Dear TikTok/Big Tech Tyrants: 50 quotes on the importance of freedom of speech and the dangers of censorship...
1. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." – Evelyn Beatrice Hall (often attributed to Voltaire)
2. "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." – Benjamin Franklin
3. "Freedom of speech is a human right and the foundation upon which democracy is built. Any restriction of freedom of speech is a restriction upon democracy." – Deeyah Khan
4. "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it." – Mark Twain
5. "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." – George Orwell
6. "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." – John Milton
7. "The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen." – Tommy Smothers
8. "Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." – George Orwell
9. "Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech." – Benjamin Franklin
10. "To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it." – Michel de Montaigne
11. "You can't have freedom of speech and not take the risk of hearing something you don't like." – Cher
12. "To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves." – Claude Adrien Helvétius
13. "We have to uphold a free press and freedom of speech – because, in the end, lies and misinformation are no match for the truth." – Barack Obama
14. "The best way to fight against dictatorship is to communicate, is to let people know what is happening in a hidden world." – Ai Weiwei
15. "Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime." – Potter Stewart
16. "Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved." – Benjamin Franklin
17. "The freedom to criticize our government and our leaders without fear of retaliation is an intrinsic element of democracy." – Nikki Haley
18. "The only way to deal with dissent is to confront it head on, and to allow the dissenting voices to be heard and debated." – Naomi Wolf
19. "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." – Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19
20. "Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance." – Laurie Halse Anderson
21. "We must not be afraid to speak out against the tyranny of censorship. Freedom of speech is the lifeblood of democracy." – Peter Tatchell
22. "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." – George Orwell
23. "We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship." – E. M. Forster
24. "Freedom of speech is not just a human right, but a moral imperative that must be protected and defended." – Arundhati Roy
25. "Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice." – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
26. "Freedom is meaningless if the right to tell people what they do not want to hear is not included." – George Orwell
27. "The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas – that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
28. "I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man." – Thomas Jefferson
29. "A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything." – Napoleon Bonaparte
30. "If you can't say what you think, very soon you won't be able to think." – James Baldwin
31. "Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others." – Charles Bukowski
32. "The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship." – George Bernard Shaw
33. "You can cage the singer but not the song." – Harry Belafonte
34. "Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection." – Neal Boortz
35. "Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads." – George Bernard Shaw
36. "Wherever they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn human beings." – Heinrich Heine
37. "A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad." – Albert Camus
38. "Without freedom of speech there is no modern world, just a barbaric one." – Ai Weiwei
39. "The freedom of speech is an important yardstick for the level of civilization of a society." – Ai Weiwei
40. "The first duty of a man is to think for himself." – Jose Marti
41. "Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost." – Alfred Whitney Griswold
42. "Censorship is the height of vanity." – Martha Graham
43. "To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." – Frederick Douglass
44. "The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state." – John Adams
45. "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." – Thomas Jefferson
46. "The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism." – Wole Soyinka
47. "To restrict the artist is a crime. It is to murder germinating life." – Egon Schiele
48. "The moment you restrict free speech, it's no longer free." – Steven Crowder
49. "He who stifles free discussion secretly doubts whether what he professes to believe is really true." – William E. Gladstone
50. "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." – Heinrich Heine
These quotes underline the fundamental importance of free speech and the perils of censorship.