Bonum Certa Men Certa

Dawg, I Herd You Like Freedom

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jun 19, 2024

Pies, spring 2021, Lublin, Poland

Freedom of thought, like many other freedom "types" (association, speech, software etc.), boils down to holding particular views without fear of reprisal, either real or perceived (borderline paranoia or "cold feet"). If there is a risk associated with the embrace of some particular ideology, it discourages the outward expression (i.e. spread) of that ideology.

In the context of Software Freedom, little is ever said about free speech, except by means of analogy, as in, "think about free speech, not free beer" (an old adage from RMS).

There's a more profound analogy somewhere therein. Maintaining a particular belief and spreading or defending that belief may depend on privacy, censorship resistance etc. There are many ways to suppress certain beliefs, ranging from death threats to actual assassination, or from threats of lawsuit to actually paying lawyers $30,000 to send ~1,000 pages of legal documents to a doorstep.

There seems to be growing recognition of the importance of free speech in the Freedom Software (or Free software) world. There have been many discussions about that lately, including behind closed doors and in private.

Earlier today we wrote about how Freedom Software relates to injustice and inequality. In the coming years we hope to write more about how the relationship between Free software and free speech works out in practice.

The fervent belief in free speech isn't some "Libertarian" thing (or "liberal" thing). It's a human rights things. It's about being able to expose crimes without facing threats from the criminals one exposes.

Earlier today we wrote about EU "chat control" (there are other names for it, depending on the member state, including "chat control 2"). At the moment it's not just free speech that's under attack but also protected or privileged speech. In an ideal world, wherein exposing high-profile criminals is doable as means of eliminating them from society, encryption (end-to-end, the proper way) is the norm. There's no room for compromise on this.

The lawmaking dynamics are sadly controlled by the rich and powerful. This means that most new laws that are being passed exist merely to protect or cement the power of the already-powerful. The interplays or the interactions between legality and ethics were explored months ago by RMS. To quote: "In some cases, we contend, morality and legality say opposite things. In the US, distributing a program that can break DRM is illegal; the companies that implement DRM point to this, and hope you will confuse legality with morality. We are careful not to get confused that way. Breaking DRM is morally admirable; what's immoral is to implement DRM."

Well, "chat control 2" would be another good example of it. They're hoping to criminalise private communications. Where does this insanity end?

Forest Niemce Poland

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete
Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
Links for the day
India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders