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This is an old, but excellent article on the debates around the boundaries of free speech: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/02/how-social-media-trolls-turned-uc-berkeley-into-a-free-speech-circus/amp
The most common examples given for unacceptable speech are: yelling fire in a crowded theater and incitement to violence.
The most common examples given for unacceptable speech are: yelling fire in a crowded theater and incitement to violence.
But the limits of acceptability and the definitions of incitement and violence are man made constructs and, therefore, constantly shifting.
Stepping away from left vs right debates, here is an example from the 70s.
Stepping away from left vs right debates, here is an example from the 70s.
No company today would fight for the right to put up pornographic posters nor would any judge uphold this as free speech. It’s unambiguously a hostile workplace for women.
As society changes — women entering the workplace or technology giving racist, dog-whistling leaders megaphones without any filters at unprecedented scale — we must think about what acceptable boundaries of speech are.
I am not a legal expert and don’t know where the boundary should be. But we can draw a direct line between Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol and @twitter’s/ @facebook’s utter reluctance to do anything about Trump’s mass messages over the last five years.
Arguing the boundaries of speech should forever be fixed and virtually absolute in spite of mass societal changes — in this case, technology induced — is both ahistorical and dangerous.
