Freedom of Speech and Internet Anonymity

[theeboredone]

EDIT: I am not sure if the questions presented are the right ones to present. So feel free to go express any other opinions you have.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Evelyn Beatrice Hall.

There have been many situations and stories where free speech has come under debate in regards to should there be any limitations put on it. Some look at the examples of the Westboro Baptist Church, Bullying at school, among many other things as extreme cases where freedom of speech gets out of hand.

Today, I want people to debate about whether or not,
"Should the first amendment have initiatives made to make it limited?"
"Should those who violate laws anonymously over the internet have that anonymity revoked?

What mainly comes to mind is Reddit. Over this past year, Reddit has had three situations come up in the news that has left people split.

1. Reddit had a jail bait thread, where people were getting away with posting kids under the age of 18 in sexually suggestive poses. Some were not sexually suggestive, but various types of pictures ran in that thread. Since the story blew up, the thread has been shut down.

2. The "Creep Shot" thread has now been the new fad. Imagine how celebrities appear in those gossip magazines, going about their natural business. Now apply your everyday person not aware of those pictures being taken, now having those images applied to the internet. While your identity is not revealed, there is that suggestion your privacy is being invaded. The disagreements come whether it is lawfully right for people to do that. Other images also included teenagers under 18 as well. Of course, the wide internet defense being "How do I know if they are under/over 18?"

3. The latest event involves a moderator of the subreddits that was in charge of threads including upskirt pictures, jailbait, creepshots, etc. Also known for being a troll, his identity was recently exposed by a TMZ style journal called Gawker. Because of this, the moderator was fired from his job in real life. It should be noted that Reddit took measures to censor out any Gawker links in an effort to block his identity from being exposed happening. However, it is a bit ironic that Reddit, the champion of Free Speech decided to limit it when one of their own was under attack.

If you want a good summary of #3, here is an article along with his opinion on the matter.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411001,00.asp

All in all, I think it's a very thin line to walk on if you want to censor freedom of speech and press on the internet. The wording has to be careful, and we have to acknowledge a lot of good things have come from those who blog about the terrors outside our country to whistleblowers who expose corrupt companies while remaining anonymous. However, due to the power of the internet, people can remain anonymous while exerting their inner desires/personality that they would not be able to do in public. This includes trolling, illegal pornography, and overall invasion of privacy.

I can't help but feel worn out, disgusted, and just overall tired of some of the things people can get away with on the internet. Shouldn't there be a boiling point where we say enough is enough? Afterall, the First Amendment does have a clause where yelling "fire" in a theater can get you in trouble. Why not have clauses for things like these?

 

[Muhti]

I agree people do get out of hand when abusing the first amendment of the Bill of Rights.

Though, I do not believe people should have anomonousity revoked. Why? Would you like it if somebody can find your true identity? No. They could just search up my name on Google straight afterwards and most likely find me (Unless I have a common name, which I don't) I don't want to have that feeling of somebody watching me and my real identification. That just dishonors my privacy. An alternate solution is to ip ban the user, simple as that! Though, there is proxies so they can return.

Google is starting to remove animosity from their YouTube users. Many people are complaining.

Onto the Admins and Mods on a forums, they should be more stricter and tighten up the rules. That would be MUCH better. But, you have lazy people out there.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

In order to examine this we need to look at why we think freedom of speech is something worth fighting for. We feel it is a right to be able to say what we like because it is our voice, we may do as we please with it. Though, that seems to be a bit misleading when we look at how there are many things that we cannot do in reality through restrictions although it pertains to us and our actions, that we own. So I must recede from the notion that it is a right and instead say it is a privilege. A privilege is granted to us under the assumption that doing so will be more helpful and beneficial than not having it. This means that, as we all are well aware, that free speech is helpful for not only for the speaker to be able to express themselves, but gives others the power to listen (to remove the freedom of speech is to remove the freedom to listen). Now this is an absolutely true assumption, and the privilege must be granted by any competent government. However, insofar as it is not beneficial, it defies itself. This goes back to what I said earlier, we own our actions, but we aren't permitted by virtue of this to do as we please. What actions are restricted? Actions that harm or deter others. Speech, although action in verbal form, is still action nonetheless, and has such a potential. It is perfectly logically consistent (and I'd say healthy if done properly) to moderate and discourage harmful verbal action just as we moderate and discourage harmful non-verbal action. The distinction between the two is unjustified and is manifested in the idea that freedom of speech is a right, which I think we already dispelled on the offset.

I do not think speech should be controlled as to anything that might come off offensive as illegal, but things that are harassment should be punished and death threats, verbal action threatening illegal non-verbal action, should be taken seriously if we are to assume everything that I've said here. Invasions of privacy are obviously wrong, for its an invasion of rights. Freedom of speech is great, vital even, but there are instances where the purpose of it is lost, and some tend to forget that as they blindly follow the principle, and as said previously, it is obtained by thinking that FoS is an unalienable right, essentially, unjustly self-entitled humans.

One last edit, to put it another way, removing the freedom of speech is removing the freedom to listen like I said before, but there are often cases where things are just going to harm individuals and there is no gain to permit it. I would call it restricting people insofar as they wish to restrict and harm others, basically the essence of laws, so as I said before, it is logically consistent.

 

[Jon Farron]

We have to keep in mind the Constitution was written in a time when the internet didn't exist, they had no way of knowing how it could be abused the way it is today.

Freedom of speech, to me, means being able to speak what you believe without being arrested. Continuous verbal bullying, pornography, and other thing along the same line don't really fit into that. If someone is being harmed, whether physically or emotionally, is considered freedom of speech, we need to seriously rethink this. There needs to be limits, and being able to realize when they're just using the freedom of speech excuse to do whatever they want. Now if someone just goes and cusses someone out for not agreeing with them, that's different. However, when bullying and continuous harassment comes through the internet, that's violating the person's privacy. You can't just tell them to get out of your house, or call the cops if they don't. It's the Internet. Of course you could always block them, but people make alternate accounts and get entire groups against you. It's terrible.

Somewhat offtopic, has anyone watched Cyberbully? That's a good example of bullying gone too far. The main bully's father is a lawyer, and defended her with the freedom of speech excuse when confronted by the mother of the person being cyberbullied.

As for Pornography, It's illegal to post suggestive pictures of yourself if you're under 18. Especially on a public forum. it shouldn't be excused under the freedom of expression law.

 

[Muhti]

Yes, but why do you think they made it so you can add Amendmants to the Constition? The Framers knew that as stated in the Preamble.

"and for our prosperity (next generations)"

So Congress can make a bill on this topic or an Amendmant and it may/may not be passed. So the government DOES have power to do this. The Framers weren't stupid there buddy.

 

[Jon Farron]

Which is why the original writers are not at fault for this, it's in the current governments power to do something about the issue. What would be a good way to fix this though? It's hard because doing one thing might violate another.