Does the internet give too much freedom of speech?

[SirDerpy]

Personally I sometimes think that people should think twice before they go running to the internet to vent their spleen about something (or someone). What about you?

That is one of the most fascist ideas I've ever read and you disgust me.

Oh shit, next thing you know, thinking even once is a Communist move. After all, one is the most equal number, eh, comrade?

Be sure to read what you're replying to next time so you sound less of a jerk.

OT: To echo someone else, there is no such thing as too much freedom of speech. You might say there's not enough decency and courtesy, but those kinds of things can't be controlled for so long as we can't punch people in the face through their monitors.

Oh, one day....

 

[Caiphus]

It's naturally difficult to prosecute people for harassment, inciting violence, defamation etc when it takes place on the Internet. For fairly obvious reasons. Whether you would want to describe that as "too much freedom of speech" really depends on your interpretation.

As to whether that's a good thing would also depend. As we saw with Justin Carter last year, words have the potential to be volatile, especially on the Internet. They can be stored near-permanently, easily taken out of context, and the boundaries of privacy can become unclear. So you would need to be careful asking for more frequent prosecution.

 

[thundra]

Most people don't know what free-speech actually, means.

 

[Madame_Lawliet]

There's a great quote that I heard a while back, although I can't for the life of me remember where...
"The greatest thing about the internet was that it gave everyone a voice, and the worst thing about the internet is that it gave everyone a voice."
Make of that what you will.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yes and no.

The problem with giving people the freedom to do things is that they will do things you think they shouldn't do. The problem with making sure people don't do what they shouldn't do is who gets to decide what that is.

IMHO, freedom of speech isn't that great. However, giving someone the power to limit it is dangerous.

 

[Quoth]

----8<---- decide for ourselves whether or not we want to risk being punched.

This was one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.

Regarding propaganda posters. I'm well aware that there's nothing new to incitement of hatred. Access to reach 10's of thousands of people across the globe at a click of a button represents a different opportunity (and greater reach) for propaganda than posters. The echoes of history are not lost on me, the current feelings of anti-Semitism and Islam could be coming from anywhere, for any reason but instead of being challenged they're blindly accepted as reality. The fear is then that media now reaches further and is just as powerful as it was when Nazism swept Europe and who really knows who is in control?

On a different note, I've been aware of /b for many years - and I'm fully aware that if you don't like something that's on it you shouldn't be there. But I think when assaults become personal on individual that it's gone to far (and in particular might share mobile / cell numbers and encourage people to harassment).

 

[Jess2449]

Freedom of speech is something really great and that every place in the world and online should have it. It is a great concept theoretically but not so in reality or not until humans are taught to be intelligent and be able to restrain their nature.
Hate speech is a form of speech as well, and it can do as much damage as physically hurting someone if the other person is in a vulnerable mental state.

There are quite a few people who spend a lot of time online because they might feel depressed or horrible etc and such people cannot "toughen up" like some people want to believe, depression is not something that can be stopped by repression and old fashioned tough guy ideologies. And yet instead of being helped and feel better they often feel worse because there is always someone who is gonna insult them, hate them etc and that could very likely lead to a bigger spiral of depression and suicidal thoughts.

Now tell me how the people who are using the right of free speech to hurt others emotionally by hate speech simply because of their own problems or enjoyment are not responsible for a person like that suiciding? Aka being responsible for his death.
What should a depressed person do? He obviously doesnt have the mental strength to ignore them and never going online will simply push him deeper into loneliness and depression, and not everyone has the time or money to be going to psychotherapists to deal with such issues(Though imo in the future psychotherapy should be mandatory for everyone and available for lower/cheaper prices or even free, i believe it can help a lot of people not only feel better but stop others from acting like hateful bigots)

Now on a more personal area, transgender people are known to have high suicide rates and it seems there is not really much awareness on their problems which leads to people like this writing such ignorant articles:

Check this for example http://thoughtcatalog.com/gavin-mcinnes/2014/08/transphobia-is-perfectly-natural/ (just press continue on the bottom, sadly it hasnt been taken down)

An article that has no scientific basis and it is literally a guy spewing "facts" he created using his biased fantasy without having any experience on the matter. And because people are close minded and cant deal with deviants like intelligent people there are people who say they are OK or that they AGREE with what the author said even though themselves they have no knowledge about transgenderness and they just let their ignorance be filled by whatever hateful crap they want to believe and feel superior too.

I read somewhere that transgender individuals are 30%-50% more likely to suicide if they are rejected by their families, now if they are also rejected IRL and online by many people i think
And i mean cmon, there are still billions of people who would call a transgender woman, a woman if they she her IRL(and she passes that is) but the MOMENT she tells them that she was ONCE a man they will go into hyperdrive and start calling her a man or trying to identify anything that could imply she was a man once even though before she told them the truth they didnt notice a thing. And tbh those arguments they use are pretty weak since genetics has also affected women that might end up having some masculine features or there are cis women who even have XY chromosomes yet they dont call them males.
So as usual there isnt really any rational or good explanation behind their transphobia.

Like i said suicide rates on transgender individuals are ridiculously high and seem to be higher when the individual is rejected. Not only do such individuals have to go through the horrible process of transitioning and deal with a ton of other horrible things in their lives, they have people like that author to keep trying invalidate them without any good reason other than transphobia.
Not only transgender individuals have trouble accepting themselves as the wanted gender sometimes they also have to deal with daily discrimination and rejection in their real life, and then they come online to see that they are yet again rejected by others and read people say "you will never be the gender you want in reality" which i am pretty sure is a major thing for most transgender people.

So we got daily problems, IRL discrimination, online discrimination accompanied with a VAST AMOUNT of hateful and invalidating comments hitting a person which is likely depressed and already has to deal with a ton of persona issues. I wonder how much more hate transgender people can take before they end up thinking it is better to end it all instead of suffering eternally.

Depressed individuals especially when they belong to some deviant group instead of finding open minded help and acceptance online they find a huge amount of hate and personal attacks. No offense but i cant really advocate for free speech when it can be used as a tool of murder in a way, at least not until people learn how powerful some words are for some people