Talk:Freedom of speech

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Contents

[edit] South America and Mexico

What about These places?

[edit] Wall of text

This article is basically a big wall of text. It needs to be divided into sections. This simply reads annoying. Daimanta 21:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Free Speech in US

This sections seems to be very biased and unsourced. Could someone please put a link to the 2004 poll as I could not find any. and what the hell is up with: "Some Americans grossly overestimate the degree of censorship which occurs in other First World countries, and believe that completely free speech exists – and only exists – in the USA." and "An area of growing concern is the use of copyright laws to restrict free speech, more particularly with the enactment of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)" Who are these "some Americans"? Who is concerned wit the DMCA? No weasel words! This is quite offense to Americans, and regardless of your views you must confrom to an NPOV.72.89.183.230 18:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move This Page

This page is Freedom of speech (United States), quite clearly! It needs to be moved, as other comments have mentioned but not implemented!


[edit] Idefense

i think that slavery is so crazyi'm sure some of us know about this website already. This is the private corp hired by the government to do their dirty work on shutting down websites that belong to americans. Any information on how this business tries to shut down would be helpful. I just go to a few sites that Idefense and the government doesn't like too much. -- User:Cyberman

[edit] Misc

Is it really neccessary for "Freedom of information" to redirect to this page? They really are seperate issues.


[edit] French Academy

The article about the Académie Française links to this article. The link is in reference to how the Academy's rulings don't stop French people from putting English words into their web pages and other private writings, because that would violate their freedom of speech. Anyways, because of this link, if someone has the time or the knowledge of French law, it would be nice to see a section about freedom of speech in France added. That, is, unless the section on the EU freedom of speech is comprehensive enough for France (since it's an EU member). -- Aaron W.

The section deals with the Council of Europe members, of which the European Union is a strict subset. I added a discussion of the French law.
Note that the main issue with the French Academy is not even the constitutional requirement of free speech, but that its rulings have no statutory or regulatory values. David.Monniaux 12:20, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Obscenity

This page should mention the controversy about obscenity and legal issues surrounding it; we could really use a page about it. --Daniel C. Boyer

[edit] Freedom of speech in the US

There are many de facto restrictions on freedom of speech in the United States; so many, in fact, that it can barely be said to exist any more. An example is the very small First Amendment zones to which protestors are restricted at a great distance from "President" Bush or whoever else they are protesting. The existence of First Amendment Zones shows what is the converse, that the First Amendment is only in effect in these tiny little areas. --Daniel C. Boyer

The paragraph about the United States does not define freedom of speech differently than the opening paragraph. However, freedom of speech in the U.S. is not exactly "the right to freely state one's opinions and ideas." Explained more accurately, freedom of speech in the U.S. exists because speech is protected (by the Constitution) from government suppression. Freedom of speech is not protected in the U.S. within private clubs and institutions or necessarily in homes. This article needs to better express this. Kingturtle 07:04 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)

Should, and how should, claims that (U.S.) state laws providing for involuntary commitment might, but do not necessarily (if diagnosis of the person as "mentally ill" and the upholding of that diagnosis in a court challenge to the commitment, was made solely on the basis of speech or writing, or could not have been made without that speech or writing, clearly the restriction of liberty is based on the speech or writing; the fact that the excuse is that the person is "mentally ill" is not relevant any more than it would be if it were against the law to have seditious thoughts, and if one expressed these thoughts orally or in writing it was "the thoughts" for which one was deprived of liberty, not the speech or writing, regardless that the only way the thoughts could be discovered was the speech or writing -- involuntary commitment laws clearly deprive people of liberty (and that the cases are "civil" does not matter under the due-process standard twice specified in the Constitution, as all that matters is the deprivation of liberty for the hospitalized individual) and restrict "crazy" speech), violate the First Amendment, be mentioned in this article? --Daniel C. Boyer

Wow. That statement is so incoherent that I can see why involuntary commitment laws are needed. Looks like someone skipped linguistics or grammar class.

--Coolcaesar 14:16, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Americans deeply cherish their right of free speech and take it for granted. They are usually shocked when they learn that the governments of most First World countries exercise direct censorship powers over their publishers

What is "direct censorship"? To me, it implies that the executives of these governments review publications, or send the police to close down publications that they disagree with. Which "First World" countries do that? This would certainly run afoul of the ECHR.

Furthermore, a recent study [1][2] indicates that about one third of American highschool students approve of government censorship of newspapers. Therefore, the statements about Americans cherishing their right to free speech sounds overblown.

I'll therefore alter the sentence. David.Monniaux 12:47, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

By direct censorship, I was referring to government institutions like the Office of Film & Literature Classification in Australia, the Defense, Press, and Broadcasting Advisory Committee in the U.K., the Ontario Film Review Board in Canada, and the Media Development Authority in Singapore.

There are no direct equivalents in the U.S., thanks to the Pentagon Papers case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that the government cannot tell newspapers "you can't publish that." This precedent has been consistently followed, most recently in the Kobe Bryant case, in which Justice Breyer strongly implied that the trial court had to get rid of its gag order immediately (which was what happened on remand), or else Breyer would take up the appeal again and do it himself.

I concede that the statement about Americans cherishing free speech was overblown. As modified I think it sounds about right.

--Coolcaesar 14:16, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I now understand. I added some bit about the MPAA, which, effectively censors US movies. There can be a long debate about whether it is better to have a private organization control the displaying of movies in almost all movie theaters inside a country through rankings, or whether it is preferrable to have rankings made by some official commission. Both have pros and cons (one would prefer no direct government involvement, but at least rulings by goverment commissions can be appealed before the courts). David.Monniaux 14:43, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV dispute / Limited Geog. Scope

The neutrality of this page is disputed.

This page is extremely US centric, perhaps (except for the first paragraph) it should be moved to Freedom of speech (United States) Alex756 23:18 May 2, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, it is incredibly US centric, for example "The right to freedom of expression is not considered unlimited; States may still punish (but not prohibit) certain damaging types of expressions". I don't think "states" is referring to countries, but the states of the USA.--Deadworm222 14:25, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Per the comments here, it looks like this article deserves {{Limitedgeographicscope}} rather than {{NPOV}}. I made the change. Feco 21:09, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thougt there was needed a {{Limitedgeographicscope}} on main page also, not only on discussion page --AzaToth 21:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] French laws on journalism

"The Human Rights Court has also targetted the French laws on journalism as being incompatible": there should be further discussion of this. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:42 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I removed the sentence. It seems that nobody here can point out to the case or to the specific laws, so I think that this very vague sentence does not belong in the article.
There are not, as far as I know, notable French laws on "journalism". There are some regarding the press, libel and slander (defamation). Perhaps this is what the sentence alluded to. But if it is, it should be said clearly, and say what was being criticized. David.Monniaux 11:56, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Freedom of speech (Canada)

I integrated Freedom of speech (Canada) with this article because I see no reason for them to be separate until this page gets too big. The following is from Talk:Freedom of speech (Canada): Tuf-Kat 22:38, Jan 15, 2004 (UTC)

Removed reference to Quebec. Unless I'm mistaken, Quebec languages laws were ruled in violation of the Charter, whereupon Quebec repassed the laws under the Notwithstanding Clause.

Yes, I telescoped two stages in this complex jurisprudence and it appears confusing, but you will see below in my amended comments I am not sure you should have just deleted my entry. When I wrote the initial entry I was thinking about the very first case that same before the Court on this issue, i.e. Ford v. Quebec(AG) (1988) 2 SCR 90.

First, I believe that the Supreme Court invalided the sign law that prevented people in Quebec from having English on their signs, then Quebec used the not-withstanding clause, but this was viewed as controversial.

here is an excerpt of that 1988 decision that basically allowed bilingual signs in Quebec because (among other reasons) art. 1 could not be used to prevent it:

The Attorney General of Quebec relied on what he referred to as the general democratic legitimacy of Quebec language policy without referring explicitly to the requirement of the exclusive use of French. In so far as proportionality is concerned, the Attorney General of Quebec referred to the American jurisprudence with respect to commercial speech, presumably as indicating the judicial deference that should be paid to the legislative choice of means to serve an admittedly legitimate legislative purpose, at least in the area of commercial expression. He did, however, refer in justification of the requirement of the exclusive use of French to the attenuation of this requirement reflected in ss. 59 to 62 of the Charter of the French Language and the regulations. He submitted that these exceptions to the requirement of the exclusive use of French indicate the concern for carefully designed measures and for interfering as little as possible with commercial expression. The qualifications of the requirement of the exclusive use of French in other provisions of the Charter of the French Language and the regulations do not make ss. 58 and 69 any less prohibitions of the use of any language other than French as applied to the respondents. The issue is whether any such prohibition is justified. In the opinion of this Court it has not been demonstrated that the prohibition of the use of any language


page 780
other than French in ss. 58 and 69 of the Charter of the French Language is necessary to the defence and enhancement of the status of the French language in Quebec or that it is proportionate to that legislative purpose. Since the evidence put to us by the government showed that the predominance of the French language was not reflected in the "visage linguistique" of Quebec, the governmental response could well have been tailored to meet that specific problem and to impair freedom of expression minimally. Thus, whereas requiring the predominant display of the French language, even its marked predominance, would be proportional to the goal of promoting and maintaining a French "visage linguistique" in Quebec and therefore justified under the Quebec Charter and the Canadian Charter, requiring the exclusive use of French has not been so justified. French could be required in addition to any other language or it could be required to have greater visibility than that accorded to other languages. Such measures would ensure that the "visage linguistique" reflected the demography of Quebec: the predominant language is French. This reality should be communicated to all citizens and non-citizens alike, irrespective of their mother tongue. But exclusivity for the French language has not survived the scrutiny of a proportionality test and does not reflect the reality of Quebec society. Accordingly, we are of the view that the limit imposed on freedom of expression by s. 58 of the Charter of the French Language respecting the exclusive use of French on public signs and posters and in commercial advertising is not justified under s. 9.1 of the Quebec Charter. In like measure, the limit imposed on freedom of expression by s. 69 of the Charter of the French Language respecting the exclusive use of the French version of a firm name is not justified under either s. 9.1 of the Quebec Charter or s. 1 of the Canadian Charter. (emphasis added)

interesting,very interesting..I have no idea what the dinosaur and peanut butter sandwich has to do with the recent belly flop issue though?? comments any one.

Here is a link to Ford if you would like to read it: http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/en/pub/1988/vol2/html/1988scr2_0090.html

[edit] Freedom of speech in Africa

I will post a section on freedom of speech in Africa tonight. --Sesel 21:27, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Shouting "fire" in a cinema.

See

Syd1435 09:37, 2004 Nov 25 (UTC)

I hope Syd 1435 won't mind me adding to this point, as I'm a floundering newbie, and haven't quite got this sussed yet. I think Syd's point is the perfect starting ground for what I wanted to say. This article seems very unbalanced to me. The right to freedom of expression is well defined and justly celebrated, but any idea of responsibility in expression that goes therewith is pretty much brushed over. The concept of pairing of rights and responsibilities is, I think, an important one, and although I realise there's a separate international freedoms of speech thread, the UK laws against incitement to racial or religious hatred are a good example. Is a world where anyone can say absolutely anything, no matter how depraved, or inflammatory, really practicable, or desirable? I think the article needs to be amended to more strongly reflect that the issue of freedom of speech is not just one of oppressed political dissent and protest.

(Mackstress 22:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)).

[edit] Quebec ban on English signs is counter-productive.

As an almost english only speaker, it would be awful to live in a Quebec if all the signs were French only.

If however, the signs were given an english translation using smaller but readable-at-a-to learn the French?

It is a bit like road signs using both the words and the international symbols.

Believe it or not, it can sometimes be useful to have French words with English equivalents, since the French word might be given a special meaning (usually involving some flair). For example:

  • email (english)
  • spam (english) worthless email
  • couriel (french) email
  • couriel (english) quality email

Syd1435 09:54, 2004 Nov 25 (UTC)

Perhaps, but Wikipedia is not a site of discussion of public policies. David.Monniaux 20:43, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vlaams Blok, now Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest party) in Belgium

Belgium’s biggest party (Vlaams Blok) has been banned. The Establishment has not only voted draconian laws against free speech, but the Establishment has also installed the Thought Police to apply these draconian laws. Is that enough to mention such an event?

By founding a new party (costs 2 million dollar) the Flemish democratic uprising is not yet crushed.

See at: http://vdare.com/misc/belien_041109_belgium.htm and http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/39/ and http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/54/

Johan

Flanders 11/2004

[edit] German law on the swastika

How would German law regarding the swastika relate to the use of the fylfot in heraldry, which, although of very similar appearance, has no such symbolism? --Daniel C. Boyer 16:34, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] freedom of speech in the arab world

once you start to search for a description of freedom of speech in the arab world, things will get mixed up and become opaque.and that's because of the totlitarian regimes that strongly control all the aspects of the citizen's everyday life. in these countries the word [freedom] became a taboo that everybody is running away from.people are actually forced to say that they're happy,free and can do whatever they want. in fact, the de facto rulers of those nations have shown no mercy towards those who tryed to say the truth or even a part of it.and the actual generations in these countries are not even aware of their rights. they've grown up with that fear of speaking about the generous perfect gouvernor,and in some cases,they believe they're living in heaven and that other nations are going in wrong direction.exaples are so clear in saudi arabia,libya and tunisia to name but a few.

The very idea of freedom does not exist in arabic/muslim world, because Islam is an absolute religion. Everything happens as God wants (Ins' Allah, il Allah) and every muslim understands that. Thus it is Allah, by way of the mouth of his mullahs/imams/ayatollahs, who determines what you do, SAY or believe. An arab may not thank you for a gift, even if he is happy about it, because the act that you gave him a present was not initiated by you, but rather the almighty grace of Allah, who governs everything, even the smallest events. No westerners got to understand muslims, except Lawrence of Arabia, but he was assassinated when back in england.
Also, you should understand that supressing criticism is mandatory for the arab states because the world press has tremendous jewish presence and they may be further weakened by manipulated or even true foreign information. Arabs and muslims live under the Greater Israel threat of 400 Dimona A-bombs, so they not must let themselves fooled any more by the sweet voices of foreign dis-information, because it may cause them to fall and zionists again grabbing control of much of Arabia, Egypt and Mesopotamy just like between 1967-1973. When Israel is back to its 1947 U.N. determined borders, let's talk about arab freedom of press.
In other words, it's the Jew's fault that there's no freedom of press or speech in the Arab world. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:44, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes. In case of great crisis, freedom of speech must be supressed, because the anarchic cacophony of many voices leads to chaos and sure defeat. The arabs are living under the constant war threat of US-funded jewish giant military machinery and the 400 nuclear bombs the zionists secretly made in the Dimona reactor. They the arabs must stand and think unified or they will fail and jews again get to rule the entire arabia again. There is no longer USSR to back arabs, they are all alone, entirely surrounded by the anglo-saxon race, the jews and their servants, like turkey and jordania. Dissenting arab voices are the fifth column of the arch-enemy and arab people must not let their heads confused by judenophil propaganda.
And freedom as a word doesn't even exist in arabic language. Al-Hurrah, which the anglo-saxon invaders used only means "relieved from a bond", so it means an end of a negative situation, but doesn't carry any positive connotation like "freedom" does. Iraqi nowadays call it Al-Murrah, because they are very bitter about the yankee occupation.

[edit] need a source cited

>In contrast, other states, like Indiana and Tennessee, are renowned for their rather narrow interpretation of the right of free speech.

Anybody have a source for this claim? The Tennessee mention isn't even explained. Kaldari 16:13, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] India

The ban on the yahoo group was shortlived. It was lifted in a matter of weeks when the indian online community protested. Secondly, the list was of books banned during the British rule in India. Arguably, not being proactive in lifting these bans does not count as repression of free speech! --Ambar 07:36, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Crowded theatre

The yelling fire issue is not discussed in the article!

Does it need to be? I think a simple link would do.

[edit] Telephone call-demand strategies

The advent of the telephone has occasioned invasions of privacy much more frequently than was ever expected. Hence, the telephone harassment laws help protect the privacy rights of citizens who become the subjects of unwanted or offensive telephone contacts. In the same category of telephone offenses are the call-demand strategies, with which callers claim 'freedom of speech' to repeatedly and constantly call specific subject respondents so as to elicit or demand information from them.

Often, telephone-call demand strategists are not dissuaded with complaints to local police about the tone, timing, and content of demand calls -- callers simply offer or demand apology, claiming that a false report to police has been made. Such maneuvers cause a tremendous amount of harm because any and all wording from respondents is pooled and used any way the callers wish. Any adverse consequences are attributed directly to the respondents; respondents who are targeted during necessary functions such as sleep, eating, or resting drop dead from the interference or fail in other ways. Beadtot 00:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV on "Attacks on Free Speech" Section

An NPOV template was used regarding the "Attacks on Free Speech" section.

Assuming clearance with the Wikipedia community, I have removed the NPOV notice and altered the contents to previx it with "some consider that"... .

Hopefully that's an appropriate way to express a widely thought viewpoint.

86.131.60.193 21:25, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

makes sense to me, and I'm a left wing radical. --naught101 06:55, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'm a strong free speech advocate but this section seemed to have a fair bit of bias. The Gunns case is a bit complex and borderline. I've expanded it to make it more accurate and neutral, though it might still require work to get it really accurate. I'm not sure this is really the best example going of an attack on free speech. After all, it is essentially a private law suit. On its face, it's like any other defamation or similar case launched by someone rich to shut up someone less rich. It really raises a specific issue as to whether big corporations like Gunns or, say, McDonalds should be able to bring such cases, as they now do. Perhaps they should be restricted, but an "attack on freedom of speech" suggests something else, to me, like throwing journalists or academics in prison. Does this case really belong in another article? Metamagician3000 13:40, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
yeah, that's a good edit, nicely worded. and you're right, it's probably not the best example. maybe it should be moved to the List of attacks on free speech I just started, and a better example be put in it's place? then again, there are a lot of courtcases like this, like the McLibel case, so it might be good as an example of one type of attack.
--naught101 05:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Attacks on Free Speech" Section

just wondering if other people think that this ection is liable to get pretty big, and if it should be moved to a new page? --naught101 06:55, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] seemingly bogus assertions about patent law and free speech

I've moved a section here:

The First Amendment interacts with Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution to offer a special case of a government imprimatur of truth. To this end, the government determines the truth of an inventor's claim to be an inventor by its grant of open letters patent. And, of course, the government is required to make a search of the prior art before granting the government's imprimatur of the truth of the inventor's claim to be an inventor of the invention described by him for publication in a patent. Nevertheless, the right to make the claim (a sword) truthfully is constitutionally guaranteed. It is a sword or right of inventors to publish and make a claim that they are the original and first inventor of their claimed invention in letters patent so long as they pay the required publication fees and meet the statutory tests for invention. 35 USC 101 - 112. However, there are esentially few limitions on the subject matter of U.S. letters patent. The Supreme Court declared that "Anything under the sun that is made by man" is patentable subject matter. Parker v. Chakabarty, 447 US 303 (SC 1980). This upheld the shield of the First Amendment to limit the Government's right to censor the subject matter of letters patent. And this reinforced the original determination of the First Amendment to be the shield against which, or lens through which, this special case of truth was determined. To this end, the first patent act of 1790, which limited the subject matter of inventions to "important" inventions was overridden by the adoption of the First Amendment. And the First Amendment thereby limited the ability of the government to censor or limit the subject matter of inventions publishsed in letters patent to inventions that the governement chose to cesnor as not "important." Parker v. Chakabarty, 447 US 303 (SC 1980).

Though this is now mirrored all over the net, it seems to have been inadequately vetted. Patent law and free speech are essentially unrelated, and the fact that the government can, as a matter of policy, refuse to grant a patent on a lifeform is similarly unrelated to freedom of speech. Other comments: patents are not "imprimaturs of truth". Patents are not the same thing as "letters patent", and still less "open letters patent" (which is "open open letters"!). The sword analogy is.. odd. I don't think there's anything pertinent from the quoted paragraph to "rescue" for the article. - Nunh-huh 21:40, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The atheist military dictarorship that leads Turkey ...

... and their fine ideas of free speech... The world really needs a kurdish state to teach the turkish military a lesson in deocracy. See: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/25/turk.letters.reut/index.html

[edit] Significant deletion of material

I deleted a significant amount of material from the article, because it was a word-for-word copy of the article about freedom of speech in the United States, and we don't need duplicate copies of the same material in several articles. — JIP | Talk 12:03, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hidden vandalism?

What is this supposed to mean: "his is all written by Evan Katz. He lived in the early 18th century B.C. and he had many jobs, one of which he licked tacks to make them moist, as many of them went through his tongue." Doidimais Brasil 22:38, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

It was added by an anonymous editor, 22:02, 13 November 2005 (UTC) (205.247.166.226). [3] I deleted it just now. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:35, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Freedom of Speech (International)

Someone thought I had deleted a large section of the article. I only moved it. Please hack away at Freedom of Speech (International).

--Gbleem 22:01, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that was the best article title; I would have preferred "Freedom of speech around the world" or something less confusing. Otherwise, one might easily mistake Freedom of Speech (International) for an article on free speech rights in international law rather than on a country-by-country basis. Furthermore, WP style is to spell article titles like this: Freedom of speech (international). --Coolcaesar 22:27, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the worldwide view problem: I would suggest moving this article to Freedom of Speech (United States) or something similar and Freedom of speech (international) to Freedom of speech. Any thoughts ? -- Ze miguel 08:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] UN General Assembly Declarations are NOT International Law

I had to change the first paragraph. Freedom of speech is not supported by international law, or at least not by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That was passed by the UN General Assembly. Motions passed by the UN General Assembly have absolutely no binding properties whatsoever, and do not constitute international law by any definition of the term. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.95.168.98 (talk • contribs) 06:22, 7 December 2005.

No, but the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Article 19 on freedom of expression is certainly binding on its many signatory parties. --IanB 21:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relocated comment regarding Eritrea

This comment moved here from the soon-to-be-deleted Talk talk:Freedom of speech by user:Finlay McWalter

On the section on africa, there is a statement about eritrea. It says that it is the worlds "largest prison for journalists." That is a bit inflamatory, and I thought it may be worded diferently to eliminate some bias that may be there. I just could not bring my self to change it as just such great writing and aparently quite accurate. I was wondering what others thought about that.

--Theabaud 19:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe if it was prefaced by something like "some harsh critics of eritira say that it is the world's "largest prison for journalists" " and then some statistics? --Elizabeth of North Carolina 22:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] two things

I think I'm going to try to incorporate the concepts of clear and present or clear and probable danger in this article, as they are relevant to freedom of speech in US legal history. Or at least I plan to find the article to which these concepts are most relevant and put em there. I also hope to incorporate alternate views of freedom of speech, and studies that show some Eastern cultures value it far less than most Western cultures, instead prefering stability and security. Edit: I changed "Attacks on Freedom of Speech" to "Restrictions of Fredom of Speech" because freedom of speech is a value whose importance varies from culture to culture. I'm not really a relativist, but for NPOV it seemed necessary. Edit again: ok, so maybe more than two things. I also included a link to the article on censorship in mainland China and a bit of information about that. --Elizabeth of North Carolina 22:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

What about child pornography somene should mention the limits of free speech and how things like this are not considered. There was a court case in the US ins 1983 or something.ShadowPuppet 15:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Free Speech

I will be removing this statement, the last sentence under this heading:

"Most people like to talk smack about other people, which is wrong so you don't have a freedom of speech if you are violating other peoples rights."

I don't understand how anyone could justify this being in an encyclopedia article, and I figure it's just vandalism.Asacan 23:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Freedom of Voice and Speech

The freedom of Speech should not be seen as the right to say smack or trash talk about a country or person just because of their land. The very words mean exactly what it should stand for. The Freedom of Speech means the right to speak about a persons' view or more importantly the truth of such things.

Some people may not agree with me on that statement, but if we can not respect or tolerate any form of a persons' view regardless if it is prejudice then, we are in direct violation of what we say is the right of freedom of speech. --Zhang Liao 03:54, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Remember, we should not debate the issue here. Instead, we should discuss how to improve the article. That means locating reliable sources and incorporating their content into the article in a fair and balanced manner. Please see WP:V and WP:RS. I think Asacan was correct to remove an unsourced assertion until a citation for that content is provided. However, I don't think referring to it as vandalism is constructive or consistent with WP:AGF. —Walter Siegmund (talk) 13:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restrictions -- attacking journalists

Should the restrictions on free speech include mention of attacking journalists (as the US Bush Administration is rather infamous now for doing)--that is surely a way to suppress free speech?

  • Depends if they're just engaging in rhetoric or if they're actually trying to use their political and police power. One assumes that a government will lash out against its critics; that's why freedom of speech and the press is needed; and in the US at least it shows how well it works; though some voices may be cowed, others will squeeze through the cracks and be heard. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Note on Restrictions on free speech (Austrias "Verbotsgesetz")

The short mention of Irwings sentencing in Austria is a bit incomplete. If you mention it at all, i think it should also be mentioned that it is part of a much larger body of (constitutional) laws; whichs original aim was to prohibit the NSDAP (and it's armed organisations), as well as reactivation of nazism or propagation of nazi ideas. That body of laws (and its perceived[4] restriction of freedom of speech) is a consequence of the state contract of 1945; and an inherent part of the 2nd republic - a requirement to austrian sovereignity.

- CgaWolf 07:06, 4 March 2006 (UTC) I believe that free speech is integral for our diplimatic society, but newspaper should know better.

[edit] Important Info Missing

Is it legal to yell fire in a crowded theater? If you know the right answer, you should have been my lawyer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.205.168.206 (talk • contribs) 02:40, April 16, 2006 (UTC)

  • More important, is it legal to yell "Theater!" in a crowded fire? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 14:58, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Chuck Norris Quote

I'm not sure if it's appropriate, but I at least found it amusing. Random wikipedia.



[edit] Prohibitted

I would just like to remind you all on this page that you are not permitted to visit [www dot doubleblue dot info] or any other site that criticises me, or discusses such criticisms, such as this review Musical Linguist♫10:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 71.104.120.93

"You should always have a FREEDOM OF SPEECH no matter what the Government says!!!", guess this is just vandalizing? Can someone with more status than me ;) look into this? Asm82 16:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restrictions on Freedom of Speech

This section is very bad, with just some comments on cases where editors think freedom of speech has been restricted. There is (or was until I added some) no discussion on legitimate limits on freedom of speech, nor on controversy concerning that legitimacy. DJ Clayworth 17:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia

Just found this written an hour ago:

Wikipedia
It is a well know fact that free speech does not exist on Wikipedia. However the "editors" running the website are so good at withholding negative comments about their own site, regardless of how factual/true/important they may be, they have managed to destroy any articles or comments regarding this fact.

Needless to say, it has been deleted. Lincoln187 07:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opening sentence

I inserted a better introductory sentence:

Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment.

The second sentence (formerly the first sentence) implied that freedom of speech is something mandated by the U.N., and worse, did not actually explain what that right is. — Loadmaster 00:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The right is "inherent" or not depending on your philosophy on the origins of rights. Though I personally agree that it is inherent I think it might be POV.Sjö 08:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wow! Total change

This article has totally changed since the version that existed a year ago - and not for the better. There is more international detail, which is good I guess, but the theoretical and historical discussion has been wiped out, and what was a reasonably well-structured article is now a mess. Anyone prepared to go back and try to rescue this, without losing any genuine improvements? Metamagician3000 03:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I see that the old material has been moved to Freedom of speech (international). We basically have two rival articles. This doesn't seem satisfactory. Can someone briefly explain how it happened? Metamagician3000 03:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I think this was the unfortunate result of a bad case of vandalism that went unnoticed [5]. Pascal.Tesson 21:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

Who else thinks that freedom of speech should apply to spoken/written/etc. information or opinions only, and should absolutely in no way apply to actions supposed to represent information or opinions? I think there are too many people who say they should be able to do any number of things because it's freedom of speech. VolatileChemical 02:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


What sort of actions would be disallowed? Where do you draw the line? Let us try a thought experiment--
From now on, you can say or write whatever you wish. But you can no longer exercise free speech via stage plays, or in television shows, for that requires someone to ACT. No movies, oh, no. All movies that express opinions will be unprotected. Might as well ban them all.
There will be no art. Art entails the ACT of creation. No ACTion allowed.
No picket signs (because then you have to carry them,) no travelling to discuss a matter with your congressional representatives (for the act of travelling would entail something more than just SPEAKING or WRITING.) These are actions, and we don't recognize any sort of action as protected-- after all, that isn't SPEAK-ing or WRITE-ing.
Hmmm. Sounds like a great way to start the slide down the slippery slope.
Richard Myers 04:21, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
We're only here on this page to discuss how to improve the article. Metamagician3000 10:34, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
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