{"id":284236,"date":"2023-10-20T19:55:02","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T17:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=284236"},"modified":"2023-10-20T19:55:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T17:55:05","slug":"the-westminster-declaration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=284236","title":{"rendered":"The Westminster Declaration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But around the world, there are governments and those wielding power who find many ways to obstruct it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This post\u00a0appeared first on\u00a0CFACT<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We write as journalists, artists, authors, activists, technologists, and academics to warn of increasing international censorship that threatens to erode centuries-old democratic norms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming from the left, right, and centre, we are united by our commitment to universal human rights and freedom of speech, and we are all deeply concerned about attempts to label protected speech as \u2018misinformation,\u2019 \u2018disinformation,\u2019 and other ill-defined terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This abuse of these terms has resulted in the censorship of ordinary people, journalists, and dissidents in countries all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such interference with the right to free speech suppresses valid discussion about matters of urgent public interest and undermines the foundational principles of representative democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the globe, government actors, social media companies, universities, and NGOs are increasingly working to monitor citizens and rob them of their voices. These large-scale coordinated efforts are sometimes referred to as the \u2018Censorship-Industrial Complex.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This complex often operates through direct government policies. Authorities in India[1] and Turkey[2] have seized the power to remove political content from social media. The legislature in Germany[3] and the Supreme Court in Brazil[4] are criminalising political speech. In other countries, measures such as Ireland\u2019s \u2018Hate Speech\u2019 Bill[5], Scotland\u2019s Hate Crime Act[6], the UK\u2019s Online Safety Bill[7], and Australia\u2019s \u2018Misinformation\u2019 Bill[8] threaten to severely restrict expression and create a chilling effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Censorship Industrial Complex operates through more subtle methods. These include visibility filtering, labelling, and manipulation of search engine results. Through deplatforming and flagging, social media censors have already silenced lawful opinions on topics of national and geopolitical importance. They have done so with the full support of \u2018disinformation experts\u2019 and \u2018fact-checkers\u2019 in the mainstream media, who have abandoned the journalistic values of debate and intellectual inquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Twitter Files revealed, tech companies often perform censorial \u2018content moderation\u2019 in coordination with government agencies and civil society. Soon, the European Union\u2019s Digital Services Act will formalise this relationship by giving platform data to \u2018vetted researchers\u2019 from NGOs and academia, relegating our speech rights to the discretion of these unelected and unaccountable entities.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some politicians and NGOs[9] are even aiming to target end-to-end encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram.[10] If end-to-end encryption is broken, we will have no remaining avenues for authentic private conversations in the digital sphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although foreign disinformation between states is a real issue, agencies designed to combat these threats, such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the United States, are increasingly being turned inward against the public. Under the guise of preventing harm and protecting truth, speech is being treated as a permitted activity rather than an inalienable right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We recognize that words can sometimes cause offence, but we reject the idea that hurt feelings and discomfort, even if acute, are grounds for censorship. Open discourse is the central pillar of a free society, and is essential for holding governments accountable, empowering vulnerable groups, and reducing the risk of tyranny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speech protections are not just for views we agree with; we must strenuously protect speech for the views that we most strongly oppose. Only in the public square can these views be heard and properly challenged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, time and time again, unpopular opinions and ideas have eventually become conventional wisdom. By labelling certain political or scientific positions as \u2018misinformation\u2019 or \u2018malinformation,\u2019 our societies risk getting stuck in false paradigms that will rob humanity of hard-earned knowledge and obliterate the possibility of gaining new knowledge. Free speech is our best defense against disinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attack on speech is not just about distorted rules and regulations \u2013 it is a crisis of humanity itself. Every equality and justice campaign in history has relied on an open forum to voice dissent. In countless examples, including the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement, social progress has depended on freedom of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do not want our children to grow up in a world where they live in fear of speaking their minds. We want them to grow up in a world where their ideas can be expressed, explored, and debated openly \u2013 a world that the founders of our democracies envisioned when they enshrined free speech into our laws and constitutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US First Amendment is a strong example of how the right to freedom of speech, of the press, and of conscience can be firmly protected under the law. One need not agree with the U.S. on every issue to acknowledge that this is a vital \u2018first liberty\u2019 from which all other liberties follow. It is only through free speech that we can denounce violations of our rights and fight for new freedoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There also exists a clear and robust international protection for free speech. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)[11] was drafted in 1948 in response to atrocities committed during World War II. Article 19 of the UDHR states, \u2018Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.\u2019 While there may be a need for governments to regulate some aspects of social media, such as age limits, these regulations should never infringe on the human right to freedom of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is made clear by Article 19, the corollary of the right to free speech is the right to information. In a democracy, no one has a monopoly over what is considered to be true. Rather, truth must be discovered through dialogue and debate \u2013 and we cannot discover truth without allowing for the possibility of error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Censorship in the name of \u2018preserving democracy\u2019 inverts what should be a bottom-up system of representation into a top-down system of ideological control. This censorship is ultimately counter-productive: it sows mistrust, encourages radicalization, and de-legitimizes the democratic process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the course of human history, attacks on free speech have been a precursor to attacks on all other liberties. Regimes that eroded free speech have always inevitably weakened and damaged other core democratic structures. In the same fashion, the elites that push for censorship today are also undermining democracy. What has changed, though, is the broad scale and technological tools through which censorship can be enacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We believe that free speech is essential for ensuring our safety from state abuses of power \u2013 abuses that have historically posed a far greater threat than the words of lone individuals or even organised groups. For the sake of human welfare and flourishing, we make the following 3 calls to action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n