Everybody knows the concept of "freedom of speech".
You might be free to express your opinion, but your freedom to express yourself is very limitied when you do not have access
to all the appropriate information to form an opinion.
For a free formation of opinion one must have free access to all relevant information. You could go to a library, but they don't
always have what you're looking for. So you have to look for another more specialized library in a big city, visit newspaper archives, make appointments,
take opening hours in to account, etc..
For a free formation of opinion you'll need free access to books, magazines, newspapers, documentaries, movies and also to music and
information about the artists.
So there are some snags on the free formation of an opinion.
Fortunately we now have the internet, we are no longer bound to specialized libraries in big cities, opening hours, travel costs, membership fees, etc..
The internet is the medium that makes a genuinely free formation of opinion possible. Important steps in this direction are websites such as
Wikipedia and Wikileaks, which
offer free and uncensored information.
In an increasing number of countries this is being limited by censorship.
At the site www.Anti-Censorship.nl I've red that in countries like
China, Syria, Iran and North Korea websites like Wikipedia
and Wikileaks are being censored away.
The freedom of speech is being limited so others are limited
in their free formation of an opinion. Without freedom of speech you have no freedom of opinion formation and without a free formation of opinion
you can't have free speech.
It's the story of the chicken and the egg.
In the most free, western countries people are mainly focused on the free speech rather than the free formation of opinion.
Freedom of speech is a lot simpler: you are or you are not free to express your opinion: it's something individual.
Free formation of opinion is more complicated: to be free to form your opinion you should have free access to all relevant information.
This is not something individual but is something that concerns the whole society.
But I don't have free access to all the information I need to form my opinion, this is constrained by the limited supply of libraries,
the fact that I can't download free books from the internet due to copyright laws, etc..
So, basically, I can express my opinion for free on the internet but when I want to form my opinion then I need to buy all kinds of books,
magazines, documentaries, movies and music around that subject.
So my formation of an opinion is also limited by the size of my wallet. Information should not only be free accessible but should also be free.
Sometimes I read that you should not confuse free(dom) with free (no costs), but in case of the free formation of opinion the relevant information
must be free (= no costs) and free (= freedom) accessible.
In a response to the limitations of these copyright laws more and more people start to share their work for free and free from copyright,
as you can see in the overview on the left. If we really want to live in a free world we need the kind of initiative's you'll find in
the menu on the left. Free movies, music, images, information and software belong in a free world. Copyright and censorship belong in a controlled
dictatorial world.
Censorship & self-censorship
Here in the Netherlands you also have censorship, not so much on free speech but there is censorship on the free formation of opinion.
More and more websites where you can access free information in the form of digital books, magazines, documentaries, movies and music
are censored, blocked.
There is almost no objective, free (as in freedom) news coverage. The news in most papers is uncritically copied from big agencies like the
ANP so you'll read the same news story in different newspapers. And you only read just one side
of the story.
In a more objectivity pursuing news coverage you'll expect different aspect of the story are being highlighted because the only correct truth simply
does not exist. You can aim for objectivity by looking at a subject from different angles and the point of view of different parties.
I almost never see this in a newspaper. So newspapers are no longer relevant for the formation of my opinion, the internet is taking a larger role
in this but is more and more limited through censorship.
Not only in countries like China and Iran, but also in the United States and the Netherlands.
Through this website I want to make people aware of the importance of free opinion formation.
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