May Contain Peanuts

lol...

I'm a fan of free speech. I value the First amendment. I think it promotes ideas and understanding and an individual will benefit from it. However, one should always be responsible for what he or she is saying or expressing.

If you want to see a blatant misuse of free speech that hurts more than helps the idea of free expression, just visit any message board on the internet. It is remarkable what you will read on any given board anywhere on the net. Personal attacks, offensive language, racism, sexism, absurdity, stupidity, and misinformation (and of course plenty of spam) run rampant. It is quite ridiculous.

I feel that the reason this exists is that all of these posts and ideas are free from any type of culpability. Other than an IP address, there is no link to the person who is posting it, other than a created persona and maybe a crude avatar. This allows for the worst possible things to be said without any personal repercussion. Sure, the user may be kicked off the site, postings removed or edited and notices sent out of such behavior, but as of now there are no penalties or limits on what is expressed.

Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying there should be penalties or limits, but there should be a more concrete way of attaching the words to a person. The anonymity of postings allows for things that one would never say face to face to another person. It allows for the deeper feelings, be them right or wrong, to come out without worrying about what one's response to them will be. Often, these 'offensive' things posted are done so merely to get a reaction or response, much like the 'shock-jockery' of radio personalities or like provoking a fight that you don't have to be involved in. Sure, some of this is done merely for the potential humor of it, but most of it is just drivel that the electronic world would be better off without.

What is more unfortunate is that these posts are real thoughts and ideas of real people. What I mean is that these atrocious messages shatter the idea that most people are inherently good or well-meaning. What comes across instead is that our society and behaviors are merely a front for our true feelings and intentions and the individual hides them (and rightly so) for fear of other's response. On message boards, one can express those offensive remarks knowing that the fear that prevents him from saying it in public is not attached to it. Thus, we get the result of true free speech and all the unpleasantries that accompany it.

Yes, freedom of speech is a wonderful liberty. It allows us to be able to express our individuality in a world of plurality. Unfortunately, true free speech reveals far more into how individual we are and often compromises the social norms that allows us the comfort of being able to express ourselves. Again, we should not put a limit on expression, but we must realize that for anything we say or do, we will be held responsible for it in the public realm, and others may not appreciate your opinion. What happens as a result of that expression again falls upon the individual, but this should not be a blind circumstance. You should know whether or not the things you are saying might not be readily appreciated or accepted by certain other people. Ignorance is not an excuse. Our right to expression must be met with our need to be responsible for said expression, a balance that keeps the society of individuals functioning smoothly.

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On a side note, I am a fan of something I read on Wonkette.com. Every month or so, the editor posts that it is 'comment clean-up time' or something to that effect. Then, the readers vote on which usernames should be banned from the comments section because of their poor quality of responses. Granted, there are easy ways of getting around this, but I still think its a novel idea, especially with the amount of garbage available.