Review: Freedom to Think: Protecting a Fundamental Human Right in the Digital Age by Susie Alegre.
Strolling through St Pancras Station, London waiting on my train, I popped into a bookshop looking for a specific title. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t have the obscure book I wanted, so I perused a bit more. Two addictions consume my life: tea and books. If I go into either type of store, I never walk out empty handed. I left with Freedom to Think.
“Human rights law guarantees freedom of thought, conscience, belief and opinion….” This book lays out the laws to the educated reader giving us the words to understand and speak about our most sacred freedom.
Alegre illuminates the art of mind control by what is and is not done to people. Like learning to paint – you must think as much about what is there as what is not – the negative space created to poignantly focus the observer. Through human-developed algorithms and strategize investments with little legal oversight, humanity is threatened as much by what we see as what we are excluded from seeing.
“Freedom of thought is about the space to think before you share.” We need that space. But no one will give it to us; it must be claimed for ourselves.
Give this book a think.
—Leslie McIntosh