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Of free speech 1
If freedom of expression were only an individual right, a majority of people saying “I don’t care about all this stuff, I have nothing to say or hide” would be enough to legitimize censorship and mass surveillance.
- By the way, it is important to note the individualistic vision of this type of comment “I don’t care if my neighbour has things to say or hide” which has as corollaries “I don’t want to hear what he has to say” and “if he has things to hide, it’s illegal”. Of course, individualism is part of the evils that plague our societies, but it is another subject.
But freedom of expression is also a collective good, and it is as such that it must be protected. The question of course guides the answer, and the question to ask to reflect the collective aspect would rather be “do you blindly trust the authorities in place to defend the collective interest?”
In other words, even if we have nothing to say or hide, protecting freedom of expression concerns us all equally. It amounts to the freedom to be informed independently of any authority.