Freedom of Speech
Freedom of speech, in my opinion, is the basic human right every being has that allows them to express and speak freely without “censorship”. This law is protected by international declarations as well as constitutions. Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, created by the United Nations, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” In this case, we are allowed to express ourselves in any way possible. In the creation of the United States Constitution, the Founding Fathers were intending to allow this type of freedom to allow the people to regulate the government. They wanted the government to become something that is ideal and perfect. This can only be done through freedom of speech since by using this way, the government can understand the incorrect ideas that the citizens think. An example of this was the I Have a Dream speech of Martin Luther King, in which it completely changed the lives of many Americans. This was an action that helped regulate the racism in the US, changing the way the government acts. This was the complete representation of what the creators of the constitution were intending to do by adding the right of freedom of speech. However, from the introduction of the internet, people took advantage of it and started to insult other cultures, religions, and races. By writing these kinds of writings, the person that wrote it may face outside consequences from it. For example, in the case of Edublogs, the website may delete and erase the blog site because of an unwanted type of writing. This is possible since Edublogs is a private institution. There are also other ways in which unwanted information is filtered through internet. In this case, China would be an excellent example. The Chinese government has created an intense censorship program that erases the information that is not wanted through internet. There are also organizations that are dedicated to this type of censorship. All of these regulatory actions violate the rights of freedom of speech, but are possible since the right has many restrictions to it. These restrictions are created since the freedom of speech is a cause of many controversial and unwanted actions. For this reason, the writing of these insulting works is not a good idea since it results on consequences. In this case, this is an important warning to bloggers. By writing something that is insulting or uses disruptive words, people may take away the blog site.
As shown in the regulation in internet, there are some restrictions to the right of freedom of speech. This was proven in Braenburg v. Ohio, a United States Supreme Court decision, that clarified that freedom of speech may be restricted if it may cause “imminent lawless action.” Imminent lawless action is something that is not protected under the first amendment of the constitution and is defined as something that is “likely to cause violation of the law more quickly than an officer of the law reasonably can be summoned”. As you can see, there are some regulations to the right of freedom of speech. There are many other restrictions to the freedom of speech to keep balance and to protect the rights of other citizens such as regulations to threats, hate speeches, and speeches containing copyright infringement.
Freedom of speech in general, is a concept describing that every human being has the right to express themselves freely. But this expression has some exceptions since the incorrect use of it may cause damage to other rights people have. For this reason, bloggers should not think that the internet is a hideaway that no one is watching and punishing. There are some consquences that comes from the misuse of our right of freedom of speech. Therefore, we should constantly caution ourselves to not post something that may be considered by others as something inappropiate. The action of doing this, as stated before violates other rights of people and for this reason, this cannot be done.
Information from: www.wikipedia.org http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Filed under: freedom of speech and
I agree with many different points that you mentioned about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech being a basic right for all humans should be a natural right all governments should allow. However, freedom of speech shouldn’t be taken advantage of and used to express hatefully although some exceptions are allowed. As you talked about the Internet, it shouldn’t be taken advantage of and I totally agree. However, the Internet is also another source to express your thoughts and opinions about things. It gives you the ability to criticize the government or any other issues such as poverty or war. I like the way you put in quotes from organizations such as the United Nations. Also, relating freedom of speech to Martin Luther King, Jr. was a very intelligent move. It showed how freedom of speech can express people’s thoughts about issues and present them to the government in which depending on the issue, the government may change some laws, as occurred after Martin Luther’s I Have a Dream speech. You also mentioned that freedom of speech has some restrictions. Private organizations such as the Edublogs, have restrictions and cannot use inappropriate messages. If you do, you may face the consequences of losing your blog. Currently, there are debates over allowing hate messages to other people. Nazi marches and KuKluxKlan marches are being allowed in many place causing debates and arguments that it is either violating the First Amendment or not. Overall, your message about freedom of speech is very in-depth and thoughtful. Good Job.