No more free speech

Under the light coming only from mobile phones of people present in the Kriterion, the sixth session of the Point 2016 conference started. The topic is freedom of expression and fear of censorship, a dark field illuminated only by people who are fighting against it.

Matthew Stender (onlinecensorhip.org) introduced the work of this organization, warning about the responsibility that comes with acquired knowledge.

”We are getting to the point in which we will be asked to answer questions no one in the past was ever asked. We have to be ready for that and, as activists, learn how to use technologies that global corporations try to enslaves us with, and give them a different meaning,” he concluded.

Jillian C. York (Electronic Frontier Foundation) spoke about the importance of knowing who is censoring and what.

”In this world, it’s the big companies. In some cases, both governments and companies. There really is no free speech online,” she said.

The two panelists could not agree on which is more powerful – corporate or government censorship. Jillian believes both are the same and dangerous, while Matthew finds the censorship coming from big companies more threatening.

”The lack of transparency, censorship, is based on search engine manipulation,” says Matthew.