Tag: free speech
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Being offended
There is an old story about the Buddha and an angry old man which goes something like this. Each day the Buddha would go to the market and each day, an angry old man would come up to him and start hurling insults and abuse at him. Each day, the Buddha continues smiling and minding…
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Je suis Charlie
Earlier today, gunmen entered the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, gunning down 12 people in cold blood. The reason: the magazine published cartoons of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. This is why it is necessary to speak out against fanatical religious beliefs and to defend the right to free speech. That’s what…
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How dangerous is the ITU?
The ITU, the International Telecommunications Union is the UN agency for Information and Communication Technologies. The ITU is “committed to connecting all the world’s people – wherever they live and whatever their means”. Sounds like a very noble commitment, doesn’t it? It’s odd then, that the potentially biggest threat to the free and open Internet…
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CleanIT opens doors
Last month, I blogged about the Clean IT Project. The aim of this project is to examine the question “if we can reduce the impact of the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes, without affecting our online freedom”, however a look at a leaked document revealed that the project got somewhat derailed. The leaked…
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“We must be free to insult each other”
If you’ve taken the time to read the page describing what this blog is all about, you will have seen that I describe myself as a free speech radical. I believe that free speech is absolutely necessary if a democracy is to function at all. I therefore believe that any form of censorship is objectionable,…
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“Hand over those decryption keys…or else”
Another day, another worrying proposal from the Dutch government. As we await the formation of a new cabinet, Dutch minister of Security and Justice, Ivo Opstelten is seeking to change Dutch law to make it mandatory for suspects of certain crimes to hand over their decryption keys so that law enforcement officers can have access…