Internet Free Speech-Recipe for Disaster?

[Mockingbird]

I started my day as I always do, reading the local news online and the first story was about a special needs girl that was abused by a school bus aid. The story was sad in itself, then at the end of the story is the comments. I have never read such terrible comments.

I am thinking with everything that has been going on in the world of late- that maybe free speech (not to mention anonymous personae) might not be such a great thing. It is as if people have lost all since of proper politeness and overall class the second they log onto a site to comment. I see this is astounding levels in news-feeds more then any place else. Do you think that this is a bad thing that in the long run is damaging and will need to change?

 

[The Man]

I believe in free speech...just as I also choose to ignore those without class such as by the rude comments you mentioned.
Or...exercise free speech such as you are to let them know they are gutter breath maggots.

 

[Mika]

I agree with The Man. I definitely believe in free speech but sometimes you just have to ignore the jerks who comment. It seems like once one person says something, then everyone follows along. That's when you either lash back at them, or just do what I do and not bother reading the comments anymore. If I want to comment, I just scroll through without even looking. It's not worth the irritation.

 

[missbishi]

I'm with The Man too. I cannot abide spiteful keyboard warriors, they wouldn't dare say these things out loud, but think they can get away with saying them online. I will always reply to racist comments and anything to do with the disabled. You have to keep in mind that these people obviously have such sad little lives that they have to make derogatory comments about others to make themselves feel better.

 

[Rhodolite]

The point of free speech is the right to freely state your opinion without fear of death or imprisonment. I don't like religion and I don't like religious people, but I tolerate the fact that they have that right. I don't have to respect it, just like you don't have to respect the horrible things other people say, but you should tolerate that right.

There's countries where thousands of people die each year because they don't have that freedom. If I were in the Middle East I would have been murdered already because I believe that people should have equal rights regardless of gender, race, sex, religion, ect.

You don't have to respect my views, but you damned sure have to tolerate it because you and I have the same right to state our opinions. To take away that right is to close off knowledge and is the destruction of civilization as we know it.

The reason why the Dark Ages lasted as long as it did was because of this very reason. To speak out against the Church at the time meant that you would be hanged or murdered some other way. To teach new methods of medicine that the Church didn't approve of meant your death. To teach philosophy and science that the Church didn't sanction meant your death.

Yes, people online say terrible things, but the fact that people can freely state what they think online without persecution is the beauty of the internet. This is the absolute last bastion of true freedom of speech. The internet provides freedom to many who otherwise can't say what they really think and that's been evidenced with the Syrian uprising, Egypt's civil issue, Ukraine, ect. More and more third world countries are fighting against decades of dictatorship rule because of the internet and that's a beautiful thing.

 

[Muthoni]

I stopped visiting a website of a magazine that I liked reading because of the comments people left behind. I could not believe that the moderator of the website allowed those terrible comments to be posted. A number of people are sick and will take advantage of anonymity to spread vile everywhere. So very sad.