Difference Between Free Speech And Hate Speech

The Difference Between Free Speech and Hate Speech

In society the topic of free speech comes up very frequently. One side will argue that there should be no limit on what someone wants to say, while others believe that the idea on full free speech is dangerous and should be restricted. In a video that was presented to us there was a debate that conquered this topic on why or why not this should be allowed. This topic of free speech has gone on for decades and continues to be a fight on whether it should be limited.

In the debate they both made very good points on why they believe what they said. The side for no-platforming’s main argument was claims that harms that come with no-platforming are more serious than someone being allowed to

This was very convincing for me because of who I am as a person. Being a minority shows you how much peoples words can have influence on another person. Taking into consideration that not all people who want free speech have bad intentions or say horrible things, however there are still some people who do. With free speech sometimes comes discrimination, stereotyping and racist things being said from certain people. Words can be very harmful when said in certain ways and people shouldn’t have to hear that in public settings such as school. Another reason is why I was convinced was the fact of how far words can bring someone. There are many situations in history that if they had had a restriction on free speech these specific situations might not have happened. For example with Hitler, he said many derogatory things towards Jewish people and anyone he thought was ‘subhuman’. He was able to run an entire country into executing one of the biggest genocides history has ever seen off of his views. Now if he were not allowed to publically say the things that he did, he might not have gained an audience that was able to accomplish his master

No-platforming does limit people’s speech sometimes when they aren’t even trying to say things that are inappropriate or malicious. One point was when they said that people could falsely get people charged or in trouble over what someone will claim were hurtful words. Everyone has a different line of what they describe as hurtful. To one person a comment can be offensive and to another it is just everyday common talk. This will be hard to distinguish what was rude from what wasn’t and people will be able to turn little things into something it was not meant too be and with not having a limit on free speech this would not be able to happen. However, though that point was convincing it did not persuade me to join their side. The idea that, yes some cases may not be that serious still a majority of them are. People that complain that they are not allowed free speech are usually trying to say something that they know is not appropriate because if it were then this wouldn’t be an issue. I did not find most of their arguments convincing because the cons to free speech way out the pros. Especially in an environment such as a university people are still learning everyday who they are and what they want to become. From the morals and ethics that we learn everyday in school I don’t think it would be logical to have someone come in and speak an hour on