Argumentative Essay: Satire And Freedom Of Speech

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You have the right to remain silent but do you also have the right to speak freely? There are laws implemented to restrict individuals from certain speech, for instance, obscene speech is not protected under the first amendment. Legal limitations are not the only repercussions satirist face, but there tend to be a greater impact of societal limitations. Satire is created in order to mock or ridicule others in order to promote a change for the better. Satire has no limits and every individual has the right to speak freely, but based on societal restrictions they must exercise their better judgement or face the consequences for their actions. Freedom of speech extends to all aspects of satire and general humor. However, there are still things which follow a moral code, where to

Such as, the youtuber who addressed obese people in her video and called them fat. Where she then continued to criticize their characteristics of eating, their body mass, and their health. This seemed to push past the limits of societal limitations because she received a huge backlash, while stating she was using satire and claimed that she “cared about people’s health.” (Behar) However, the opposing side claimed that she was using this to cover herself up, and that she in fact “didn’t care about their health,” and how her whole statement behind the video was “bull.” (Behar) Due to the mocking words and phrases used in her video, many people did not find the form of satire humorous because it critiqued and generalized an entire group of people. The repercussions of her actions were being removed from youtube and having a large bases of having hatred thrown towards her. She was completely responsible for having put her video out on youtube, therefore the repercussions were completely expected and