“Everyone has 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.” Universal declaration of human rights, Article 19
That is more than freedom of speech, because it protects any media, not just oral and printed voice. Further not only it protects opinions and beliefs, but also any information that does not conflict with other human rights, like violating dignity.
Many countries signed the declaration. So, leaving reality aside, does that mean freedom of speech in those countries, at least from the legal side?
Unfortunately, no, unless their laws protected it before or they changed them accordingly. Otherwise it is just a symbol of intention. A promise that might be broken any time.
Amidst increasing attempts to restrict the freedom of speech, the new German government in 2025 announced that in Germany, there is only freedom of opinion, not universal freedom of speech. This is not about speech that attacks human dignity, because that already is protected, but about spreading fake news:
Given the protests and the context of establishing a new government, you might believe that the quoted sentence is novel. Many politicians were already caught with plagiarism and here we go again. They merely quoted old court judgements without giving the source, including the highest court:
“Intentionally spreading fake facts is not covered by freedom of opinion.” (Shortened translation, see sentence 5 above)
Note they say opinion, not speech. If you read it closely, the German constitution only protects freedom of opinion, not of speech. Germany signed the declaration of human rights, but never made them part of the German constitution. German courts only obey German laws, no more. You could ask the government to fulfill their promise of obeying the universal human rights by aligning the constitution, but don’t hold your breath on them catching up with Portugal, who indeed included them in their constitution.
Which means the article headline is plain wrong: The freedom of opinion is not in danger. The freedom of speech and expression is, and never having been protected, it is since a long time. The protest is late. But drama sells.
So far, German courts decide which speech expresses opinion and which expresses facts, and if the facts are false or true. Further they decide if speech or expression contains symbols of forbidden organizations. The government refuses to create a definitive list of what is forbidden to be said or shown, leaving the decision to judges, which opens a dangerous legal uncertainty of interpretation. Simply sharing something you consider to be critical art already may expose you to prosecution. The news in 2025 are that a designated government unit should aid in limiting fake news and unwanted content. Right now, various NGOs already have that right and that should be extended. The protests complain about increasingly exercising constitutional rights without criticizing the constitution that violates the signed universal declaration of human rights.
Institutions that ban and prosecute content in the name of truth remind me of “1984” and its ministry of truth. When are we burning books again? Asking for a friend.
Galileo Galilei, unlike most astronomers at the time, intentionally spread his opinion of the heliocentric model and how the bible could be interpreted that way, which brought him in conflict with the catholic church. That didn't end well, but for interpreting the bible, not for spreading his view of the world.
The majority of scientists agreed in him being wrong. By common definition, he spread fake facts. The ministry of truth would have stopped him before you could have got in conflict with the church. Except anybody but him was wrong.
But was he right? An outside observer would say, “Well, the sun only is the center if seen from earth. Watch the stars closely and you will notice a slight movement relative to their position. The sun and the whole galaxy moves. Everything moves.” That observer is not more smart. They are just in a different position. It is hard to divide between opinion and truth. The freedom of speech avoids that distinction.
But could we draw that line? What's truth, really?
The majority of people agree that the past exists and has happened. It just makes sense. But try to prove that and pretty soon you have to admit that you are trapped in the present and only believe in time. It sounds so easy: Watch the second hand move, a second has passed, and the previous second is past. You witnessed it pass. Truly. Except you cannot prove it. Using one clock to prove another clock is no proof and many processes are effectively clocks. It gets worse by discussing time dilation and relativity theory. The Hafele-Keating experiment sent people with atomic clocks on planes round the earth in different directions, which caused them to travel with the same speed relative to earth, but different absolute speeds. The different observers observed the same time span differently. That won't end well for one of them, should they be brought in front of the ministry of truth. Both of them have reliable atomic clocks to prove their statement of the time, and at the present moment, they live together at different personal times. How late is it and how would you define past if you were one of them?
Psychologists are pretty certain that we never see the true reality. We use our perceptions to build mental models. Only those are subject to our thoughts. We literally only ever have opinions. We may call them truth, and we may believe so, but any serious scientist by now would never call science true. Sure, if all observations are in harmony with a model, that's great. It may be true. It also may be superficial and the truth may be more complex, or it may be wrong tomorrow when a counter example might be found.
The authors of the universal declaration of human rights understood that, standing on the shoulders of giants such as Aristotle, who also provided solid advice how to deal with lies: Education.
Education widens understanding. Education supports abstract and reflective thinking. Lies are not the problem. That ministry of truth is. To make sure I don't get legally prosecuted for saying that, I never stopped talking about “1984” since I mentioned it. That ministry of truth seeks to protect the government, not the citizens. Lack of education supports that.
By sheer coincidence, I believe the quality of German education is doubleplusungood. I base my opinion on the PISA study, but I am not certain if the ministry of truth would agree.
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