The Pros And Cons Of Free Speech

In today’s society, free speech is a right guaranteed to every American in the U.S., but not all countries give their citizens that right. As computer and internet technology has grown, so too has the number of violations against free speech around the world. Some of these include censorship of the press by the government, punishment for speaking against the government, and punishment for voicing unpopular opinions. The computer and internet technology of the world is often used in these suppressions of free speech.

In the U.S., the government does little to nothing at all to censor the press. In other countries around the world though, the press and media distributes nothing that the government does not want to public to know. Look at North

For instance, here in the U.S., people who voice unpopular opinions are often attacked and punished not by the government but by the public itself. People sometimes share their unpopular opinions on social media, and other people end up condemning it or even verbally attacking the original poster. Some attackers even share the original post with friends so that their friends may join in on the harassment. The original post can even go viral because of this, and the original poster can become a pariah on the internet. Sometimes they endure daily harassment for weeks. Other times they even lose their jobs and get death threats over their opinions. While this is not the usual example of a government restricting free speech, it does still qualify I believe. The majority opinion in society sometimes goes out of its way to stomp out the minority opinion. Some ethical theories would approve this kind of behavior, such as act utilitarianism, because the happiness of the majority would outweigh the unhappiness of the minority. Most would condemn this kind of behavior as unethical though. The attackers don’t treat people as ends in themselves or with good intentions as Kantianism demands, and if this were flipped around on the people of the majority opinion, they would undoubtedly be upset by it, so rule utilitarianism does not support it either. Virtue ethics would describe it as unethical because of the unkindness in