I appreciate this awesome opportunity given to pen my take on What Free Speech mean to me and Why I believe Free Speech is important and worth saving in response to the FreeSpeech Initiative created by one of hive blockchain favourite content creator and investor @Theycallmedan. This is a timely initiative, as the world is facing anti-freespeech efforts that is plaguing development and weakening the fabrics of humanity. Though many would be of the opinion that nothing in life is really free. Agreed, but who should pay the fee for free speech? Let's have a happy read.
According to Wikipedia, freespeech 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. It sometimes covers any act of seeking, receiving, and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used.
As opposed to the tenets of #freespeech, speech censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient."source Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and corporations and is usually crafted by those in power who wish to be the only cock that crows. Sometimes, the denial of freespeech is never easily noticed as noted by Theycallmedan.
Freedoms are not taken all at once. They are taken one inch at a time. First, they take the low hanging fruit to condition you into accepting small freedoms being taken. Inches gone are not noticed until they become miles. By that time, it’s too late..
Just like Quarantine Impedes my(our) Freedom of movement and Denies us Social Bonds which define humanity, so is the cruelty of Speech censorship which deny humanity of true interaction, collaboration and share of love.
Many of us would recount again and again how uncomfortable we are with this lockdown imposed on our environment following Covid-19 outbreak. We know the pains that families are going through especially those who depend on their daily menial income to survive.
We know how much our relationships and social bonds have been severed due to the quarantine, all this seeking to make humans more like machines and beings without stimulus. Simply put, it strips away the essence of humanity which is social bonds.
Free Speech censorship is as cruel as Forceful quarantine of people who have tasted freedom.
Why Muzzle the Ox that threshes your Corn?
Permit me to start my argument in favour of the importance of Freespeech and why I think it's worth saving by borrowing the Biblical text in 1 Timothy 5:18:
“For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward"
Truth be told that content creators are the image makers of any content platform. Also, what makes any leadership relevant is the crop of followers that it has. What also gives value to an organization is the quality of its members identified as being "men of Integrity" because they say the truth at all times. Sadly, these people are those that management always want to keep them mute.
The Biblical contest cited above is a command from God that the mouth of the Ox that threshes corn should be left free to also eat of the corn it threshes. That should be it's reward. However, if we give a critical thought on the above narrative, we see that only stingy and wicked corn owners would want to muzzle the ox's mouth while subjecting it to forced labour.
The truth is that if management of an organization or leaders of a community are at their best, they won't bother about what the followers/members would say because they'll always say the right thing and sing their (leaders') praises.
Why FreeSpeech should be Preserved
From the above discussed, it is evident that #Freespeech is the best way to put a leader under check and harness optimum performance, while ensuring equitable distribution of resources and reducing the excesses of the defects of ONE man. This is because the leadership knows that the followers are at liberty to tell the world how they've been treated.
FreeSpeech is the catalyst to human connection, interaction and collaboration which is essential to the growth, development and happiness.
FreeSpeech promotes decentralized governance and allows everyone to contribute meaningfully to an organization's growth.
Freespeech reduces the cost of governance as it allows for the extraction of "sense" from everyone's "nonsense".
A world that is giving it's best to its inhabitants is such that would promote freespeech. The value of free expression seems so fundamental to me that it hardly needs a defense.
Thank you for giving your valuable time to the read of this original piece.
I am Uyobong Mbaba
I support #FreeSpeech
I Support #Humanity
I support Collaboration
I support #Dentralization