Is freedom of speech dying online?

""In only a few months the Net has stopped being a place of freedom where anybody, anywhere regardless of race or creed, colour, sexual persuasion, physical ability or disability, or anything else, had a home," I posted on Saturday, going on, "It didn't matter who you were or what you thought, you could express your feelings and sentiments without fear. But that's changing with horrifying speed."

In 2007, anybody with more dollars than sense now feels free to sue web sites for the slightest slight. That's bad enough, but things have now reached ridiculous extremes.

If the Net is about anything, it's about freedom of speech and hyper-linking - directly connecting stories, data and information - is absolutely integral to it. Now, however, it's being claimed that merely linking to something someone somewhere doesn't like is sufficient grounds for a civil complaint.

Canada is preeminent as the defamation lawsuit marketplace. It's the place to go for forum shopping, but that doesn't mean to say it's not happening elsewhere as well." -- Read more

I'm not sure if we should be so dramatic to say that freedom of speech is "dying" online considering that in many countries of the world, probably most, defamation lawsuits would not hold nor make much sense. I for one do not at all feel threatened nor suppressed to express myself any way I want to, even if controversially. The issue is, however, worth exploring (by all means) because if there are any roots anywhere in the world of a disease of freedom we should address it before it turns into a cancer that can spread further. Whatever happens, the one thing should always be ultimate: never be silenced. If everyone follows this advice, no repression will ever be effective.