Free speech and fredom of thought.

We learn from a recent article in the Daily Telegraph that the Government of Saudi Arabia would like to censor a lot more of the content on the internet.

The full story is here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9602263/Anti-Islam-film-prompts-Saudi-call-for-net-censorship-body.html

Remarkably the claim is made that the recent internet video posted called "The Innocence of Muslims" is equivalent to child pornography and should be banned.

The quote provided in a submission to the UN body The World Telecommunications Policy Forum is;

"Any reasonable person would know that this film would foment violence and, indeed, many innocent persons have died and been injured with this film as a root cause,"

Ok, so it was freedom of speech that killed people? Or was it people that killed people?

Here we have the ever so slippery slope towards complete censorship, not just of the Internet but also of thought itself. Self censorship, the things that you stop yourself saying before you have uttered a word because it may offend someone else.

Australian comedian Steve Hughes deals with this point brilliantly in the stand comedy performance in the link below (I couldn't find an embeddable YouTube version sorry)

http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=29555#.UHe4Ba7cvAk

Basically he says " What's wrong with being offended?"

The sky does not fall in, your faith in your god/religion/belief system is not changed, you just disagree.

I'm offended by most of our politicians, not much changes though.

French enlightenment writer Voltaire may or may not have said:

"“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

But he certainly would defend the position of free speech and free thought.

If now we allow some countries, religions or vocal special interest groups to curb our freedom of expression (and it is already happening), it is not just our words that will be censored but our own thoughts too. Then it will be as if the enlightenment movement had achieved nothing at all and we will all be poorer.