First Amendment/Freedom of Expression issues

The essay opens with some background information about the period in which JS Mill wrote. The discussion revolves around the concept of blasphemy which Mill considered to be highly problematic. Tagging unpopular views as " blasphemous " amounted to abuse of governmental powers and infringed on the basic liberties of the out-of-favour speakers. The discussion on blasphemy sets the scene to the understanding of Mill's concerns, his priorities and consequently his emphasis on the widest possible liberty of expression. Section II presents the Millian principles that are pertinent to his philosophy of free speech: liberty and truth. Section III analyzes Mill's very limited boundaries to freedom of expression, asserting that the consequentialist reasoning had led Mill to ignore present tangible harm. It is argued that democracy is required to develop protective mechanisms against harm-facilitating speech. Zangwill for their sharp and constructive comments. The article is dedicated to the memory of Geoffrey Marshall with whom I had many hours of deliberations on the scholarship and influence of JS Mill. I cannot think of a better teacher. 2

Ever since the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the crime of genocide has been one of the most controversial matters in international humanitarian law, history and politics as the latter two areas of study largely misinterpreted the term which had originated in the former, and, as such, national lawmakers referred mostly to the “common sense” established by politicians and historians in drafting pieces of legislation. Hence, their preference was extremely crucial in the enactment of “genocide denial” laws, as they struggled to create a “common identity” out of the “common tragedy”. This approach worked rather smoothly when addressing Holocaust denial, as the Holocaust was the “exemplary” genocide and its denial had, in most cases, amounted to “hate speech”; however, the application of the laws that penalised a presumed denial of other events referred to as “genocides” by politicians and historians became a matter of debate, as it clashed with a fundamental human right: freedom of expression. This study thus assesses the exceptional regime regarding Holocaust denial, the presumed link between “hate speech” and “genocide denial” and the justification of penalising “genocide denial” from a comparative and critical point of view.

*Winner of:
(1) Top Journal Article of the Year Award from the Communication Ethics Division of the National Communication Association (2014).
(2) the Ellen A. Wartella Distinguished Research Award from the Moody College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin (2014)* 

This study seeks to understand and critique the growing online trend of “revenge porn,” or the intentional embarrassment of identifiable individuals through the posting of nude images online.
This posting of intimate pictures, often done out of motives of revenge for perceived relational scorn, is enhanced by the varying levels of online anonymity. Using the theoretical framework of John Dewey’s pragmatism, this study both analyzes this understudied but complex new problem precipitated by the conditions of the online self and establishes the groundwork for the use of pragmatist ethics in other areas of communication ethics.

The First is an intervention into the present-day free speech controversies that begs for our attention. Unfortunately, Fish’s new book does little to clarify the issues and in fact only compounds them by introducing a parade of specious homologies and straw man arguments. With his characteristic slipperiness, Fish is a sophisticated postmodern leftist who contrives convoluted arguments for proscribing expression that he doesn’t like.

The advent of social media, most notably, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, has been cherished by liberals and progressives alike as the dawn of a new age for free speech and expansion of domain for more civic and efficient communication between diverse groups of individuals and people. The euphoria that defined the prevalent mood in the 2000s later devolved into a more sober and realistic attitude among champions of unrestrained free expression. Once seen as engines of freedom of thought and speech, social media, and Facebook as the subject matter of this paper, are no longer regarded as flawless platforms after the rise of right-wing populism, the ascendancy of inflammatory and hate-driven speech, the prevalent intolerance and online mobbing, and most significantly, the meteoric rise of the post-truth politics in our daily life and political conduct. Not surprisingly, Facebook has found itself at the heart of a sprawling academic and media controversy about the pernicious ramifications of social media on major tenets of social setting and body politic. It now stands trial of a rigorous questioning over its possible role for the reverse of tide regarding free speech. Is Facebook responsible for the current predicament that gripped the platforms and modes of civic social conduct? To what extent, can Facebook be held accountable for the deterioration of free speech, violation of individual rights and encroachment on individual privacy? What would be the limit for free speech or should be any? Should Facebook intervene to remove the content of a hate speech or endorse, no matter what the content is, of unlimited right to free expression? These questions constitute the main structure of this essay. It aims to analyze the central pillars of the current debate regarding the boundaries of free speech and Facebook’s role to define what would be the limitations to restrict what could be written and what not. I’ll dwell upon the arguments of both sides, and will try to show merits and shortcomings of the approach pushing for more interference by Facebook against xenophobic groups while also taking on the stance of those who staunchly oppose any editorial meddling by the social media platform on people’s posts. Furthermore, this essay seeks to explore the roots of setbacks and unwinding of the promising aspects of social media and Facebook in terms of advancing our socialization in public domain. The rise of autocratic leaders around the world, the resurgence of strident populist nationalism has injected new relevance to the debate. Though not for same reasons, Facebook’s CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg found himself being grilled by a group of bipartisan senators in the U.S. Congress over Facebook’s failure to protect private data of tens of millions of users (Roose and Kang, 2018). The ever-growing reach of social media giants have deepened the sense of urgency for reforms to curb their unlimited power over citizens’ private spheres. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Youtube, Apple and Amazon are companies with a staggering amount of data over consumers and people’s habits, attitudes and preferences. Reining in market-driven and unlimited commercial impulses of these companies, according to many observers and politicians, has become an imperative. But this paper is more interested in Facebook’s role in shaping and defining parameters of free speech in today’s world, with its ramifications for social and political conduct. In this respect, it will only focus on Facebook’s role regarding the subject matter. The study draws on a literature review and contains a critical approach regarding existing materials and articles expounding on the issue. While this essay praises the vast opportunity provided by Facebook to widen our social and civic dialogue, it also reminds the existence of perils that woefully break down social decorum and augment xenophobic and hate speech, exactly because of the nature of the same platform, Facebook, which is widely used by marginal groups, white supremacists and fringe nationalists to advance their political goals.

The First Amendment is an important value in American liberal polity. Under this value, racism, hate speech and offensive speech are protected speech. This article scrutinizes one of the clear representatives of the American liberal polity-Thomas Scanlon. The paper tracks the developments in his theory over the years. It is argued that Scanlon's arguments downplay tangible harm that speech might inflict on its target victim audience. Scanlon's distinction between participant interests, audience interests, and the interests of bystanders is put under close scrutiny. The article criticizes viewpoint neutrality and suggests a balancing approach, further arguing that democracy is required to develop protective mechanisms against harm-facilitating speech as well as profound offences. Both should be taken most seriously.

Even before the beginning of the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, there were heated debates on the limits of freedom of speech and (in)acceptability of conspiracy theories in academia, political circles and among enthusiasts gathered in various forums of the vast internet space. The emergence of an objectively dangerous crisis, such as the coronavirus pandemic, has made the existing ideological debates more serious, introducing an element of responsibility that usually did not have to be taken into account in previous discussions: the possibility that someone’s opinion expressed in the relatively deregulated internet endangers the health of people or, in extreme cases, leads to fatality. However, the challenge that has persisted since pre-pandemic times is how to evaluate the views that float in a kind of gray zone. In other words, while explicit hate speech can be treated with intellectually unproblematic ostracism (although without a legal sanction in the American system), issues where it is possible to “read between the lines“ require a much more cautious approach. The issue of accountability for public speech exists in the case of coronavirus, where in addition to often bizarre and almost comic views that can be classified as quackery and the spread of panic, we also encounter a class of views that cannot be unambiguously defined as such, in particular, because science does not have yet the final word on the virus, which in many aspects is still terra incognita.
By taking the position that, despite the fact that conspiracy theories are not true and may be harmful, their censorship is not acceptable from the moral or practical point of view, the author of this paper leans towards an intellectual position that favors the freedom of speech, believing that the Open Internet has the ability to “self-regulate“ and discredit these theories without an external intervention. In this context, the paper analyses the arguments of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The main conclusion of this brief analysis is that punishing people for unacceptable opinion expressed online would do more harm than non-intervention, and that it would encourage a dangerous concentration of power, which could potentially compromise the principles on which modern democratic societies are based.
Keywords: freedom of speech, public interest, censorship, conspiracy theories, ACLU

We here challenge the perspective of free speech absolutism (or fundamentalism) that naively and in juridical error holds the preeminency of free expression, über alles, and counter that free speech must integrate both individualist and communitarian concerns, for the common good, that is, that the juridically correct understanding and implementation of free speech, under both national and supra-national / international law, must recognize licit borders and limitations of free speech in furtherance of community harmony and cohesion, dignitary rights, and towards the goal of fostering of inclusive and non-hostile environments free from the threat and fact of identity-discrimination and by expressions of misethnic animus (based on identity "indicia" (signs) of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other group identity traits). From this it follows that the promotion of hatred under certain circumstances is, and must continue, to be deemed a justifiable and proportional limit on free expression, and that more specifically hate speech and hate-based propaganda, which effectively cause ethnocentric dignitary harms, curtail inclusiveness, spread degrading falsities damaging of group reputation(s), and thus defame, intimidate, or incite to hatred and significantly undermine the common good, with dehumanizing, degrading, defamatory, and exclusionary intent, then these, like defamation, can be limited without violating either the letter or the spirit of the First Amendment. We conclude by arguing that the resolution to the claimed tension between free expression and societal good, is via increasingly adopted – and near-universally implemented in international law – Principles of Community that recognize legitimate constraints to expression in the interests of community harmony, with a proactive duty to establish and maintain a "safe, caring and humane environment”  for the common good.

This article attempts to explain why the United States is exhibiting the most liberal stand on protecting freedom of expression. It is argued that the American credo is comprised of strong belief in liberty and individuality and of strong anti-government sentiment. The First Amendment is enshrined in its culture and tradition. The
protection of political speech is fundamental to the American democracy. As U.S.
Constitution strongly protects political speech, it confers protection also on hate
speech which is included in the broad definition of political
speech. The article advocates that we ¬¬take the evils of hate speech seriously. It criticizes the American ‘viewpoint-neutrality’ concept and argues that a balance needs to be struck between competing social interests. Freedom of expression is important as is the protection of vulnerable minorities.

This book is about Roger Williams (ca. 1603-83), who was banished from the colony of Massachusetts Bay for advocating freedom of conscience, separation of church and state, Native American rights, and related matters.  He founded the town of Providence in what became Rhode Island on the basis of full liberty of conscience and complete separation of religion and government.  For additional information, see the uploaded PDF and links.

The book is available in paperback and Kindle e-book editions at Amazon websites throughout the world.  The paperback is also available at some other websites and bookstores.

See also my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOlUZaehYk7WmwW8v9oBMzQ) about Roger Williams, including an interview (https://youtu.be/mGRl5lIbdYY) with me about this book.

For Errata and Supplemental Comments, see the separate document uploaded at https://www.academia.edu/13798228/Errata_and_Supplemental_Comments_to_The_First_American_Founder_Roger_Williams_and_Freedom_of_Conscience.

Alan E. Johnson

An employee at the Judicial Branch has a Facebook blog where he publishes fictional anecdotes concerning the impact of Puerto Rico´s financial implosion on its underclass. While he writes about whores, drug sellers, the mad, he does not employ any of Pacifica's seven forbidden words, nor does he mention any judicial employee or client by name, nor does he complain about the judicial branch. he claims that his Facebook blog is part of the new literacies that foment a new kind of participatory democracy, The head of the judicial branch, however, discharges him for the use of indecent language and offensive portrayal of characters in a manner incompatible with his job as a mediator in the judicial branch. The brief argues that the dismissal was unconstitutional as it  part of a digital public sphere and violates the employee's right under the First Amendment as interpreted by Pickering v. Bd. of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968).

Preamble To the casual observer, it would appear that the first amendment commands a clear proscription against the types of censorship imposed my campus speech codes. If a non-educational entity of the government were to impose the types of censorship and regulations imposed by college "speech codes," an uproar would ensue. However, speech codes have gone largely unmentioned by the media, and have garnered little interest from the a predominantly apathetic public. Perhaps it is because most citizens of the United States spend just four years subjugated to the authority of college administrators, and then move on with their lives. College is but a fond memory, and what doesn't affect them in the present additionally fails to draw significant attention. However. The threat posed by the precedent those drafting and supporting these speech codes are attempting to set is as much a threat to the Constitution as the British military was in 1787. Universities and colleges are a place for novel ideas and experimental methods are put to the test and measured for any applicability they may possess for imposition into society at large. Despite an unwavering and robust opposition taken by state and federal courts to these speech codes, whether in the context of reviewing their constitutionality against the limitations of government set by the first amendment, or under the "contract theory" when private universities

In 2017, controversy has risen again regarding the right to picket the home of a public official, the Legal Adviser to the Government. I have written about this in the past. This is a chapter in a book published in 2001.
On November 4, 1995 Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in the main square of Tel Aviv. After the tragic assassination the Prime Minister’s widow, Mrs Leah Rabin, complained of the constant picketing which had been conducted outside their private home in Tel Aviv, in protest against the Oslo Accords that was signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). A suggestion was raised to ban all such picketing. The argument was that such picketing should not be allowed. Public figures have the right to enjoy the tranquillity of their homes. Their privacy must be honored and therefore pickets and demonstrations should be restricted to public places, such as the Knesset Rose Garden, government offices and public squares.
This chapter objects to this proposal because of its sweeping language. The argument to be advanced is that democracy may regulate time, place and manner but it should not proscribe pickets and demonstrations from private places. Democracy has an interest in furthering and promoting free flow of opinions between the public and its representatives. Sometimes the direct communication between the public and its representatives near private homes of public figures is much more effective both for the public and its representatives. The government and its powers, that is, the police, may require satisfying some procedural measures but they should not set prohibitions on such direct communications.

There is no way to overstate the severity of the problems related to social inequality today, and treatment of hate speech in the United States is problematic in light of these escalating tensions. Long-standing arguments that free speech serves as a societal pressure valve and that open speech leads to truth hold little sway when, 200 years later, hatred against groups based on their identities is still rampant and insidious. The concept of hate speech and the subsequent calls for possible restriction raise complicated issues. This article proposes a shift in emphasis from the negative protection of individual rights instead toward a more positive support of social equality. Utilizing Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition, this article develops a two-tiered framework for free speech analysis that will promote a strategy for combating hate speech in the global twenty-first century.

This module explores possible boundaries to freedom of expression. It highlights John Stuart Mill’s Harm to Others Principle as well as the Offence Principle: Can we say that sometimes, the harm or the offence brought about by a certain speech constitutes such an injury that it cannot be tolerated? More specifically, the question is: Under what conditions preventing offence can provide adequate grounds for limiting freedom of expression. Attention will be given to examples taken from the United States, Canada, Britain and Israel. We will touch upon controversial expressions such as racism; hate speech; incitement; true threats; media coverage of terrorism; violence on TV and in songs and the movies; cyberbullying; hard core, soft core, and virtual pornography.

Shortly after radical journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal delivered the commencement address, by pre-recorded phone call, to the Fall graduating class at his alma mater, Goddard College, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett signed into law a measure officially named the "Revictimization Relief Act," but referred to by its numerous critics as the "Anti-Mumia Gag Law." The law gives a right to sue for injunctive relief or damages to any "victim" of an "offender" who suffers "mental anguish" as a result of the "offender's" conduct. This measure is blatantly unconstitutional as it violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The measure is both unconstitutionally "vague" and "overbroad." The Anti-Mumia Gag Law must be understood in its political, economic, historical and rhetorical context as an integral part of a broader effort by the ruling class to suppress dissent and, particularly, critical voices of oppressed minorities.

There is no way to overstate the severity of the problems related to
social inequality today, and treatment of hate speech in the United
States is problematic in light of these escalating tensions. Longstanding
arguments that free speech serves as a societal pressure
valve and that open speech leads to truth hold little sway when, 200
years later, hatred against groups based on their identities is still
rampant and insidious. The concept of hate speech and the subsequent
calls for possible restriction raise complicated issues. This article
proposes a shift in emphasis from the negative protection of
individual rights instead toward a more positive support of social
equality. Utilizing Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition, this article
develops a two-tiered framework for free speech analysis that will
promote a strategy for combating hate speech in the global twenty-first
century.

This course analyses the various meanings of freedom specifically in America both in contemporary settings and with close regard to its historical contexts, but also in its wider, philosophical senses. What is a ‘free’ society ? How close does the United States come to living up to the ideals it so consistently professes to possess? Is a free society one where the individual is at liberty to do as s/he pleases ? Does the existence of liberty necessarily entail attendant economic or racial inequalities ? What are the limits on such freedom ? Does citizenship entail a commitment to duties as well as an expectation of rights ? Is it desirable or, indeed, possible to create a free society ? What role does government play in the lives of the individual ? How much can, indeed should, the individual be truly 'free' ? What does liberty mean to the US both domestically and externally in the wake of September 11 ? More specifically, the course analyses various social issues – such as gay marriage, abortion, freedom of speech, capital punishment – in the context of what have been dubbed ‘the culture wars’ dividing America. Despite these divisions is there a shared commitment to ‘liberty’ that unites Americans regardless of class, race and region ?

... Page 8. viii Acknowledgments Forell. Most ... seriously. Finally, I owe the highest gratitude to Hannah Arnoske and Adrienne Ione. Hannah, your companionship and unconditional love throughout the writing of this book were immeasurable. ...

Discusses Internet access in public libraries, filters, censorship issues, First Amendment rights, and intellectual freedom. Suggests that the Internet is a resource, and that the level of library service is dependent on what it can afford to provide, consistent with its mandate to serve the community's information needs.

Following Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush Administration began imposing every increasing limitations on civil rights. One example is the implementation of free speech zones, a practice in which political dissidents are cordoned off from the President during public appearances. While these zones originated in the 1980s, the use of them has grown considerably in the past few years. Critics argue that moving protesters to a remote location during Presidential events gives the impression that there is no dissent. This paper explores the constitutionality of free speech zones, ultimately demonstrating the shortcomings of the true threats doctrine, a legal framework for analysis in cases dealing with speech that may be threatening. This article suggests an alternative framework for analysis that would 1) better balance national security interests with speech protection for political dissidents and 2) clear up some of the doctrinal confusion in the application of the true threats doctrine in general.

Much as journalist argue that they have a “right to know,” scholars at public
universities lay claim to their “right to academic freedom.” In both cases, these
“rights” carry little weight constitutionally. But, just how much protection is
actually afforded to academics through the First Amendment? This article
addresses this question in light of the convergence of two elements—the corporatization of public universities and the ruling in the 2006 U.S. Supreme
Court case Garcetti v. Ceballos (which heavily suggests that public employee
speech does not qualify for the same level of First Amendment protection as
private citizen speech). Finally, this article proposes a solution to the current
crises, a solution that includes creating a constitutionally protected category of
speech for academic inquiry at state colleges and universities.