socialist, my first thought was, ‘What’s all the fuss about?’. I recognised that it had some good principles in it, but surely nobody would actually disagree with them today?

How times change. Fast forward just a few years and free speech is under attack even in countries where it had appeared to have become part of the furniture.

A common refrain deployed in response to concerns about the health of free speech is that our only concern should be the role of the state. That is to say, freedom of speech is solely a question of what the government allows you to say. By this analysis, I can’t complain if my university only invites speakers from one end of the political spectrum, or if a theatre is pressured into cancelling a controversial show. Or I can complain, but I am not supposed to argue that free speech is being undermined because the state is not involved.

The truth is rather different. First, there actually is a great deal of state censorship in the West, particularly in Europe. Hate-speech laws allow the authorities to gag and punish dissenters, and the list of people who have fallen victim to this state censorship is growing.

However, the bigger problem with the free-speech sceptic’s refrain is the idea that the state is the only relevant player. It is quite remarkable that people still produce this argument, over 150 years after Mill demonstrated its falsity. Mill identified that the greatest threat to freedom of speech was the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Today we might call this the tyranny of the loud – for people do not need to be in the majority to have their opinions seem like they are.

In fact, Mill could easily have been writing today. Witness the pile-ons when people step out of line on social media, the hatred visited upon them, and then the inevitable exile from various platforms. See the threats to life and livelihood aimed at controversial commentators. Contemplate how many people hold back from sharing their real opinions out of fear for their jobs, their friendships, and their reputations.

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