You Can’t Read This Book summary

After the backlash against Rushdie, fear quelled liberal voices that had criticized Islam’s more conservative tenets. Soon, those liberal voices shifted away from defending Rushdie, too.

Even those in the West kept quiet, for they feared that even though they lived in free democracies, they would still have little defense against reprisal from zealous individuals.

Religious leaders have constantly found new ways to keep their followers offended by liberal voices and criticism. Why? Because liberal views challenge their authority. Religious leaders use the illusion of being a persecuted minority to maintain the support of their followers.

Such leaders benefit from a general population that is kept under a veil of fear and outrage. That way, the religious government can act as the savior, promising to alleviate such anxieties. So, to keep a population continuously enraged, governments detect and highlight offenses when none may truly exist.

Maybe you live in a country that values free speech, but in many other countries, freedom of speech is either threatened or nonexistent.

In fact, as places like China, Russia and the Middle East have continued to grow in terms of wealth, so too has the suppression of freely shared information intensified.

In the quote unquote free world, citizens have a right to speak out against their government. The workplace, however, maintains different rules when it comes to freedom of speech.

Despite existing safeguards, people who speak too freely risk some undesirable consequences. Workers in Britain, for example, are often afraid to speak up because of complicated whistleblower laws.

Like rich and famous people all over the world, British elites seek to protect their names from negative press and innuendo. Luckily for them, their legal system works in their favor.

How so? English judges today uphold a legal system that stems from the feudalistic thirteenth century.

Before the internet, governments and powerful media conglomerates could relatively easily control the flow of information.

Of course, today the internet has changed everything; and in fact, the second Iraq War was a key turning point in this shift.

So with the internet, everyone on the globe has a voice and can use it freely. World problems solved, right? Well, not quite.

These days, oppressive leaders and the businesses that support them are working to control opinions and dissent on the internet.