Obama: Misinformation 'No Match' For Free Speech and Truth
President Obama had it right when he spoke to the people of Estonia in 2014.
An excerpt of my latest article in Newsweek:
In September 2014, President Barack Obama delivered a speech to the people of Estonia at the Nordea Concert Hall in the nation's capital of Tallinn. In what the media dubbed an "ode to democracy," Obama declared that a free people—unlike the pro-Russian separatists who were then destabilizing the region in Ukraine—supported not just liberty but liberal values, such as free speech.
"We have to uphold a free press and freedom of speech—because, in the end, lies and misinformation are no match for the truth," Obama said, evoking a round of applause.
Obama's support for free speech was not new; like nearly every other president who had graced the Oval Office over the previous century, Obama throughout his presidency consistently voiced support for free speech, an idea enshrined and protected in the Constitution. (Not all of these presidents, particularly Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon, supported free speech in practice as much as rhetoric.)
Sadly, Obama's sentiments seem quaint in the Democratic Party today, as well as major media institutions. It has become conventional wisdom for many in the professional class that of course government and tech companies should regulate speech, and for the very reason Obama in 2014 disavowed: to protect people from "misinformation."
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