•Free speech in the United States: Expression vs. Hostility
•Seeking a Balance: Enhancing the First Amendment
•Challenges
•New and more public forms of communication arose with the
advancement of technology.
•New communication = greater opportunity for expressing beliefs
• Examples:
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Telephone/skype
Blogging on the internet
Facebook and Myspace
•With greater access to modes of public communication people tend
to express valid beliefs about various topics – whether they be poitical,
economic, or social.
•However, with such technologies, more extreme and dangerous
points of view can be expressed.
•Early history: Declaration of the Rights of Man and
of the Citizen (1789):
"The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the
most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may,
accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall
be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be
defined by law."
•Imposing/Strengthening Laws
• Governments begin to realize that the rights for free speech have to be
curbed as free speech can overwhelm moral degradation and crime.
•
There have been many laws/tests avoiding harmful and inflammatory speech
since The Alien and Sedition Act of 1789.
•Steps can be taken to curb individual forms of free speech
• Examples:
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Tapping phone calls
Blocking suspicious websites in schools
Making websites private
•Governments are getting involved to assist in protection.
• Parents are recommended to use filter software to protect children.
• http://www.kids.us
•The general public believes in the First Amendment fully in that nothing
should prevent them from expressing any sort of opinion to the community.
Our responsibility as citizens is to ensure we receive those rights.
•A challenge arises: What constitutes expression and what constitutes
hostility? Who determines this fine line? How can the government handle
this situation and how far can they go without impeding the “right of free
speech?”
•An example of ambiguity in free speech:
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The painting, La Source by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, which depicts a young
female in the nude.
• Is this art or is this child pornography? Should it be removed from the web for
indecency/misinterpretation?
•What can a government do?
• The Australian government uses ISPs to filter “objectionable material”
and block access for users.
• The Challenge: This plan has faced public criticism and several
petitions were created to block this.
• What is the US government doing?
• It requests people to report any suspicious or unusual
behavior/remarks they see online
• Positive result: The Government can successfully remove questionable
material from websites without deterring free speech rights from the
public
•Free Speech is important in order for a society to gather
differing opinions and advance thoughts and ideas for the
betterment of a society.
•However, there are instances in which expressing beliefs can go
too far.
• This occurs in cases of terrorism, child pornography, defamation, etc.
•Governments or higher authorities should be responsible in
curbing potential hostility in free speech. This is not to impede
the right, but to ensure the safety and protection of the people.
•Advancements of technology create new modes of free
communication among the general public, and the greater the
freedom, the greater the need for regulation.
•Free Speech in the United States can be regulated through
government intervention, or through intervention of a higher
authority such as parents, school officials, etc.
•The objective is to find a balance between censoring
inappropriate material on the internet and impeding the rights
guaranteed to the people by the First Amendment.
•However, an existing paradoxical challenge is passing laws to
ensure public safety, only to be met by criticism and
petitions/strikes guaranteed by free speech.