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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46518
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46518
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> I don't get only supporting the freedom of the kind of speech you like. If speech needs defending, it's probably because it's upsetting someone. (Neil Gaiman, _The View from the Cheap Seats_, The PEN Awards and _Charlie Hebdo_)

As @JRE points out, if you're challenging the status quo, if you're pointing a finger at something that you perceive as unjust, or ugly, or wrong, and saying "look here", somebody is going to be upset. And, as we know, free speech in our world still needs defending, meaning somebody will try to get you to shut up.

Books as uncontroversial as _Harry Potter_ got burned by groups that were upset by them ([source](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47771706)). In China writers are getting imprisoned because the government found what they're writing upsetting. ([Example 1](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/13/liu-xiaobo-nobel-laureate-chinese-political-prisoner-dies-61), [Example 2](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/20/chinese-writer-tianyi-sentenced-to-decade-in-prison-for-gay-erotic-novel)). In France a certain group found Charlie Hebdo's comics upsetting, so they killed 12 people and injured 11 more. That's the nature of the beast.

**Frame challenge** : consider how much poorer our world would be if Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn and Liu Xiaobo and Victor Hugo and Erich Maria Remarque, and countless others all the way back to Socrates, all asked themselves "how do I not upset anyone, and suffer no fallout for what I say"? What would our world be like, without all of those men chipping at the status quo, pointing out wrongs, effecting change? I don't think I'd want to live in that world.

Thankfully, in our world, if you are lucky enough to live in what is called "The Western World", the laws take the side of Free Speech. Censuring books and imprisoning writers is seen as a bad thing. Sometimes people even support the freedom of the kind of speech they don't like.

Publishers might decide they don't want your book, but that's another issue entirely. You're always free to self-publish, or just make your content available online.

Original score: 4