Does the socialist newspaper El País want the State to censor private conversations?

Lately we have been seeing a series of speeches about freedom of speech that must make the worst dictators very happy.

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Under the pretext of combating "hoaxes", "hate speech" and "disinformation" (terms that some people tend to take out of context to describe anything they don't like), some people are taking steps to make censorship no longer seem like something from the past, but rather something acceptable and even essential in any democratic country. Let's look at an example.

Last Sunday, the socialist daily El País headlined a news item as follows: "No defenses against hate: toxic narratives prevail after the dana". Seeing that the topic is about "hate" and "toxic narratives", some might think that El País was going to talk about the hateful and extremist speeches of the left and its separatist friends, who have the bad habit of demonizing the rich, Catholics, Spaniards who are not from their region, self-employed workers, businessmen... But no. That was not the direction.

Ultimately, for the socialists, the expressions of hatred from the left and their separatist friends are never worthy of reproach. Let us recall, without going any further, that last year the PSOE announced that it would support an initiative by the Sumar communists to legalize the crime of glorification of terrorism, outrages against Spain, mockery of believers, insults to the Judiciary, the Armed Forces and the Police, and insults to the Crown. This is how the left and separatism vomit their hatred, a hatred that seems irreproachable to them.

Like the rest of the left, El País only identifies as "hate" that which contradicts leftist dogmas. It is the old law of the funnel: for the left the widest end, and for the others the narrow end. But pay attention to what the socialist newspaper adds:

"At meals with friends, in spontaneous gatherings and, of course, in WhatsApp groups,conspiracy theories, outright lies and extremist theories are now spilling out naturally."

My dear Fray Josepho took this with humour and commented in an ironic tone: "It is urgent that the progressive government prohibit meals with friends, spontaneous gatherings and WhatsApp groups, and establish that only Lo País, RTVE and SER can disseminate verified information." The fact is that El País does not take it with such irony. After mentioning these private conversations, the socialist newspaper added:

"Digital platforms do not act, nor do the authorities, and a climate of total impunity is generated for those who dedicate themselves to spreading dangerous hoaxes. Without an immune system that protects the right to truthful information, toxic narratives flow unchecked from this hate industry perfectly oiled to exploit people's fragility."

Reading this, it is logical to ask: Does El País expect the State to censor private conversations? Will the socialist desire to have the State control every aspect of our existence go that far? Will it even stop there?

What El País calls a "total climate of impunity" actually has a name: democracy. A democracy is a system in which people and organizations have "the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." I didn't just make up this quote: is what Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says.

In its Article 20, the Spanish Constitution protects the right to "freely express and disseminate thoughts, ideas and opinions trough words, in writing or by any other means of communication", stating that this right "may not be restricted by any form of prior censorship" and that it is limited by other rights, and specifically by "the right to honour, to privacy, to personal reputation and to the protection of youth and childhood."

Obviously, this right implies the freedom to say things that will be unpleasant for others. I could even say that it includes the right to say things that are not to the liking of the socialist newspaper El País, although its editorial staff finds it difficult to accept this.

On the other hand, this right also protects the possibility of lying and expressing hateful ideas, a way of exercising freedom of expression that can certainly provoke disgust in any decent person, but which is based on the fact that this is preferable to having a State that is dedicated to persecuting people for expressing their opinions and for saying things that bother certain rulers. En una democracia, el medio más eficaz y la forma legítima de combatir la mentira y los bulos es la información, no la censura.

In fact, El País can be thankful that spreading hoaxes is not a crime. As some of you may remember, here I published a list of hoaxes spread by that newspaper, which has done things like calling people who died before Franco's regime "Francoists", denying that a human fetus is a human being, and claiming that the Church annihilated Galileo, condemned the lightning rod, and burned the first anesthesiologists at the stake, to give a few examples. All of these were blatantly false statements. If expressing hateful and extremist ideas, lying, and spreading hoaxes were a crime, El País would be in trouble.

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Image: Grok.