American courts are often said to be more “absolutist” about free expression. Eric Berkowitz corrects that half-truth
Mr Berkowitz focuses chiefly on the United States and Britain, with glances at other European countries—such as 17th- and 18th-century France, famous forscurrilous and usually sexual attacks on royalty, clergy and other notables. He briefly widens the field at the end for a discouraging look at enemies of free speech in less liberal or less democratic places.
Pre-censorship has often proved self-defeating. With the coming of print, books as a rule needed licence before publication. In Britain, where licensing was outsourced to the printers’ guild, prior control proved ineffective and corrupt, and was abandoned by the end of the 17th century. The papal, backed by the law in many Catholic countries, gave publicity to works that would otherwise have remained obscure.
Entertaining as they are, court pratfalls were the exception. Mr Berkowitz stresses that suppression had the upper hand until recently. Free speech’s most eloquent modern champion, John Stuart Mill, published “On Liberty” in 1859; but in Europe and America state censorship weakened only in the 1950s-60s. Then and at other times, the law responded to public opinion. That is the second, indirect means by which speech may be silenced—or freed.
Another indirect control turns on opportunities to speak. Even if all should be free to do so, must everyone be given a platform, a newspaper, an audience? To approach the question differently, does the gatekeeping power of media and web giants distort public argument?