Freedom of Speech

Week 2 Assignment
Of all of the rights given to American people by the forefathers, probably the most important and valued one is the Freedom of Speech. The right to say whatever we want regardless of other people’s opinions is a right that most people have been fighting for ever since people started fighting against it (Linyi, 2018). Generally speaking, though, should people really be able to say anything they want to say? Should they be able to say derogatory things about people without having any type of proof (ElSherief, Kulkarni, Nguyen,Yang Wang, & Belding, 2018)? Should they actually be able to make up lies just to destroy a person they do not like (ElSherief et al., 2018)? This would seem to be extremely wrong on any number of levels. First of all, people should never lie and associate that with using free speech. Especially if they are knowingly lying. The true meaning of true speech is that people should have their rights to their own opinions that other people cannot intimidate them out of having (Kendrick, 2018). However, somewhere along the line we made a wrong turn. Now the right to freedom of speech means that any person can say any hurtful thing he or she wants to simply because he or she wants to (Bradshaw, Neudert, & Howard, 2018). This is not right, and the U.S. government is currently standing up to say that it is not right, and that it will not be put up with for much longer. This can be sure to be as true in terms of posts on social media as hateful words against a minority; this will have to stop, and soon (Bradshaw et al., 2018). So the answer to the question is no, the freedom of speech rights should not apply to the script, text, memes, and cartoons used to express oneself on social media sites. In fact, the answer should probably be no, it does not even apply to vocal words, at least not all of them.