Milton Friedman – Why Freedom of Speech is Important

“We believe the whole justification for free press, for free speech, for our whole system of adversary justice, the whole justification is that people will be best able to distinguish truth from falsity if they have an opportunity to hear a variety of different opinions.”

Source: eltigre001 YouTube channel.

Student question:

Aren't the people supposed to be intelligent enough to know deceit from truth?

Milton Friedman:

No.

They are supposed to be intelligent, excuse me. They are supposed to be intelligent enough to choose among alternative purveyors of supposed truth. The problem is the one-sidedness. We believe the whole justification for free press, for free speech, for our whole system of adversary justice, the whole justification is that people will be best able to distinguish truth from falsity if they have an opportunity to hear a variety of different opinions. Now, if you only have one opinion spoken, to shift grounds, if we go to the Soviet Union, the people in the Soviet Union are enormously skeptical about what they hear from their government. But they cannot know the truth. Because they don't hear it. They have to conjecture what is the truth. Because they only hear one side. They don't believe that, don't misunderstand me. They become experts at reading between the lines. But they still don't have access to the full variety of opinion, which would enable them to choose and decide intelligently and reasonably about what's right. So let's by all means have a clash of opinions. Let different beliefs clash in the marketplace of ideas. But let's not have a monopoly or subsidization of one brand of ideas versus another.