Friday, November 14, 2008
Right TO Speak
The right to free speech in United State is the right to be free from the punishment from the government in retaliation for at least some (probably most) speech. (Code, pg 233). In United State, the first amendment will protect the free speech. First amendment is expressly prohibit the free exercise of religion, laws that infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to peacely assembles, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. There are many way nowadays that encouraged the free speech, for example the Net. The Internet let people to talk about whatever they want. Blog is one of the medium that allowed people to talk about their idea or opinion or thought that they have on particular topic. But, there is also type of speech that should have the restriction, for example about porn and spam. There is restriction about who can access through this kind of free speech. In the real space the block to that kind of free speech not work much. So, it depends on how people look the free speech. The government has software that will filter the information that they do not want public to read. Besides that, there are also private filter. For example the father does not want his son/daughter to read about certain religion. So, he will set up firewall which will filter all the sites that related to that religion. But on the other hand, this practice will get in the way to protecting free speech.
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2 comments:
In the "Right TO Speak," the author raises several points, one being that free speech has been given an ultimate path by the internet. This allows many people to voice their opinions and say what they desire. The internet allows knowledge and views to spread rapidly, easily, and without much hesitation. This can be wonderful in many ways, allowing the true essence of free speech to be reached. However, we need to be incredibly careful about how much speech is available and that it does not harm others. That could be disastrous. Rumors that could destroy others could be readily circulated. Thus, free speech should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, since anyone can post anything on the internet, we need to be careful about what we say and believe when it comes to the internet. The information needs to be verifies before we believe it. Otherwise, untruths will be circulated and damage can be done.
Nadhirah brings up good points about the contradictory nature of free speech and how we try to filter our society. This is especially prevalent in cyberspace where, on the one hand, people have a forum where they can say whatever they want with relative anonymity. On the other hand, the internet also has extreme censoring capabilities. Basically, the internet has the duality of being able to view everything or nothing. I believe that this is the reason why Lessig said that the internet revealed the real meanings of the First Amendment. We are not only allowed to say what we want, but we also can listen to what we want. We are free to hear and believe whatever you want to. In the real world this is hard to preserve: there's no feasible way of never hearing conflicting viewpoints. But because of the possibility that this can occur in cyberspace, Americans can truly know how it feels to have free speech.
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