IEA Editorial Director Kristian Niemietz has written for CapX arguing that while a society which upholds freedom of speech would not be a panacea, it would be far better than any alternative.

Kristian wrote:

“The point is that there has to be a pre-defined bar. We cannot make it up as we go along. Liberals do not defend free speech because they think free speech will always lead to a high level of informative and intellectually stimulating debate, in which good ideas will defeat bad ones by the sheer force of their intrinsic persuasiveness. Nobody who has ever spent five minutes on Twitter could possibly believe that.

“Liberals know, however, that speech restrictions, especially when loosely and broadly defined, will not conform to some theoretical ideal either. They will get politicised; they will get weaponised in the culture war; they will be enforced unevenly, selectively, and incoherently. As with many market ‘corrections’, the cure will be worse than the disease. Free speech rights may not be absolute, but we should treat them as, for most intents and purposes, near-absolute anyway.”

Read Kristian’s full piece here.

Kristian’s piece referenced research by IEA Senior Research Fellow Jamie Whyte which you can read here.