{"id":885,"date":"2014-02-19T20:57:03","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T20:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?p=885"},"modified":"2020-08-26T15:17:23","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T22:17:23","slug":"without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/","title":{"rendered":"Without Anonymity, Free Speech Does Not Exist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Politicians and bureaucrats who clamp down on anonymity sometimes claim that an absence of anonymity has no adverse effect on freedom of speech. This is an outright lie; without anonymity, there is no freedom of speech at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Freedom of speech is one of the central tenets of what we consider modern society. The soapbox on street corners with the people speaking their mind \u2013 even if usually to an empty audience \u2013 are more than lone eccentrics; they symbolize the essence of a free battle of ideas, where the best ones eventually make it to policy.<\/p>\n<p>This is a very idealized way of looking at a democratic nation, but it is still an ideal to strive for: the concept that anybody may state any opinion, and if that opinion is interesting and entertainingly expressed, may get an audience and a following. \u201cAnybody\u201d here is really supposed to be just that \u2013 a European Commissioner, a Fortune-500 CEO, or a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fQtsdLB5MhQ\">14-year old Pakistani girl<\/a> alike.<\/p>\n<p>However, this is idealized theory, far from reality.<\/p>\n<p>In the real world, most strings are pulled by vested interests. People who have the most to lose because of progress are, surprisingly and counterintuitively, those who are afforded \u2013 and can afford \u2013 the most protection from new ideas taking hold. This takes many forms, but the effect of all of it is that those who state opinions, facts, or discoveries that threaten vested interests are sometimes made to suffer for it, <em>even<\/em> \u2013 and this is important \u2013 <em>even<\/em> if those ideas or opinions are completely in the right, and if humanity as a whole would benefit from them.<\/p>\n<p>The world is run by vested interests. Mostly, at least.<\/p>\n<p>This is why anonymity is such a key tenet of freedom of speech. You\u2019ll find no shortage of these vested interests who claim to support freedom of speech, but in the same breath, add that everybody must also be held \u201caccountable for their opinions\u201d. This is not freedom of speech; this is the <em>complete opposite<\/em> of freedom of speech.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cFreedom of speech\u201d is really shorthand for \u201cFreedom from repercussions for speaking one\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If people are made to suffer because their opinion can topple entrenched interests, then those opinions will be withheld. But entrenched interests aren\u2019t supposed to be running the world; a free and open battle of publicly evaluated ideas and evidence is. <\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why anonymity is so vitally important: it <em>separates<\/em> the opinions, statements, ideas, and studies from somebody who can be made to suffer for publishing them. People and vested interests who hate progress would like to make progress suffer, and have the monetary means to do so \u2013 but without the crucial ability to associate that progress to a person with the ability to suffer, no money is able to hold back good ideas.<\/p>\n<p>Consider that a constitutionally protected freedom of speech was never needed to express popular ideas in the mainstream. It\u2019s the power-threatening ideas, the offensive ideas, even the dangerous ideas, that require \u2013 and deserve \u2013 such protection. Nobody ever needed to call upon the authority of the Constitution to claim that fluffy kittens are cute.<\/p>\n<p>To illustrate how bastardized the concept of \u201cfreedom of speech\u201d can get by those who seek to express the complete opposite, let\u2019s illustrate with a quote from a more infamous head of state:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cYou have freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom <u>after<\/u> speech.\u201d \u2014 Idi Amin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Freedom of speech is, and has always been, linked to the ability to express yourself without being identified. Without anonymity, there is no freedom of speech.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, your anonymity remains your own responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politicians and bureaucrats who clamp down on anonymity sometimes claim that an absence of anonymity has no adverse effect on freedom of speech. This is an outright lie; without anonymity, there is no freedom of speech at all. Freedom of speech is one of the central tenets of what we consider modern society. The soapbox &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Without Anonymity, Free Speech Does Not Exist&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":true,"_modified_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.9 (Yoast SEO v26.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Without Anonymity, Free Speech Does Not Exist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Politicians and bureaucrats who clamp down on anonymity sometimes claim that an absence of anonymity has no adverse effect on freedom of speech. This is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Without Anonymity, Free Speech Does Not Exist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Politicians and bureaucrats who clamp down on anonymity sometimes claim that an absence of anonymity has no adverse effect on freedom of speech. This is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PIA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-19T20:57:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-26T22:17:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ogimage.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@buyvpnservice\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rick Falkvinge\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4\"},\"headline\":\"Without Anonymity, Free Speech Does Not Exist\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-02-19T20:57:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-26T22:17:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/\"},\"wordCount\":615,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"General Privacy News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/without-anonymity-free-speech-does-not-exist\/\",\"name\":\"Without Anonymity, Free Speech Does Not Exist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-02-19T20:57:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-26T22:17:23+00:00\",\"description\":\"Politicians and bureaucrats who clamp down on anonymity sometimes claim that an absence of anonymity has no adverse effect on freedom of speech. 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