“Free Speech Is Under Attack! Censorship is happening like NEVER before! Don’t let them silence us.”

1830s, Sir Walter Scott (1838)

“Censorship Vs. Copyright” (7 June 2011)
Mimi and Eunice (2010 - present)

Frag. 6, as quoted in Handy-book of Literary Curiosities (1892) by William Shepard Walsh, p. 1009.

Original: (pt) Vamos analisar o direito da liberdade de expressão. Ninguém vai nos calar a boca! Não devemos a vagabundo nenhum nesse Estado e nesse País! Aqui não há censura!

Source: [1 March 2006, 31 March 2019, Cadeia Sem Censura, Web Rádio Intervalo, 1 March 2006]

Free speech in an age of identity politics (2015)
Context: To accept that certain things cannot be said is to accept that certain forms of power cannot be challenged.... This is why free speech is essential not simply to the practice of democracy, but to the aspirations of those groups who may have been failed by the formal democratic processes; to those whose voices may have been silenced by racism, for instance. The real value of free speech, in other words, is not to those who possess power, but to those who want to challenge them. And the real value of censorship is to those who do not wish their authority to be challenged. The right to ‘subject each others’ fundamental beliefs to criticism’ is the bedrock of an open, diverse society. Once we give up such a right in the name of ‘tolerance’ or ‘respect’, we constrain our ability to challenge those in power, and therefore to challenge injustice.

2018, Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture (2018)
Context: A politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment began to appear, and that kind of politics is now on the move. It’s on the move at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. I am not being alarmist, I am simply stating the facts. Look around. Strongman politics are ascendant suddenly, whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained – the form of it – but those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning. In the West, you’ve got far-right parties that oftentimes are based not just on platforms of protectionism and closed borders, but also on barely hidden racial nationalism. Many developing countries now are looking at China’s model of authoritarian control combined with mercantilist capitalism as preferable to the messiness of democracy. Who needs free speech as long as the economy is going good? The free press is under attack. Censorship and state control of media is on the rise. Social media – once seen as a mechanism to promote knowledge and understanding and solidarity – has proved to be just as effective promoting hatred and paranoia and propaganda and conspiracy theories.

On Facebook September 29, 2015
2010s

Symposiacs, book viii. Question IX
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Source: All's Well That Ends Well