Humankind’s fight for freedom of expression and information has been
hard and persistent. In medieval Europe, for
example, people’s sources for knowledge were rather limited, as the church
was the only institution possessing the power to multiply texts. Thus, the
range of ideas and opinions was limited. However, the invention of the printing
press in the 15th century marked the beginning of a revolutionary
development. It enabled people to spread and receive information unregulated by
the church and helped to bring on further events, most notably of which is the so called democratization of knowledge.
Nowadays, the values our ancestors fought for represent an inherent part of human rights laws, such as the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, we have the omnipotent and ideal platform to enable a vast number of people to receive essays, articles, comments, pictures, videos, ideas and opinions published by a vast number of people: the Internet. Funnily enough, we, unlike our ancestors, are flooded by all different kinds of information. One might have hoped that this would bring full enlightenment and awareness. Unfortunately, it seems to be impossible to gather all the existing data, even harder to analyse and understand it all, which is why we rely on the media filtering it for us.
Nowadays, the values our ancestors fought for represent an inherent part of human rights laws, such as the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, we have the omnipotent and ideal platform to enable a vast number of people to receive essays, articles, comments, pictures, videos, ideas and opinions published by a vast number of people: the Internet. Funnily enough, we, unlike our ancestors, are flooded by all different kinds of information. One might have hoped that this would bring full enlightenment and awareness. Unfortunately, it seems to be impossible to gather all the existing data, even harder to analyse and understand it all, which is why we rely on the media filtering it for us.
This leads to a big dilemma. Every person can spread their thoughts,
which also includes right-wing populists, while the media seems to show a very
one-sided view on things. Current events in Britain and in the USA clearly illustrate that people are not
content with the way the media comments on certain topics and feel misunderstood.
Meanwhile, populists use the numerous possibilities the Internet provides to
reach out to those people. The concept of free speech is supposed to work in a
self-correcting way, however, at this stage, it is difficult to keep track of
everything that is happening and one can only try to have an open mind about
it.
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