You can watch and hear it spreading virally around the world -- a chant of defiance against evil: "Je Suis Charlie" - "I am Charlie" -- crowds, signs, hashtags -- it's everywhere, and it deserves to be.

And in the wake of the hideous mass assassinations at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, suddenly France, Europe, and the rest of the world are very suddenly very enthusiastic indeed about free speech.

Lest there be any confusion about the matter, free speech -- even obnoxious, ridiculing speech -- even speech that sometimes is immensely disturbing and painful to innocent parties, is a fundamental aspect of this phenomenon. For provocation via free speech was Charlie's stock in trade, and the proud avocation of its murdered staff.

They had been physically attacked before. At least one now senior staff member -- killed in this attack -- reportedly had continuous police protection. Recorded employee interviews display clearly not only that Charlie's writers and cartoonists understood how offensive and disturbing much of their publication was to many persons, but also that they were fully cognizant of how potentially dangerous to themselves this could be. They routinely rejected outside suggestions, even by world leaders such as President Obama, that in some cases they were exacerbating problems rather than helping to solve them. For indeed, the freedom to say something doesn't necessarily mean that it's always appropriate to actually say it.

But except in a relatively minuscule number of situations where immediate, direct physical risk to individuals or property are involved, we must hold the right to free speech as inviolate, as one of the most fundamental of human rights.

For when speech is censored or otherwise controlled by governments, we lose access to the fundamental raw material -- information -- by which we can determine what's really going on around us affecting the lives of ourselves, our colleagues, and our loved ones.

It is entirely appropriate in the wake of the Paris horror that we also now hear people around the world quoting Evelyn Beatrice Hall's famous illustrative line from her 1906 biography of French writer, historian, and philosopher François-Marie Arouet -- Voltaire -- "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

So it is notably ironic indeed that it's from Europe itself that the single most dangerous and potentially damaging anti-free speech abomination has spewed forth -- the EU's notorious "Right To Be Forgotten" (RTBF), since the very concept of RTBF -- which the EU is now proposing be applied as a global censorship mechanism against Google and other websites -- is utterly and absolutely in conflict with the entire basis of free speech.

Even if for the sake of the argument we momentarily ignore the slippery slope nightmare of RTBF-type laws in the hands of evil leaders and others whose goals are to cleanse history of search results of which they don't approve or appreciate, the foundational idea of RTBF, the false belief that it is possible to slice and dice and micromanage free speech without destroying it, is utterly specious and immensely dangerous.

If we are to stand as a world in support of free speech in the vein of the murdered patriots of Charlie Hebdo, we must also stand united against the gross hypocrisies represented by The Right To Be Forgotten and similar concepts around the world.

To do less would be to dishonor the many brave persons who have died in the name of free speech -- not only in Paris this week, but throughout history.

We are all Charlie. And we are all the Internet.

And free speech must remain truly free.

Take care, all.

--Lauren--
I am a consultant to Google. I speak only for myself, not for them.