Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the idea that people or groups can share their opinions and ideas without worrying about punishment, censorship, or legal trouble. This right is recognized as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and in international human rights law. Many nations have constitutional protections for it. While terms like free speech, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression are often used the same way in political talk, in legal settings, freedom of expression is broader. It covers the right to seek, receive, and share information or ideas through any medium.

Article 19 of the UDHR says everyone has the right to hold opinions without interference and the right to freedom of expression, which includes seeking, receiving, and sharing ideas of all kinds across borders—whether spoken, written, printed, in art, or through any other chosen media. The version in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) adds that these rights come with special duties and responsibilities. They can be limited when needed to respect others’ rights or reputation, or to protect national security, public order, public health, or morals.

So, freedom of speech and expression is not absolute. Common limits include laws against libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, hate speech, classified information, copyright violations, trade secrets, food labeling violations, non-disclosure agreements, and breaches of privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, blasphemy, and perjury. One justification for these limits is the harm principle from John Stuart Mill’s *On Liberty*: power can only be used over someone against their will to prevent harm to others. Another is the offense principle, which allows restricting speech deemed offensive to society, based on factors like how widespread or prolonged it is, the speaker’s motives, and how easily it could be avoided.

In the digital age, new ways of communicating have emerged, but they face new restrictions too. Countries or organizations may use internet censorship to block unwanted or illegal material. Social media platforms often moderate content, filtering or removing user posts that break their terms of service, even if the content is legal.

**Historical origins**

Freedom of speech has a long history before modern human rights documents. The ancient Athenian democratic idea of free speech likely appeared in the late 6th or early 5th century BC. Later, figures like Erasmus and Milton defended it. In the 1590s, Edward Coke called free speech “an ancient custom of Parliament,” and this was affirmed in the Protestation of 1621. England’s Bill of Rights 1689 legally established the constitutional right to free speech in Parliament, a protection still in effect. This parliamentary privilege means no defamation claims can be made against MPs, so they can speak freely in the House without fear of legal action. It also covers written proceedings like questions, motions, and amendments. In 1726, Voltaire took refuge in England and wrote admiringly of its tolerance and free speech in his *Letters on the English* (1733), hoping to bring these ideas to France.

One of the world’s first freedom of the press acts was Sweden’s Freedom of the Press Act in 1766, pushed by the classical liberal priest and MP Anders Chydenius. In a 1776 report, he wrote that a certain freedom of writing and printing is a strong bulwark of a free state, without which lawmakers lack information, judges go unmonitored, subjects don’t know the law or their duties, and education and ethics suffer. Under his leadership, the Caps in the Swedish Riksdag passed the act on December 2, 1766, ending censorship and introducing public access to official records, though defamation of the king or the Swedish Church was still banned.

During the French Revolution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) affirmed free speech as an inalienable right. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1791) also protects it. The French Declaration’s Article 11 states that free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man, allowing every citizen to speak, write, and print freely, but with responsibility for abuses defined by law. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) says everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and share information and ideas through any media, regardless of borders.