#freedom-quotations

[thepersonalwords]

Love sets you free the moment it arrests you.

Matshona Dhliwayo

[life-spire]

[j-august]

"The trouble is," said the Librarian, "that everybody sneers at restrictions and demands freedom, till something annoying happens; then they demand angrily what has become of the discipline."

Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

[laurachouettepoetry]

The thing about freedom is  that it defines its own borders. 

- Laura Chouette (Profound Reverie)

[pengipie]

Never forget , if you're a human you shall never forget !!

[astrogirlythings]

People who are happy in your happiness are the only people you'll need.💚

[bouncinghedgehoghasattitude]

[saturnispink]

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

relevant, taking into consideration what’s happening in the world rn

[eelhound]

"Nearly half of the US population uses TikTok. It’s the most downloaded app in the country and the world. And last Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed its ban into law.

Members of Congress backing the anti-TikTok bill from both sides of the aisle have tried to emphasize that it’s 'not a ban' — it’s a forced sale. The 'ban' requires Chinese tech company ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to sell the app to a US-based company within twelve months or the app will be banned in the United States.

ByteDance has responded saying that it will refuse to sell, and that it will instead fight the ban in court. ByteDance believes it can win the court case, based on precedent from federal courts blocking an attempted ban in Montana in November 2023. Former president Donald Trump also tried to ban TikTok twice by executive order when he was in office; those efforts were struck down by the courts too.

Lawmakers are citing data privacy and national security as the primary concerns behind the ban. But others have been more explicit — they are worried about how the app is influencing Americans’ political views, particularly among young voters.

Discussion of the TikTok ban in Congress has been rife with red-baiting and anti-Chinese fearmongering. Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, referred to TikTok as a 'Communist Party propaganda tool.' And Senator Pete Ricketts, a Nebraska Republican, said:

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas hashtags are generating fifty times the views on TikTok right now. . . . These videos have more reach than the top ten US news websites combined. This is not a coincidence. The Chinese Communist Party is doing this on purpose.

The senator went on to blame TikTok and the Chinese government for the student protests that started at Columbia University and have since spread to dozens of college campuses across the country on TikTok and the Chinese government.

There is no concrete evidence supporting the idea that political ideas shared on TikTok are more progressive or pro-Palestine than what you find on other platforms or that it skews more progressive than the overall population — with nearly 70 percent of voters now supporting a cease-fire in Gaza. It’s unclear how TikTok’s algorithm handles political content. But one of lawmakers’ greatest concerns is that the platform has offered a new avenue for people to virally spread political messages outside of traditional media.

This is not to say that TikTok doesn’t pose data-privacy concerns. But as Paris Marx writes, TikTok’s opaque data-privacy practices are not specific to TikTok or China. TikTok is a private company. Like all profit-driven social media companies, US- and Chinese-owned alike, there are genuine concerns over data usage — but the TikTok ban won’t fix those.

'The US government’s desire to ban TikTok instead of taking industry-wide action is a good indication that its campaign isn’t really about national security or data protection,' Marx points out, 'but something much deeper: namely the preservation of American economic and geopolitical hegemony.'

In this regard, the federal government sees a lot to gain from banning TikTok. Asserting control over highly profitable Chinese tech companies will help US companies like Meta maintain dominance in the social media space, an important consideration given the United States’ growing Great Power rivalry with China. The ban may also allow the US government tighter control over media narratives, particularly around Israel’s increasingly unpopular war on Gaza and government repression of protests.

I’m a content creator on TikTok, alongside millions of others. TikTok has allowed me to reach millions of people to share ideas about movements for social and economic justice. Recently, I’ve covered the wave of student protests calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and university endowment divestment from weapons manufacturers and other financial ties to Israeli apartheid by interviewing students on the ground in New York City. If TikTok is banned, it means shutting down my voice and the voices of many others who are loudly opposing our government’s support for Israel and spreading awareness of the growing protest movement.

It’s unclear if the ban will be upheld in court. And if the forced sale is upheld, it’s also unclear if twelve months will be enough for a sale to make it through the legal and financial red tape. In any case, it will be at least a year before we see any changes to the app and its availability in the United States.

If the TikTok ban is successful, though, it will serve as a major blow to free speech without actually protecting users’ data. It will mean restricting access to news and political ideas simply because the federal government wants to suppress the ideas that are being shared and popularized on the platform — like opposition to US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza."

- Caitlyn Clark, "The TikTok Ban Is an Egregious Assault on Free Speech." Jacobin, 29 April 2024.

[minimalist-quotes]

It wasn't freedom she wanted. It was belief in something - a prize big enough to run for and to fight for and to keep on reaching toward no matter what.

[maribellablack]

I always use this quote when I'm having a discussion with older people about the difference between the generations... great amount of people who criticize newer generation in my country were born in the USSR... of course, they will never know what it's like to be really free and not be afraid of saying what's on your mind, to defend yourself, your beliefs and morals (except only the little amount of them, who fought for the independence we have today) ... they were born in the iron cage, therefore, flying will always be an illness for them, we who were born out of that cage will forever be strangers and sick for them, no matter how much we try, no matter what we do...

Also, I could have drawn a really good parallel to this quote from the bible, but I'm kinda tired for that...

[gobcorend]

"Just like freedom, Truth is not cheap. Yet both are worth more than all the gold in the world. But what is freedom, if there is no truth? And what is truth, if there is no freedom? Both are worth fighting for — because one without the other would be hell."

-- Suzy Kassem in 'Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem'

[pithia]

A puppet is a device for driving the personality out of the body and allowing a spirit to take control. Puppets have no freedom, but they give the puppeteer freedom.

—Clark (How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix)

[deadpoetsloverr]

Sally Rooney, Normal People (2018)

[magpiecrust]

Orville: Thank you, ma'am! Louisa: Don't call me ma'am. Orville: Thank you, sir.