Free speech, Responsibility, the Internet, and Anonymity
That title just about says it all, I guess.
There is a place in the Smoky Mountains National Park, above Gatlinburg, where Tennessee meets North Carolina. There's a sign there, even, just so you know. Nearby there is a another sign that says, "Free Speech Zone" where visitors are encouraged to use their First Amendment rights. I have a picture of myself standing in front of it posted on my bulletin board outside my office.
I like to think I am pretty much an absolutist when it comes to the interpretation of the First Amendment, although I believe it was meant as a protection from the government for political, philosophical, legal, educational, and religious speech, not just an excuse for people to be ugly and profane. Unfortunately, we have to take the good with the bad on it. I don't think those five categories of non-obscene speech are a problem, usually. They aren't for me, but they are for some.
However, nothing in the First Amendment absolves the users of free speech of responsibility for their speech (somebody else can punch you in the nose if you insult the somebody); the First Amendment is about what the government can do to you. So we still have to have libel and slander laws. We still have the rights of a capitalistic enterprise (a publisher or record company) to decide what it wants to produce for its market (and reputation).
As technology expands, the First Amendment issues get murkier. It's not just a matter of someone standing by the sign in the Smokey Mountains. There, only the people who can hear me might have a problem. With radio and television, a lot more people become involved. On top of that, you have to have money, or access to someone with money, to get on the air to state your opinions. So the government had to come up with more regulations (the FCC) because of the power of the media and those who run it. I don't happen to think they've done a great job on that, but that opinion is neither here nor there.
This bring us to the Internet. Now you don't have to have any great sum of money to spread your expression (speech) over the world. You need only go to a public library and get some passwords. You can now have a website, a blog, or just go to other blogs and forums and put up anything you want, in perfect anonymity. As the old cartoon says, "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog."
So if, say, you go to Fox News, or MSNBC, or the Daily Kos, or Yahoo, or YouTube, or any other sites with comments or forum page, you can see some of the most hateful, insulting, racist, profane, degrading comments posted without fear of censure or litigation by anonymous writers. Truly, no one knows you are a dog.
My point: I really don't think it's a true, mature exercise of free speech if you don't take responsibility for it. When I started this blog, I was fooling around just to see what the technology was like, so I used a fake name, Glenda Boone. It didn't take me long to see how childish that was, so I changed it to my real name so everyone would know who writes this stuff, whether it's crap or not. But it's my crap, and I'm not going to apologize for my right to put up my opinion.
That being said, I sometimes have to apologize for the way I said something, or if someone was hurt by something I wrote. It is never my intention to be hurtful; I don't even understand intentional hurtfulness, but I do have a snarky streak that comes out when I am not letting the Holy Spirit control my mind, my mouth, or my typing fingers. Usually the snarkiness is addressed at myself or life in general.
Thousands of young men and women are fighting for my right to do this blog and your right to read it. I hope that in the future we will all keep in mind their sacrifices and exercise freedom of expression, religion, assembly, press, etc. in a mature and responsible fashion, and take ownership of what we say, not hiding behind screennames so no one can hold us accountable for our expression.
There is a place in the Smoky Mountains National Park, above Gatlinburg, where Tennessee meets North Carolina. There's a sign there, even, just so you know. Nearby there is a another sign that says, "Free Speech Zone" where visitors are encouraged to use their First Amendment rights. I have a picture of myself standing in front of it posted on my bulletin board outside my office.
I like to think I am pretty much an absolutist when it comes to the interpretation of the First Amendment, although I believe it was meant as a protection from the government for political, philosophical, legal, educational, and religious speech, not just an excuse for people to be ugly and profane. Unfortunately, we have to take the good with the bad on it. I don't think those five categories of non-obscene speech are a problem, usually. They aren't for me, but they are for some.
However, nothing in the First Amendment absolves the users of free speech of responsibility for their speech (somebody else can punch you in the nose if you insult the somebody); the First Amendment is about what the government can do to you. So we still have to have libel and slander laws. We still have the rights of a capitalistic enterprise (a publisher or record company) to decide what it wants to produce for its market (and reputation).
As technology expands, the First Amendment issues get murkier. It's not just a matter of someone standing by the sign in the Smokey Mountains. There, only the people who can hear me might have a problem. With radio and television, a lot more people become involved. On top of that, you have to have money, or access to someone with money, to get on the air to state your opinions. So the government had to come up with more regulations (the FCC) because of the power of the media and those who run it. I don't happen to think they've done a great job on that, but that opinion is neither here nor there.
This bring us to the Internet. Now you don't have to have any great sum of money to spread your expression (speech) over the world. You need only go to a public library and get some passwords. You can now have a website, a blog, or just go to other blogs and forums and put up anything you want, in perfect anonymity. As the old cartoon says, "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog."
So if, say, you go to Fox News, or MSNBC, or the Daily Kos, or Yahoo, or YouTube, or any other sites with comments or forum page, you can see some of the most hateful, insulting, racist, profane, degrading comments posted without fear of censure or litigation by anonymous writers. Truly, no one knows you are a dog.
My point: I really don't think it's a true, mature exercise of free speech if you don't take responsibility for it. When I started this blog, I was fooling around just to see what the technology was like, so I used a fake name, Glenda Boone. It didn't take me long to see how childish that was, so I changed it to my real name so everyone would know who writes this stuff, whether it's crap or not. But it's my crap, and I'm not going to apologize for my right to put up my opinion.
That being said, I sometimes have to apologize for the way I said something, or if someone was hurt by something I wrote. It is never my intention to be hurtful; I don't even understand intentional hurtfulness, but I do have a snarky streak that comes out when I am not letting the Holy Spirit control my mind, my mouth, or my typing fingers. Usually the snarkiness is addressed at myself or life in general.
Thousands of young men and women are fighting for my right to do this blog and your right to read it. I hope that in the future we will all keep in mind their sacrifices and exercise freedom of expression, religion, assembly, press, etc. in a mature and responsible fashion, and take ownership of what we say, not hiding behind screennames so no one can hold us accountable for our expression.
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