Political Debates discussion

Free speech- what should be classified as hate crime or harassment and what should be classified as an opinion?
Discuss!

I think people who justify homophobia, racism, or sexism as free speech or their opinion are doing harm. it should 100% be classified as harassment.

yeah I definitely agree with that bumble:)

what do you think about misinformation? should that be classified as just free speech?

Bumble wrote: "what do you think about misinformation? should that be classified as just free speech?"

I think it depends on the type of misinformation, and how you're spreading it.

like, fake news about the election or something

yeah, but where should you draw the line? and who is allowed to spread any kind of misinformation? trump for example should always fact check his tweets - should everyone be required to give sources?

Tsunami |Nya Smith| wrote: "Never, your privacy is your own. The line should be at the point where everyone is comfortable, anything over that which makes people say NO is unacceptable"

Then how do you figure out who is right when two disagree? The idea of free speech is that you protect the speech you hate the most. It is when speech is uncomfortable that it is truly free because unpopular opinions are free speech too.

I live in Australia and we don't technically have 'free speech' in our constitution and I'm actually glad for it...
First of all what even is free speech? A way to say racist, homophobic nonsense and not be reprimanded for it?
And what do the US courts do about defamation then?
(Defamation is the spreading of fake news about a person/ company)
If there's 'free speech' anyone can go about saying anything even if its total bs and causes such chaos in its wake.
There's really no point in free speech, the whole concept of 'free' is philosophical a scam to begin with, but I won't get into that.
Anyways, that's my 2 cents on the topic

Free speech is about Government interference. There are limits to speech and the rub is where are those limits. Unlike many, I have zero problems with hateful or irritating speech. It is part of what makes us.

The very point of free speech was to prevent someone from stopping someone else from speaking their mind. Fro those that think protesting is OK, that is part of free speech even if they are irritating everyone.

The United States is one of the few countries that recognize free speech and we are by far the most tolerant of it.

yeah, but homophobia and racism and sexism can drive someone to hurting themselves or others and hate crimes due to these prejudices are outlawed. people who will commit hate crimes usually show their prejudice through hate speech.

Bumble wrote: "yeah, but homophobia and racism and sexism can drive someone to hurting themselves or others and hate crimes due to these prejudices are outlawed. people who will commit hate crimes usually show th..."

Words and speech can be hateful and hurt. Certainly true. However, where do you draw the line? If you say something that is not haeful and you are called out saying it was hurtful, then what? The problem is the line is very blurry. Personally I would rather it all be in the open because then it can be dealt with more speech.

As for the crimes, there is a huge difference between action and words. Remember there are limits to speech.

Also, I am not saying you have to like any speech or not call it out, but you have to allow it or risk your speech being limited.

It's easy to defend speech that is agreeable. If you intend to shut down speech you don't like, whether it's untruthful or hateful, then there is no free speech.

You can say "I hate Trump" and I can say it's hate speech, but neither of us should be censored.

You have the right to say racist and stupid things. If society then shuns you, that's their right, too.

Anything that puts us on the road to Thought Police or a Ministry of Truth is dangerous.

I agree- say what you want, but free speech doesn’t protect you from the consequences.

Spriya wrote: "I agree- say what you want, but free speech doesn’t protect you from the consequences."

But should it allow you to be cancelled?

i think that cancel culture and free speech are related, but not dependent on each other. everyone has the right to say something, but you don’t then get the right to claim that you shouldn’t be cancelled.

i believe in free speech, but i don’t believe in cancel culture. obviously people should be held accountable for their actions though.

I want you to think very carefully on this question. If you use speech and then get cancelled, is that not a suppression of free speech?

Cancel culture goes too far by getting people fired for thoughtless comments made decades ago. I see calls for lists of people who believe x or y so they can have their homes burned down and be denied jobs and access to businesses. That's censorship through bullying.

We need to forgive people for being human.

it is not.

the definition of freedom of speech is:
the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint.

i agree with that statement.

if the definition was:
the right to express any opinions without consequences or counteragrguments

then i wouldn’t agree.

everyone has the right to state any opinions. and people also have the right to disagree, and state an opposition to that argument.

repression of free speech would be censoring, persecuting, removing etc etc.

doxxing/looting/vandalism would be repression, but unfollowing/speaking badly of a person because of their actions is not.

sofia wrote: "repression of free speech would be censoring, persecuting, removing etc etc...."

What do you think cancelling actually is if it is not removal? It is the very idea of preventing a person from expressing their opinion. It is bullying by any definition. There is a reason it is called canceling....

Audrey wrote: "We need to forgive people for being human..."

No you do not. You need to accept and tolerate their rights to speak. You do not need to like, nor forgive.

what do you think about slurs like the n slur or the f slur?

I think they just absolutely shouldn't be used.

And we really shouldn't let all these "TikTok stars/creators" just say the n word in songs or in regular conversations, but they get "caught" on video and then we just let them off the hook. like, where’s the accountability? do they not understand how that word has negatively affected the Black community?

I completely agree with the tiktok star thing. Even if they're just "mouthing" that word in a song it's still as bad and they should be canceled and unfollowed by everyone. But they're promoted instead.

i agree. the issue with cancel culture though, is that we see tik tok stars being doxxed and threatened rather than educated. we should obviously hold people accountable for their actions (unfollowing them/ stop promoting them) but we also shouldn’t tell the, to k*ll themselves.

Oh, yeah, I definitely didn't mean anything remotely like that.

oh yeah i didn’t think you did :) i was just adding something to a statement you said that i already agreed with

We are soo lucky to have FREE SPEECH in our country, we can speak what we believe, we can express how we feel...it;s free speech. People should know manners when they talk though. "if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say it." and "The Golden Rule"

Ignore them, they are only bringing you down to feel good about them self.

Just curious--are we seriously debating whether or not we should be allowed the freedom of speech?

Mhm.

Verbal abuse is common, we can't stop it. KIt's wrong, yes. We can put a speech restraint--but do we really believe that will stop it? It won't.

Freedom of speech is OUR freedom. Don't take that away.

I believe in freedom of speech but that doesn’t mean freedom of consequence.

exactly!

Bumble wrote: "yeah, but where should you draw the line? and who is allowed to spread any kind of misinformation? trump for example should always fact check his tweets - should everyone be required to give sources?"

Bumble wrote: "like, fake news about the election or something"

Hey guys, just wanted to say, sorry for being so inactive lately, I've been pretty busy. Anyways, I think it also depends on who is saying it. Like I have one friend who goes to a Catholic school, lives in a neighborhood that is mostly all conservatives, and probably all of her friends besides me and our other friend are all conservative republicans. She also doesn't have a phone so she isn't really getting much exposure. She actually believes that Trump won the election--because that's her parents believe and that's what practically everyone in her life believes. I don't believe she should be punished for saying that, because she just doesn't know any better.

Trump spreading fake news all over the internet is very different, though. He should NOT be able to say he won in the election. He didn't. And didn't they just catch him trying to get one of the governers to say that Trump actually won that state?

Alexa | Queen of Hearts | Eva Teller wrote: "Just curious--are we seriously debating whether or not we should be allowed the freedom of speech?

Mhm.

Verbal abuse is common, we can't stop it. KIt's wrong, yes. We can put a speech restraint--..."

i think everyone agrees that we should have freedom of speech, but people have varying opinions on what is considered restriction of speech.

sofia wrote: "Alexa | Queen of Hearts | Eva Teller wrote: "Just curious--are we seriously debating whether or not we should be allowed the freedom of speech?

Mhm.

Verbal abuse is common, we can't stop it. KIt'..."

Yes. Agreed. And i think that freedom of speech is being able to speak out if we think if something is unfair. I don't think harrassment is "freedom of speech"

Ok, how would the speech restrain work?

Alexa | Queen of Hearts | Eva Teller wrote: "Ok, how would the speech restrain work?"

For starters, we could have churches stop promoting that being gay is a sin. I think that'd be a good start. We could also ban the ticktok videos that are having terrible slurs in them

AnnabethChase wrote: "Alexa | Queen of Hearts | Eva Teller wrote: "Ok, how would the speech restrain work?"

For starters, we could have churches stop promoting that being gay is a sin. I think that'd be a good start. W..."

TikTok videos, sure.

Churches? Leviticus 18:1-22 The Lord said to Moses..."Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable."

If it's truth, you can't ban it.

Jaiden wrote: "The truth? Being gay is NOT a crime"

I didn't say it was.

being gay isn’t a sin, and saying that leads to suicides. therefore it’s a harmful and dangerous thing to say. it should be banned, I think.

Fiona wrote: "Alexa | Queen of Hearts | Eva Teller wrote: "Jaiden wrote: "The truth? Being gay is NOT a crime"

I didn't say it was."

Then what did you mean by, "if it's the truth, we can't ban it"?"

You want people to start lying? What do YOU mean? Why would we stop spreading the truth?

Hi

Alexa | Queen of Hearts | (NEW BIO) wrote: "Fiona wrote: "Alexa | Queen of Hearts | Eva Teller wrote: "Jaiden wrote: "The truth? Being gay is NOT a crime"

I didn't say it was."

Then what did you mean by, "if it's the truth, we can't ban it..."

Something shouldn't be the "truth" because it was in the bible. Not every one is Christian, and the bible was written in a different time, where the rules were different. We shouldn't be applying ancient rules to modern day examples. Begin gay is not a sin, and promoting that should be classified as hate speech (in my opinion) because you are telling youth that what they are is WRONG, when it ISNT. it's hate

BringerOfBooks wrote: "Alexa | Queen of Hearts | (NEW BIO) wrote: "Fiona wrote: "Alexa | Queen of Hearts | Eva Teller wrote: "Jaiden wrote: "The truth? Being gay is NOT a crime"

I didn't say it was."

Then what did you ..."

Sorry let me clarify myself real quick. Promoting that being gay is a sin in my opinion should be classified as hate speech

Speaking of free speech- amen and awomen

What did y’all think of that?

Jaiden wrote: "BringerOfBooks wrote: "BringerOfBooks wrote: "Alexa | Queen of Hearts | (NEW BIO) wrote: "Fiona wrote: "Alexa | Queen of Hearts | Eva Teller wrote: "Jaiden wrote: "The truth? Being gay is NOT a cri..."
Same

about amen and awomen - never heard of it! what is it?

Bumble wrote: "about amen and awomen - never heard of it! what is it?"
I think I heard something like this yesterday coincidentally 😂
The fact that it's a-MEN or MEN-struation
I could be wrong and it could be about something else. But the thing I remember about hearing this is someone made the joke about how everything's that's bad relates to men😂

But I could be totally fucking wrong