By Ron Raskin
Every day, I scan the pages of the world’s most powerful outlets—CNN, BBC, The New York Times, Fox News and many more. And every day I am confronted with the same reality: the press, once entrusted with truth, has surrendered to bias. It spreads misinformation, erases inconvenient facts, and builds entire narratives on false assumptions. What results is not journalism but a distorted reality—an echo chamber where those untrained to resist propaganda are swallowed whole.
If this is the state of so-called serious media, then what hope is left in the digital wildlands of social media? There, chaos reigns: lies multiply unchecked, hatred runs free, and mobs replace reason.
This is not free speech—it is survival of the loudest. It mirrors the darkest days of unregulated capitalism, when monopolies crushed all competition and the rich devoured the weak. Today, the same happens with information: power and wealth dictate who is heard, while smaller nations and vulnerable communities are silenced.
Western democracies pride themselves on guaranteeing the right of the individual to speak, to be heard, to defend themselves. Yet nations, peoples, and minorities are denied that very same right. They are judged not on truth, but on politics. They are condemned in the court of public opinion, without a chance to respond. Worst of all, many who claim to champion human rights, diversity, and international law are the very ones orchestrating these modern-day witch hunts.
History has shown us where such hypocrisy leads. Ideologies that sought to “save the world” justified bloodshed in the name of progress—and were eventually condemned by the generations that followed.
It took centuries to tame capitalism, to regulate it, to make it serve humanity rather than enslave it. Now it is time to do the same with free speech.
Today, there are only two dominant approaches:
- Total freedom—a battlefield where the richest and most powerful voices dictate reality.
- Censorship—a weapon that pretends to protect against lies and hate, but in truth silences dissent and enforces political orthodoxy.
But there are other ways too—ones well-known in the context of personal rights, yet never applied to nations: the right to be heard.
The Right of Every Nation to Be Heard.
This principle is simple yet revolutionary: any nation that enters an international agreement on free speech must be guaranteed proportional space in any outlet or platform that comments on its affairs. If a media giant writes about a nation, that nation must be granted the right to presents its view—in the same outlet, on the same platform, reaching the same audience. No more token “we reached out for comment.” No more invisible footnotes but real representation.
And in return, these outlets will gain access to publish in that nation’s platforms, ensuring mutual transparency and exchange. Only then can people see the world not through caricature, but through each other’s eyes.
Without this right, there can be no United Nations worthy of its name, no international law with true legitimacy, no peace that can endure.
I call upon all who claim to stand for human rights, minority protections, progress, and dialogue to support this cause. To oppose it is to expose oneself as a hypocrite, enslaved to convenience and double standards.