LIMITS IN FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND CENSORSHIP

An individual could log on to the internet and express his self through Blogging, Twitter, Facebook etc.-these forms of media are very effective in speedy distribution of messages, receiving feedbacks and limiting restrictions or censorship. However, recent event in Iran proved that they can be censored (cf.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8173731.stm).

Following the presidential election in Iran, opposition supporters staged rallies, one of which caused the death of eight people. As a result, the state authorities decided to limit the damage to the country’s image, by laying restrictions on all the media forms e.g. television, radio and internet.It appears the Iranian authorities regarded messages from the opposition supporters as “offensive to public morals” (cf. Coetzee 1996:185). On what grounds? Is it on the grounds of an assumed ‘damaging to the country’s image'? Which is similar to the claim by Horizon Group Management, that Amanda Bonnen “damaged its good name” through Twitting (cf. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8173731.stm).

The restrictions further provoke more questions: Where do the citizens take part in the power play? If Iran is governed in the interest of the citizens, are the citizens involved in the decision making? According to Van Rooyen, it is expected that a censor will, as his criteria, ask whether “the likely reader of X finds X offensive” (Coetzee 1996:190.)If the Iranian government had considered the messages from the opposition supporters as offensive to the citizens, it had done so to protect its own personal interest. The fact remains that the opposition supporters are part of the citizens that make Iran; to ignore their plight, deprive them of their right to freedom of speech, is to take away their birthright.

Of course, this is not to forget that freedom of speech as a basic right is a limited right. Public speeches which contain “incitement to crime or racial or religious hatred, defamation, or insult (injure) can result to a criminal penalty, according to the Press Law from 1881” (cf. Barendt 2005:68); a premise which begs the following questions: Did the Iranian authorities restrict the media based on the fact that the press reported messages violating the Press Law? It is obvious that if the media had violated the Press Law, the Iranian authorities would have filed a law suit.

Nonetheless, as much as freedom of speech is a limited right, censorship is as limited in capabilities. For example, the Iranian authorities were able to restrict- through Blogging,You Tube, and Facebook-information and media coverage for the opposition supporters, but were not capable of ensuring that their restrictions were not overrode. A 25 year old IT director in San Francisco, Austin Heap, was able to create proxies with which Iranian citizens were able to bypass the Iranian government’s restrictions. And again, Iranian citizens were having their voices heard, their faces seen and their story gets told around the world without filtering” (cf. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8173731.stm), through these new important form of media: You Tube, Blogging, Facebook, and Twitting.