We Must Be Free to Say What We Want on Social Media ; as Prosecutors Consider New Guidelines on Abusive Tweeting, We Have to Act to Protect Freedom of Speech

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[broken bar] UNTIL recently, optimists believed that new technology and social media would create a healthier attitude to free expression. With millions of messages texted, tweeted and emailed every day, we could reasonably expect the state to intervene only to prevent the gravest of transgressions: incitements to murder, terrorist recruitment and the like.

That is how it should be in a mature democracy. George Orwell wrote that "freedom is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear". He wasn't just talking about the right to speak but the right to listen. Just because some people don't like a message, they are not entitled to gag others. Technology is …