Tag: free speech
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Opposing Voices Matter
On Wednesday, September 10th, political activist and Trump devotee Charlie Kirk was shot dead during one of his campus appearances. A man of the right, Kirk styled himself as an evangelist for conservatism, Christianity, the Second Amendment, and whatever the word “anti-woke” happens to mean on any given day. The assassin has not yet explained…
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How Europe is Betraying Its Own Values
A curious spectre is haunting Europe, though it is not socialism this time; it is the creeping, bureaucratic death of liberty. Across the continent, our political class is flirting with a proposal so flagrantly absurd and authoritarian that one almost wonders if they have read a history book: the mandatory scanning of every private message,…
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Being offended
There is an old story about the Buddha and an angry old man which goes something like this. Each day the Buddha would go to the market and each day, an angry old man would come up to him and start hurling insults and abuse at him. Each day, the Buddha continues smiling and minding…
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Je suis Charlie
Earlier today, gunmen entered the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, gunning down 12 people in cold blood. The reason: the magazine published cartoons of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. This is why it is necessary to speak out against fanatical religious beliefs and to defend the right to free speech. That’s what…
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How dangerous is the ITU?
The ITU, the International Telecommunications Union is the UN agency for Information and Communication Technologies. The ITU is “committed to connecting all the world’s people – wherever they live and whatever their means”. Sounds like a very noble commitment, doesn’t it? It’s odd then, that the potentially biggest threat to the free and open Internet…
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CleanIT opens doors
Last month, I blogged about the Clean IT Project. The aim of this project is to examine the question “if we can reduce the impact of the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes, without affecting our online freedom”, however a look at a leaked document revealed that the project got somewhat derailed. The leaked…