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Censorship: A dangerous and slippery slope

Censorship in whatever form it takes is dangerous. Freedom of expression is one of the things democracy is supposed to be all about. Censorship a slippery and dangerous slope when a Government starts, however slowly and perhaps even modestly, to censor this or that.

It's a topic taken up by Glenn Greenwald, writing in The Guardian, in the light of a French Minister seeking Twitter's help in curbing hateful tweets. But what are "hateful" tweets and in whose eyes?

"Writing in the Guardian today, Jason Farago praises France's women's rights minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, for demanding that Twitter help the French government criminalize ideas it dislikes. Decreeing that "hateful tweets are illegal", Farago excitingly explains how the French minister is going beyond mere prosecution for those who post such tweets and now "wants Twitter to take steps to help prosecute hate speech" by "reform[ing] the whole system by which Twitter operates", including her demand that the company "put in place alerts and security measures" to prevent tweets which French officials deem hateful. This, Farago argues, is fantastic, because - using the same argument employed by censors and tyrants of every age and every culture - new technology makes free speech far too dangerous to permit"

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