Transcript of Thought For the World's thought for the day

Nigel Warburton

17th February 2009

Controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders was refused entry to the UK last week, and by Sunday every major broadsheet had published at least one article questioning that move. But what struck me about the response was that the journalists had all watched his film, "Fitna", which is still freely available on the Internet.

I’ve seen it, too. I didn’t buy any of the newspapers but I still read the opinion pieces on the web. Whilst the liberal consensus is undoubtedly that freedom of speech is being eroded by panicking lawmakers – and it is – there’s something remarkable going on. New channels of communication are opening up.

We can access a far wider range of views than ever before. It’s highly unlikely that the BBC or any other UK TV channel will ever screen "Fitna" but I can watch it at a click of a mouse. Tolerating offensive speech, up to the point where it becomes an incitement to violence, is important in a democracy.

The views we disagree with, as John Stuart Mill pointed out, have a great power to energize us and prevent us from going to sleep at the post. Most of us don’t even really know what we believe until someone challenges us and largely erroneous viewpoints, like Wilders’ can and often do contain elements of truth that might not otherwise emerge.

No one can deny that the Internet presents us with a wide range of opinions, some of which are extremely offensive.

But given the ease with which we can filter out what we don’t want to hear or read there is, as American legal theorist Cass Sunstein has pointed out, some risk that each of us will create our own "daily me", a list of favourite sites on the Internet that simply confirm what we believe and keeps us in the comfort zone of unchallenged prejudice.

But by encouraging us to google "Fitna" the British government has exposed many of us to views we would not otherwise have encountered.

This is an unintended good consequence of a very bad decision. Not only are we better informed, but we probably have a better idea of what we think about the wider issues as a result, especially if stirred up by finding the film offensive.

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