why is freedom of speech important essay

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Arguments for freedom: the many reasons why free speech is essential.

• David Hudson

“The matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other freedom”— that’s how Justice Benjamin Cardozo referred to freedom of speech. 

This eminent Justice is far from alone in his assessment of the lofty perch that free speech holds in the United States of America. Others have called it our blueprint for personal liberty and the cornerstone of a free society. Without freedom of speech, individuals could not criticize government officials, test their theories against those of others, counter negative expression with a different viewpoint, or express their individuality and autonomy. 

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” This freedom represents the essence of personal freedom and individual liberty. It remains vitally important, because freedom of speech is inextricably intertwined with freedom of thought. 

Freedom of speech is closely connected to freedom of thought, an essential tool for democratic self-governance.

“First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end,” warned Justice Anthony Kennedy in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002). “The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.”

There are numerous reasons why the First Amendment has a preferred position in our pantheon of constitutional values.  Here are six.

Self-governance and a check against governmental abuse

Free speech theorists and scholars have advanced a number of reasons why freedom of speech is important. Philosopher Alexander Meiklejohn famously offered that freedom of speech is essential for individuals to freely engage in debate so that they can make informed choices about self-government. Justice Louis Brandeis expressed this sentiment in his concurring opinion in  Whitney v. California (1927): “[F]reedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth.”

In other words, freedom of speech is important for the proper functioning of a constitutional democracy. Meiklejohn advocated these ideas in his seminal 1948 work, “ Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government .” Closely related to this is the idea that freedom of speech serves as a check against abuse by government officials. Professor Vincent Blasi referred to this as “the checking value” of free speech. 

Liberty and self-fulfillment

The self-governance rationale is only one of many reasons why freedom of speech is considered so important. Another reason is that freedom of speech is key to individual fulfillment. Some refer to this as the “liberty theory” of the First Amendment.

Free-speech theorist C. Edwin Baker writes that “speech or other self-expressive conduct is protected not as a means to achieve a collective good but because of its value to the individual.” Justice Thurgood Marshall eloquently advanced the individual fulfillment theory of freedom of speech in his concurring opinion in the prisoner rights case  Procunier v. Martinez (1974) when he wrote: “The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity, but also those of the human spirit—a spirit that demands self-expression. Such expression is an integral part of the development of ideas and a sense of identity. To suppress expression is to reject the basic human desire for recognition and affront the individual’s worth and dignity.”

The search for truth and the ‘marketplace of ideas’ metaphor

Still another reason for elevating freedom of speech to a prominent place in our constitutional values is that it ensures a search for truth. 

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Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed this idea in his “Great Dissent” in  Abrams v. United States (1919) when he wrote that “the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade of ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” This language from Holmes led to one of the most pervasive metaphors in First Amendment jurisprudence—that of the “marketplace of ideas.” 

This concept did not originate with Holmes, as John Milton in the 17th century and John Stuart Mill in the 19th century advanced the idea that speech is essential in the search for truth in their respective works, “Areopagitica” (1644) and “On Liberty” (1859). Milton famously wrote: “Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple, whoever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?” For his part, Mill warned of the “peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion” explaining that “[i]f the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” 

Informational theory

The marketplace metaphor is helpful but incomplete. Critics point out that over the course of history, truth may not always prevail over false ideas. For example, Mill warned that truth sometimes doesn’t triumph over “persecution.” Furthermore, more powerful individuals may have greater access to the marketplace and devalue the contributions of others. Another critique comes from those who advocate the informational theory of free speech. 

Coronavirus and the failure of the 'Marketplace of Ideas'

“If finding objective truth were the only value of freedom of expression, there would be little value to studying history,”  explains Greg Lukianoff of FIRE . “ Most of human thought in history has been mistaken about its assumptions and beliefs about the world and each other; nevertheless, understanding things like superstitions, folk medicine, and apocryphal family histories has significance and value.” 

Under this theory, there is great value in learning and appreciating what people believe and how they process information. Lukianoff calls the metaphor for the informational theory of free speech “the lab in the looking glass.” The ultimate goal is “to know as much about us and our world as we can,” because it is vitally “important to know what people really believe, especially when the belief is perplexing or troubling.”

Safety valve theory

Another reason why freedom of speech is important relates to what has been termed the “safety valve” theory. This perspective advances the idea that it is good to allow individuals to express themselves fully and blow off steam.

If individuals are deprived of the ability to express themselves, they may undertake violent means as a way to draw attention to their causes or protests. Justice Brandeis advanced the safety valve theory of free speech in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California (1927) when he wrote:

Those who won our independence believed . . . that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies.

Tolerance theory

Free speech has also been construed to promote the virtue of tolerance: If we tolerate a wide range of speech and ideas, this will promote greater acceptance, self-restraint, and a diversity of ideas. 

Lee Bollinger advanced this theory in his 1986 work “The Tolerant Society.” This theory helps explain why we should tolerate even extremist speech. As Justice Holmes wrote in his dissent in  United States v. Schwimmer (1929), freedom of speech means “freedom for the thought that we hate.” This means that we often must tolerate extremist speech. As Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote in  Snyder v. Phelps (2011), we don’t punish the extremist speaker; instead “we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

Freedom of speech holds a special place in American law and society for many good reasons.

As Rodney Smolla writes in “Free Speech in an Open Society,” “[t]here is no logical reason . . . why the preferred position of freedom of speech might not be buttressed by multiple rationales.” Freedom of speech is closely connected to freedom of thought, an essential tool for democratic self-governance; it leads to a search for truth; it helps people express their individuality; and it promotes a tolerant society open to different viewpoints. 

In sum, it captures the essence of a free and open society.

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Freedom of Speech

[ Editor’s Note: The following new entry by Jeffrey W. Howard replaces the former entry on this topic by the previous author. ]

Human beings have significant interests in communicating what they think to others, and in listening to what others have to say. These interests make it difficult to justify coercive restrictions on people’s communications, plausibly grounding a moral right to speak (and listen) to others that is properly protected by law. That there ought to be such legal protections for speech is uncontroversial among political and legal philosophers. But disagreement arises when we turn to the details. What are the interests or values that justify this presumption against restricting speech? And what, if anything, counts as an adequate justification for overcoming the presumption? This entry is chiefly concerned with exploring the philosophical literature on these questions.

The entry begins by distinguishing different ideas to which the term “freedom of speech” can refer. It then reviews the variety of concerns taken to justify freedom of speech. Next, the entry considers the proper limits of freedom of speech, cataloging different views on when and why restrictions on communication can be morally justified, and what considerations are relevant when evaluating restrictions. Finally, it considers the role of speech intermediaries in a philosophical analysis of freedom of speech, with special attention to internet platforms.

1. What is Freedom of Speech?

2.1 listener theories, 2.2 speaker theories, 2.3 democracy theories, 2.4 thinker theories, 2.5 toleration theories, 2.6 instrumental theories: political abuse and slippery slopes, 2.7 free speech skepticism, 3.1 absoluteness, coverage, and protection, 3.2 the limits of free speech: external constraints, 3.3 the limits of free speech: internal constraints, 3.4 proportionality: chilling effects and political abuse, 3.5 necessity: the counter-speech alternative, 4. the future of free speech theory: platform ethics, other internet resources, related entries.

In the philosophical literature, the terms “freedom of speech”, “free speech”, “freedom of expression”, and “freedom of communication” are mostly used equivalently. This entry will follow that convention, notwithstanding the fact that these formulations evoke subtly different phenomena. For example, it is widely understood that artistic expressions, such as dancing and painting, fall within the ambit of this freedom, even though they don’t straightforwardly seem to qualify as speech , which intuitively connotes some kind of linguistic utterance (see Tushnet, Chen, & Blocher 2017 for discussion). Still, they plainly qualify as communicative activity, conveying some kind of message, however vague or open to interpretation it may be.

Yet the extension of “free speech” is not fruitfully specified through conceptual analysis alone. The quest to distinguish speech from conduct, for the purpose of excluding the latter from protection, is notoriously thorny (Fish 1994: 106), despite some notable attempts (such as Greenawalt 1989: 58ff). As John Hart Ely writes concerning Vietnam War protesters who incinerated their draft cards, such activity is “100% action and 100% expression” (1975: 1495). It is only once we understand why we should care about free speech in the first place—the values it instantiates or serves—that we can evaluate whether a law banning the burning of draft cards (or whatever else) violates free speech. It is the task of a normative conception of free speech to offer an account of the values at stake, which in turn can illuminate the kinds of activities wherein those values are realized, and the kinds of restrictions that manifest hostility to those values. For example, if free speech is justified by the value of respecting citizens’ prerogative to hear many points of view and to make up their own minds, then banning the burning of draft cards to limit the views to which citizens will be exposed is manifestly incompatible with that purpose. If, in contrast, such activity is banned as part of a generally applied ordinance restricting fires in public, it would likely raise no free-speech concerns. (For a recent analysis of this issue, see Kramer 2021: 25ff).

Accordingly, the next section discusses different conceptions of free speech that arise in the philosophical literature, each oriented to some underlying moral or political value. Before turning to the discussion of those conceptions, some further preliminary distinctions will be useful.

First, we can distinguish between the morality of free speech and the law of free speech. In political philosophy, one standard approach is to theorize free speech as a requirement of morality, tracing the implications of such a theory for law and policy. Note that while this is the order of justification, it need not be the order of investigation; it is perfectly sensible to begin by studying an existing legal protection for speech (such as the First Amendment in the U.S.) and then asking what could justify such a protection (or something like it).

But of course morality and law can diverge. The most obvious way they can diverge is when the law is unjust. Existing legal protections for speech, embodied in the positive law of particular jurisdictions, may be misguided in various ways. In other words, a justified legal right to free speech, and the actual legal right to free speech in the positive law of a particular jurisdiction, can come apart. In some cases, positive legal rights might protect too little speech. For example, some jurisdictions’ speech laws make exceptions for blasphemy, such that criminalizing blasphemy does not breach the legal right to free speech within that legal system. But clearly one could argue that a justified legal right to free speech would not include any such exception. In other cases, positive legal rights might perhaps protect too much speech. Consider the fact that, as a matter of U.S. constitutional precedent, the First Amendment broadly protects speech that expresses or incites racial or religious hatred. Plainly we could agree that this is so as a matter of positive law while disagreeing about whether it ought to be so. (This is most straightforwardly true if we are legal positivists. These distinctions are muddied by moralistic theories of constitutional interpretation, which enjoin us to interpret positive legal rights in a constitutional text partly through the prism of our favorite normative political theory; see Dworkin 1996.)

Second, we can distinguish rights-based theories of free speech from non-rights-based theories. For many liberals, the legal right to free speech is justified by appealing to an underlying moral right to free speech, understood as a natural right held by all persons. (Some use the term human right equivalently—e.g., Alexander 2005—though the appropriate usage of that term is contested.) The operative notion of a moral right here is that of a claim-right (to invoke the influential analysis of Hohfeld 1917); it thereby correlates to moral duties held by others (paradigmatically, the state) to respect or protect the right. Such a right is natural in that it exerts normative force independently of whether anyone thinks it does, and regardless of whether it is codified into the law. A tyrannical state that imprisons dissidents acts unjustly, violating moral rights, even if there is no legal right to freedom of expression in its legal system.

For others, the underlying moral justification for free speech law need not come in the form of a natural moral right. For example, consequentialists might favor a legal right to free speech (on, e.g., welfare-maximizing grounds) without thinking that it tracks any underlying natural right. Or consider democratic theorists who have defended legal protections for free speech as central to democracy. Such theorists may think there is an underlying natural moral right to free speech, but they need not (especially if they hold an instrumental justification for democracy). Or consider deontologists who have argued that free speech functions as a kind of side-constraint on legitimate state action, requiring that the state always justify its decisions in a manner that respects citizens’ autonomy (Scanlon 1972). This theory does not cast free speech as a right, but rather as a principle that forbids the creation of laws that restrict speech on certain grounds. In the Hohfeldian analysis (Hohfeld 1917), such a principle may be understood as an immunity rather than a claim-right (Scanlon 2013: 402). Finally, some “minimalists” (to use a designation in Cohen 1993) favor legal protection for speech principally in response to government malice, corruption, and incompetence (see Schauer 1982; Epstein 1992; Leiter 2016). Such theorists need not recognize any fundamental moral right, either.

Third, among those who do ground free speech in a natural moral right, there is scope for disagreement about how tightly the law should mirror that right (as with any right; see Buchanan 2013). It is an open question what the precise legal codification of the moral right to free speech should involve. A justified legal right to freedom of speech may not mirror the precise contours of the natural moral right to freedom of speech. A raft of instrumental concerns enters the downstream analysis of what any justified legal right should look like; hence a defensible legal right to free speech may protect more speech (or indeed less speech) than the underlying moral right that justifies it. For example, even if the moral right to free speech does not protect so-called hate speech, such speech may still merit legal protection in the final analysis (say, because it would be too risky to entrust states with the power to limit those communications).

2. Justifying Free Speech

I will now examine several of the morally significant considerations taken to justify freedom of expression. Note that while many theorists have built whole conceptions of free speech out of a single interest or value alone, pluralism in this domain remains an option. It may well be that a plurality of interests serves to justify freedom of expression, properly understood (see, influentially, Emerson 1970 and Cohen 1993).

Suppose a state bans certain books on the grounds that it does not want us to hear the messages or arguments contained within them. Such censorship seems to involve some kind of insult or disrespect to citizens—treating us like children instead of adults who have a right to make up our own minds. This insight is fundamental in the free speech tradition. On this view, the state wrongs citizens by arrogating to itself the authority to decide what messages they ought to hear. That is so even if the state thinks that the speech will cause harm. As one author puts it,

the government may not suppress speech on the ground that the speech is likely to persuade people to do something that the government considers harmful. (Strauss 1991: 335)

Why are restrictions on persuasive speech objectionable? For some scholars, the relevant wrong here is a form of disrespect for citizens’ basic capacities (Dworkin 1996: 200; Nagel 2002: 44). For others, the wrong here inheres in a violation of the kind of relationship the state should have with its people: namely, that it should always act from a view of them as autonomous, and so entitled to make up their own minds (Scanlon 1972). It would simply be incompatible with a view of ourselves as autonomous—as authors of our own lives and choices—to grant the state the authority to pre-screen which opinions, arguments, and perspectives we should be allowed to think through, allowing us access only to those of which it approves.

This position is especially well-suited to justify some central doctrines of First Amendment jurisprudence. First, it justifies the claim that freedom of expression especially implicates the purposes with which the state acts. There are all sorts of legitimate reasons why the state might restrict speech (so-called “time, place, and manner” restrictions)—for example, noise curfews in residential neighborhoods, which do not raise serious free speech concerns. Yet when the state restricts speech with the purpose of manipulating the communicative environment and controlling the views to which citizens are exposed, free speech is directly affronted (Rubenfeld 2001; Alexander 2005; Kramer 2021). To be sure, purposes are not all that matter for free speech theory. For example, the chilling effects of otherwise justified speech regulations (discussed below) are seldom intended. But they undoubtedly matter.

Second, this view justifies the related doctrines of content neutrality and viewpoint neutrality (see G. Stone 1983 and 1987) . Content neutrality is violated when the state bans discussion of certain topics (“no discussion of abortion”), whereas viewpoint neutrality is violated when the state bans advocacy of certain views (“no pro-choice views may be expressed”). Both affront free speech, though viewpoint-discrimination is especially egregious and so even harder to justify. While listener autonomy theories are not the only theories that can ground these commitments, they are in a strong position to account for their plausibility. Note that while these doctrines are central to the American approach to free speech, they are less central to other states’ jurisprudence (see A. Stone 2017).

Third, this approach helps us see that free speech is potentially implicated whenever the state seeks to control our thoughts and the processes through which we form beliefs. Consider an attempt to ban Marx’s Capital . As Marx is deceased, he is probably not wronged through such censorship. But even if one held idiosyncratic views about posthumous rights, such that Marx were wronged, it would be curious to think this was the central objection to such censorship. Those with the gravest complaint would be the living adults who have the prerogative to read the book and make up their own minds about it. Indeed free speech may even be implicated if the state banned watching sunsets or playing video games on the grounds that is disapproved of the thoughts to which such experiences might give rise (Alexander 2005: 8–9; Kramer 2021: 22).

These arguments emphasize the noninstrumental imperative of respecting listener autonomy. But there is an instrumental version of the view. Our autonomy interests are not merely respected by free speech; they are promoted by an environment in which we learn what others have to say. Our interests in access to information is served by exposure to a wide range of viewpoints about both empirical and normative issues (Cohen 1993: 229), which help us reflect on what goals to choose and how best to pursue them. These informational interests are monumental. As Raz suggests, if we had to choose whether to express our own views on some question, or listen to the rest of humanity’s views on that question, we would choose the latter; it is our interest as listeners in the public good of a vibrant public discourse that, he thinks, centrally justifies free speech (1991).

Such an interest in acquiring justified beliefs, or in accessing truth, can be defended as part of a fully consequentialist political philosophy. J.S. Mill famously defends free speech instrumentally, appealing to its epistemic benefits in On Liberty . Mill believes that, given our fallibility, we should routinely keep an open mind as to whether a seemingly false view may actually be true, or at least contain some valuable grain of truth. And even where a proposition is manifestly false, there is value in allowing its expression so that we can better apprehend why we take it to be false (1859: chapter 2), enabled through discursive conflict (cf. Simpson 2021). Mill’s argument focuses especially on the benefits to audiences:

It is is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect. (1859: chapter 2, p. 94)

These views are sometimes associated with the idea of a “marketplace of ideas”, whereby the open clash of views inevitably leads to the correct ones winning out in debate. Few in the contemporary literature holds such a strong teleological thesis about the consequences of unrestricted debate (e.g., see Brietzke 1997; cf. Volokh 2011). Much evidence from behavioral economics and social psychology, as well as insights about epistemic injustice from feminist epistemology, strongly suggest that human beings’ rational powers are seriously limited. Smug confidence in the marketplace of ideas belies this. Yet it is doubtful that Mill held such a strong teleological thesis (Gordon 1997). Mill’s point was not that unrestricted discussion necessarily leads people to acquire the truth. Rather, it is simply the best mechanism available for ascertaining the truth, relative to alternatives in which some arbiter declares what he sees as true and suppresses what he sees as false (see also Leiter 2016).

Note that Mill’s views on free speech in chapter 2 in On Liberty are not simply the application of the general liberty principle defended in chapter 1 of that work; his view is not that speech is anodyne and therefore seldom runs afoul of the harm principle. The reason a separate argument is necessary in chapter 2 is precisely that he is carving out a partial qualification of the harm principle for speech (on this issue see Jacobson 2000, Schauer 2011b, and Turner 2014). On Mill’s view, plenty of harmful speech should still be allowed. Imminently dangerous speech, where there is no time for discussion before harm eventuates, may be restricted; but where there is time for discussion, it must be allowed. Hence Mill’s famous example that vociferous criticism of corn dealers as

starvers of the poor…ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer. (1859: chapter 3, p. 100)

The point is not that such speech is harmless; it’s that the instrumental benefits of permitting its expressions—and exposing its falsehood through public argument—justify the (remaining) costs.

Many authors have unsurprisingly argued that free speech is justified by our interests as speakers . This family of arguments emphasizes the role of speech in the development and exercise of our personal autonomy—our capacity to be the reflective authors of our own lives (Baker 1989; Redish 1982; Rawls 2005). Here an emphasis on freedom of expression is apt; we have an “expressive interest” (Cohen 1993: 224) in declaring our views—about the good life, about justice, about our identity, and about other aspects of the truth as we see it.

Our interests in self-expression may not always depend on the availability of a willing audience; we may have interests simply in shouting from the rooftops to declare who we are and what we believe, regardless of who else hears us. Hence communications to oneself—for example, in a diary or journal—are plausibly protected from interference (Redish 1992: 30–1; Shiffrin 2014: 83, 93; Kramer 2021: 23).

Yet we also have distinctive interests in sharing what we think with others. Part of how we develop our conceptions of the good life, forming judgments about how to live, is precisely through talking through the matter with others. This “deliberative interest” in directly served through opportunities to tell others what we think, so that we can learn from their feedback (Cohen 1993). Such encounters also offer opportunities to persuade others to adopt our views, and indeed to learn through such discussions who else already shares our views (Raz 1991).

Speech also seems like a central way in which we develop our capacities. This, too, is central to J.S. Mill’s defense of free speech, enabling people to explore different perspectives and points of view (1859). Hence it seems that when children engage in speech, to figure out what they think and to use their imagination to try out different ways of being in the world, they are directly engaging this interest. That explains the intuition that children, and not just adults, merit at least some protection under a principle of freedom of speech.

Note that while it is common to refer to speaker autonomy , we could simply refer to speakers’ capacities. Some political liberals hold that an emphasis on autonomy is objectionably Kantian or otherwise perfectionist, valorizing autonomy as a comprehensive moral ideal in a manner that is inappropriate for a liberal state (Cohen 1993: 229; Quong 2011). For such theorists, an undue emphasis on autonomy is incompatible with ideals of liberal neutrality toward different comprehensive conceptions of the good life (though cf. Shiffrin 2014: 81).

If free speech is justified by the importance of our interests in expressing ourselves, this justifies negative duties to refrain from interfering with speakers without adequate justification. Just as with listener theories, a strong presumption against content-based restrictions, and especially against viewpoint discrimination, is a clear requirement of the view. For the state to restrict citizens’ speech on the grounds that it disfavors what they have to say would affront the equal freedom of citizens. Imagine the state were to disallow the expression of Muslim or Jewish views, but allow the expression of Christian views. This would plainly transgress the right to freedom of expression, by valuing certain speakers’ interests in expressing themselves over others.

Many arguments for the right to free speech center on its special significance for democracy (Cohen 1993; Heinze 2016: Heyman 2009; Sunstein 1993; Weinstein 2011; Post 1991, 2009, 2011). It is possible to defend free speech on the noninstrumental ground that it is necessary to respect agents as democratic citizens. To restrict citizens’ speech is to disrespect their status as free and equal moral agents, who have a moral right to debate and decide the law for themselves (Rawls 2005).

Alternatively (or additionally), one can defend free speech on the instrumental ground that free speech promotes democracy, or whatever values democracy is meant to serve. So, for example, suppose the purpose of democracy is the republican one of establishing a state of non-domination between relationally egalitarian citizens; free speech can be defended as promoting that relation (Whitten 2022; Bonotti & Seglow 2022). Or suppose that democracy is valuable because of its role in promoting just outcomes (Arneson 2009) or tending to track those outcomes in a manner than is publicly justifiable (Estlund 2008) or is otherwise epistemically valuable (Landemore 2013).

Perhaps free speech doesn’t merely respect or promote democracy; another framing is that it is constitutive of it (Meiklejohn 1948, 1960; Heinze 2016). As Rawls says: “to restrict or suppress free political speech…always implies at least a partial suspension of democracy” (2005: 254). On this view, to be committed to democracy just is , in part, to be committed to free speech. Deliberative democrats famously contend that voting merely punctuates a larger process defined by a commitment to open deliberation among free and equal citizens (Gutmann & Thompson 2008). Such an unrestricted discussion is marked not by considerations of instrumental rationality and market forces, but rather, as Habermas puts it, “the unforced force of the better argument” (1992 [1996: 37]). One crucial way in which free speech might be constitutive of democracy is if it serves as a legitimation condition . On this view, without a process of open public discourse, the outcomes of the democratic decision-making process lack legitimacy (Dworkin 2009, Brettschneider 2012: 75–78, Cohen 1997, and Heinze 2016).

Those who justify free speech on democratic grounds may view this as a special application of a more general insight. For example, Scanlon’s listener theory (discussed above) contends that the state must always respect its citizens as capable of making up their own minds (1972)—a position with clear democratic implications. Likewise, Baker is adamant that both free speech and democracy are justified by the same underlying value of autonomy (2009). And while Rawls sees the democratic role of free speech as worthy of emphasis, he is clear that free speech is one of several basic liberties that enable the development and exercise of our moral powers: our capacities for a sense of justice and for the rational pursuit a lifeplan (2005). In this way, many theorists see the continuity between free speech and our broader interests as moral agents as a virtue, not a drawback (e.g., Kendrick 2017).

Even so, some democracy theorists hold that democracy has a special role in a theory of free speech, such that political speech in particular merits special protection (for an overview, see Barendt 2005: 154ff). One consequence of such views is that contributions to public discourse on political questions merit greater protection under the law (Sunstein 1993; cf. Cohen 1993: 227; Alexander 2005: 137–8). For some scholars, this may reflect instrumental anxieties about the special danger that the state will restrict the political speech of opponents and dissenters. But for others, an emphasis on political speech seems to reflect a normative claim that such speech is genuinely of greater significance, meriting greater protection, than other kinds of speech.

While conventional in the free speech literature, it is artificial to separate out our interests as speakers, listeners, and democratic citizens. Communication, and the thinking that feeds into it and that it enables, invariably engages our interests and activities across all these capacities. This insight is central to Seana Shiffrin’s groundbreaking thinker-based theory of freedom of speech, which seeks to unify the range of considerations that have informed the traditional theories (2014). Like other theories (e.g., Scanlon 1978, Cohen 1993), Shiffrin’s theory is pluralist in the range of interests it appeals to. But it offers a unifying framework that explains why this range of interests merits protection together.

On Shiffrin’s view, freedom of speech is best understood as encompassing both freedom of communication and freedom of thought, which while logically distinct are mutually reinforcing and interdependent (Shiffrin 2014: 79). Shiffrin’s account involves several profound claims about the relation between communication and thought. A central contention is that “free speech is essential to the development, functioning, and operation of thinkers” (2014: 91). This is, in part, because we must often externalize our ideas to articulate them precisely and hold them at a distance where we can evaluate them (p. 89). It is also because we work out what we think largely by talking it through with others. Such communicative processes may be monological, but they are typically dialogical; speaker and listener interests are thereby mutually engaged in an ongoing manner that cannot be neatly disentangled, as ideas are ping-ponged back and forth. Moreover, such discussions may concern democratic politics—engaging our interests as democratic citizens—but of course they need not. Aesthetics, music, local sports, the existence of God—these all are encompassed (2014: 92–93). Pace prevailing democratic theories,

One’s thoughts about political affairs are intrinsically and ex ante no more and no less central to the human self than thoughts about one’s mortality or one’s friends. (Shiffrin 2014: 93)

The other central aspect of Shiffrin’s view appeals to the necessity of communication for successfully exercising our moral agency. Sincere communication enables us

to share needs, emotions, intentions, convictions, ambitions, desires, fantasies, disappointments, and judgments. Thereby, we are enabled to form and execute complex cooperative plans, to understand one another, to appreciate and negotiate around our differences. (2014: 1)

Without clear and precise communication of the sort that only speech can provide, we cannot cooperate to discharge our collective obligations. Nor can we exercise our normative powers (such as consenting, waiving, or promising). Our moral agency thus depends upon protected channels through which we can relay our sincere thoughts to one another. The central role of free speech is to protect those channels, by ensuring agents are free to share what they are thinking without fear of sanction.

The thinker-based view has wide-ranging normative implications. For example, by emphasizing the continuity of speech and thought (a connection also noted in Macklem 2006 and Gilmore 2011), Shiffrin’s view powerfully explains the First Amendment doctrine that compelled speech also constitutes a violation of freedom of expression. Traditional listener- and speaker-focused theories seemingly cannot explain what is fundamentally objectionable with forcing someone to declare a commitment to something, as with children compelled to pledge allegiance to the American flag ( West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette 1943). “What seems most troubling about the compelled pledge”, Shiffrin writes,

is that the motive behind the regulation, and its possible effect, is to interfere with the autonomous thought processes of the compelled speaker. (2014: 94)

Further, Shiffrin’s view explains why a concern for free speech does not merely correlate to negative duties not to interfere with expression; it also supports positive responsibilities on the part of the state to educate citizens, encouraging and supporting their development and exercise as thinking beings (2014: 107).

Consider briefly one final family of free speech theories, which appeal to the role of toleration or self-restraint. On one argument, freedom of speech is important because it develops our character as liberal citizens, helping us tame our illiberal impulses. The underlying idea of Lee Bollinger’s view is that liberalism is difficult; we recurrently face temptation to punish those who hold contrary views. Freedom of speech helps us to practice the general ethos of toleration in a manner than fortifies our liberal convictions (1986). Deeply offensive speech, like pro-Nazi speech, is protected precisely because toleration in these enormously difficult cases promotes “a general social ethic” of toleration more generally (1986: 248), thereby restraining unjust exercises of state power overall. This consequentialist argument treats the protection of offensive speech not as a tricky borderline case, but as “integral to the central functions of the principle of free speech” (1986: 133). It is precisely because tolerating evil speech involves “extraordinary self-restraint” (1986: 10) that it works its salutary effects on society generally.

The idea of self-restraint arises, too, in Matthew Kramer’s recent defense of free speech. Like listener theories, Kramer’s strongly deontological theory condemns censorship aimed at protecting audiences from exposure to misguided views. At the core of his theory is the thesis that the state’s paramount moral responsibility is to furnish the social conditions that serve the development and maintenance of citizens’ self-respect and respect for others. The achievement of such an ethically resilient citizenry, on Kramer’s view, has the effect of neutering the harmfulness of countless harmful communications. “Securely in a position of ethical strength”, the state “can treat the wares of pornographers and the maunderings of bigots as execrable chirps that are to be endured with contempt” (Kramer 2021: 147). In contrast, in a society where the state has failed to do its duty of inculcating a robust liberal-egalitarian ethos, the communication of illiberal creeds may well pose a substantial threat. Yet for the state then to react by banning such speech is

overweening because with them the system’s officials take control of communications that should have been defused (through the system’s fulfillment of its moral obligations) without prohibitory or preventative impositions. (2021: 147)

(One might agree with Kramer that this is so, but diverge by arguing that the state—having failed in its initial duty—ought to take measures to prevent the harms that flow from that failure.)

These theories are striking in that they assume that a chief task of free speech theory is to explain why harmful speech ought to be protected. This is in contrast to those who think that the chief task of free speech theory is to explain our interests in communicating with others, treating the further issue of whether (wrongfully) harmful communications should be protected as an open question, with different reasonable answers available (Kendrick 2017). In this way, toleration theories—alongside a lot of philosophical work on free speech—seem designed to vindicate the demanding American legal position on free speech, one unshared by virtually all other liberal democracies.

One final family of arguments for free speech appeals to the danger of granting the state powers it may abuse. On this view, we protect free speech chiefly because if we didn’t, it would be far easier for the state to silence its political opponents and enact unjust policies. On this view, a state with censorial powers is likely to abuse them. As Richard Epstein notes, focusing on the American case,

the entire structure of federalism, divided government, and the system of checks and balances at the federal level shows that the theme of distrust has worked itself into the warp and woof of our constitutional structure.

“The protection of speech”, he writes, “…should be read in light of these political concerns” (Epstein 1992: 49).

This view is not merely a restatement of the democracy theory; it does not affirm free speech as an element of valuable self-governance. Nor does it reduce to the uncontroversial thought that citizens need freedom of speech to check the behavior of fallible government agents (Blasi 1977). One need not imagine human beings to be particularly sinister to insist (as democracy theorists do) that the decisions of those entrusted with great power be subject to public discussion and scrutiny. The argument under consideration here is more pessimistic about human nature. It is an argument about the slippery slope that we create even when enacting (otherwise justified) speech restrictions; we set an unacceptable precedent for future conduct by the state (see Schauer 1985). While this argument is theoretical, there is clearly historical evidence for it, as in the manifold cases in which bans on dangerous sedition were used to suppress legitimate war protest. (For a sweeping canonical study of the uses and abuses of speech regulations during wartime, with a focus on U.S. history, see G. Stone 2004.)

These instrumental concerns could potentially justify the legal protection for free speech. But they do not to attempt to justify why we should care about free speech as a positive moral ideal (Shiffrin 2014: 83n); they are, in Cohen’s helpful terminology, “minimalist” rather than “maximalist” (Cohen 1993: 210). Accordingly, they cannot explain why free speech is something that even the most trustworthy, morally competent administrations, with little risk of corruption or degeneration, ought to respect. Of course, minimalists will deny that accounting for speech’s positive value is a requirement of a theory of free speech, and that critiquing them for this omission begs the question.

Pluralists may see instrumental concerns as valuably supplementing or qualifying noninstrumental views. For example, instrumental concerns may play a role in justifying deviations between the moral right to free communication, on the one hand, and a properly specified legal right to free communication, on the other. Suppose that there is no moral right to engage in certain forms of harmful expression (such as hate speech), and that there is in fact a moral duty to refrain from such expression. Even so, it does not follow automatically that such a right ought to be legally enforced. Concerns about the dangers of granting the state such power plausibly militate against the enforcement of at least some of our communicative duties—at least in those jurisdictions that lack robust and competently administered liberal-democratic safeguards.

This entry has canvassed a range of views about what justifies freedom of expression, with particular attention to theories that conceive free speech as a natural moral right. Clearly, the proponents of such views believe that they succeed in this justificatory effort. But others dissent, doubting that the case for a bona fide moral right to free speech comes through. Let us briefly note the nature of this challenge from free speech skeptics , exploring a prominent line of reply.

The challenge from skeptics is generally understood as that of showing that free speech is a special right . As Leslie Kendrick notes,

the term “special right” generally requires that a special right be entirely distinct from other rights and activities and that it receive a very high degree of protection. (2017: 90)

(Note that this usage is not to be confused from the alternative usage of “special right”, referring to conditional rights arising out of particular relationships; see Hart 1955.)

Take each aspect in turn. First, to vindicate free speech as a special right, it must serve some distinctive value or interest (Schauer 2015). Suppose free speech were just an implication of a general principle not to interfere in people’s liberty without justification. As Joel Feinberg puts it, “Liberty should be the norm; coercion always needs some special justification” (1984: 9). In such a case, then while there still might be contingent, historical reasons to single speech out in law as worthy of protection (Alexander 2005: 186), such reasons would not track anything especially distinctive about speech as an underlying moral matter. Second, to count as a special right, free speech must be robust in what it protects, such that only a compelling justification can override it (Dworkin 2013: 131). This captures the conviction, prominent among American constitutional theorists, that “any robust free speech principle must protect at least some harmful speech despite the harm it may cause” (Schauer 2011b: 81; see also Schauer 1982).

If the task of justifying a moral right to free speech requires surmounting both hurdles, it is a tall order. Skeptics about a special right to free speech doubt that the order can be met, and so deny that a natural moral right to freedom of expression can be justified (Schauer 2015; Alexander & Horton 1983; Alexander 2005; Husak 1985). But these theorists may be demanding too much (Kendrick 2017). Start with the claim that free speech must be distinctive. We can accept that free speech be more than simply one implication of a general presumption of liberty. But need it be wholly distinctive? Consider the thesis that free speech is justified by our autonomy interests—interests that justify other rights such as freedom of religion and association. Is it a problem if free speech is justified by interests that are continuous with, or overlap with, interests that justify other rights? Pace the free speech skeptics, maybe not. So long as such claims deserve special recognition, and are worth distinguishing by name, this may be enough (Kendrick 2017: 101). Many of the views canvassed above share normative bases with other important rights. For example, Rawls is clear that he thinks all the basic liberties constitute

essential social conditions for the adequate development and full exercise of the two powers of moral personality over a complete life. (Rawls 2005: 293)

The debate, then, is whether such a shared basis is a theoretical virtue (or at least theoretically unproblematic) or whether it is a theoretical vice, as the skeptics avow.

As for the claim that free speech must be robust, protecting harmful speech, “it is not necessary for a free speech right to protect harmful speech in order for it to be called a free speech right” (Kendrick 2017: 102). We do not tend to think that religious liberty must protect harmful religious activities for it to count as a special right. So it would be strange to insist that the right to free speech must meet this burden to count as a special right. Most of the theorists mentioned above take themselves to be offering views that protect quite a lot of harmful speech. Yet we can question whether this feature is a necessary component of their views, or whether we could imagine variations without this result.

3. Justifying Speech Restrictions

When, and why, can restrictions on speech be justified? It is common in public debate on free speech to hear the provocative claim that free speech is absolute . But the plausibility of such a claim depends on what is exactly meant by it. If understood to mean that no communications between humans can ever be restricted, such a view is held by no one in the philosophical debate. When I threaten to kill you unless you hand me your money; when I offer to bribe the security guard to let me access the bank vault; when I disclose insider information that the company in which you’re heavily invested is about to go bust; when I defame you by falsely posting online that you’re a child abuser; when I endanger you by labeling a drug as safe despite its potentially fatal side-effects; when I reveal your whereabouts to assist a murderer intent on killing you—across all these cases, communications may be uncontroversially restricted. But there are different views as to why.

To help organize such views, consider a set of distinctions influentially defended by Schauer (from 1982 onward). The first category involves uncovered speech : speech that does not even presumptively fall within the scope of a principle of free expression. Many of the speech-acts just canvassed, such as the speech involved in making a threat or insider training, plausibly count as uncovered speech. As the U.S. Supreme Court has said of fighting words (e.g., insults calculated to provoke a street fight),

such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. ( Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire 1942)

The general idea here is that some speech simply has negligible—and often no —value as free speech, in light of its utter disconnection from the values that justify free speech in the first place. (For discussion of so-called “low-value speech” in the U.S. context, see Sunstein 1989 and Lakier 2015.) Accordingly, when such low-value speech is harmful, it is particularly easy to justify its curtailment. Hence the Court’s view that “the prevention and punishment of [this speech] have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem”. For legislation restricting such speech, the U.S. Supreme Court applies a “rational basis” test, which is very easy to meet, as it simply asks whether the law is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. (Note that it is widely held that it would still be impermissible to selectively ban low-value speech on a viewpoint-discriminatory basis—e.g., if a state only banned fighting words from left-wing activists while allowing them from right-wing activists.)

Schauer’s next category concerns speech that is covered but unprotected . This is speech that engages the values that underpin free speech; yet the countervailing harm of the speech justifies its restriction. In such cases, while there is real value in such expression as free speech, that value is outweighed by competing normative concerns (or even, as we will see below, on behalf of the very values that underpin free speech). In U.S. constitutional jurisprudence, this category encompasses those extremely rare cases in which restrictions on political speech pass the “strict scrutiny” test, whereby narrow restrictions on high-value speech can be justified due to the compelling state interests thereby served. Consider Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project 2010, in which the Court held that an NGO’s legal advice to a terrorist organization on how to pursue peaceful legal channels were legitimately criminalized under a counter-terrorism statute. While such speech had value as free speech (at least on one interpretation of this contested ruling), the imperative of counter-terrorism justified its restriction. (Arguably, commercial speech, while sometimes called low-value speech by scholars, falls into the covered but unprotected category. Under U.S. law, legislation restricting it receives “intermediate scrutiny” by courts—requiring restrictions to be narrowly drawn to advance a substantial government interest. Such a test suggests that commercial speech has bona fide free-speech value, making it harder to justify regulations on it than regulations on genuinely low-value speech like fighting words. It simply doesn’t have as much free-speech value as categories like political speech, religious speech, or press speech, all of which trigger the strict scrutiny test when restricted.)

As a philosophical matter, we can reasonably disagree about what speech qualifies as covered but unprotected (and need not treat the verdicts of the U.S. Supreme Court as philosophically decisive). For example, consider politically-inflected hate speech, which advances repugnant ideas about the inferior status of certain groups. One could concur that there is substantial free-speech value in such expression, just because it involves the sincere expression of views about central questions of politics and justice (however misguided the views doubtlessly are). Yet one could nevertheless hold that such speech should not be protected in virtue of the substantial harms to which it can lead. In such cases, the free-speech value is outweighed. Many scholars who defend the permissibility of legal restrictions on hate speech hold such a view (e.g., Parekh 2012; Waldron 2012). (More radically, one could hold that such speech’s value is corrupted by its evil, such that it qualifies as genuinely low-value; Howard 2019a.)

The final category of speech encompasses expression that is covered and protected . To declare that speech is protected just is to conclude that it is immune from restriction. A preponderance of human communications fall into this category. This does not mean that such speech can never be regulated ; content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations (e.g., prohibiting loud nighttime protests) can certainly be justified (G. Stone 1987). But such regulations must not be viewpoint discriminatory; they must apply even-handedly across all forms of protected speech.

Schauer’s taxonomy offers a useful organizing framework for how we should think about different forms of speech. Where does it leave the claim that free speech is absolute? The possibility of speech that is covered but unprotected suggests that free speech should sometimes be restricted on account of rival normative concerns. Of course, one could contend that such a category, while logically possible, is substantively an empty set; such a position would involve some kind of absoluteness about free speech (holding that where free-speech values are engaged by expression, no countervailing values can ever be weighty enough to override them). Such a position would be absolutist in a certain sense while granting the permissibility of restrictions on speech that do not engage the free-speech values. (For a recent critique of Schauer’s framework, arguing that governmental designation of some speech as low-value is incompatible with the very ideal of free speech, see Kramer 2021: 31.)

In what follows, this entry will focus on Schauer’s second category: speech that is covered by a free speech principle, but is nevertheless unprotected because of the harms it causes. How do we determine what speech falls into this category? How, in other words, do we determine the limits of free speech? Unsurprisingly, this is where most of the controversy lies.

Most legal systems that protect free speech recognize that the right has limits. Consider, for example, international human rights law, which emphatically protects the freedom of speech as a fundamental human right while also affirming specific restrictions on certain seriously harmful speech. Article 19 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights declares that “[e]veryone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds”—but then immediately notes that this right “carries with it special duties and responsibilities”. The subsequent ICCPR article proceeds to endorse legal restrictions on “advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence”, as well as speech constituting “propaganda for war” (ICCPR). While such restrictions would plainly be struck down as unconstitutional affronts to free speech in the U.S., this more restrictive approach prevails in most liberal democracies’ treatment of harmful speech.

Set aside the legal issue for now. How should we think about how to determine the limits of the moral right free speech? Those seeking to justify limits on speech tend to appeal to one of two strategies (Howard and Simpson forthcoming). The first strategy appeals to the importance of balancing free speech against other moral values when they come into conflict. This strategy involves external limits on free speech. (The next strategy, discussed below, invokes free speech itself, or the values that justify it, as limit-setting rationales; it thus involves internal limits on free speech.)

A balancing approach recognizes a moral conflict between unfettered communication and external values. Consider again the case of hate speech, understood as expression that attacks members of socially vulnerable groups as inferior or dangerous. On all of the theories canvassed above, there are grounds for thinking that restrictions on hate speech are prima facie in violation of the moral right to free speech. Banning hate speech to prevent people from hearing ideas that might incline them to bigotry plainly seems to disrespect listener autonomy. Further, even when speakers are expressing prejudiced views, they are still engaging their autonomous faculties. Certainly, they are expressing views on questions of public political concern, even false ones. And as thinkers they are engaged in the communication of sincere testimony to others. On many of the leading theories, the values underpinning free speech seem to be militate against bans on hate speech.

Even so, other values matter. Consider, for example, the value of upholding the equal dignity of all citizens. A central insight of critical race theory is that public expressions of white supremacy, for example, attack and undermine that equal dignity (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw 1993). On Jeremy Waldron’s view (2012), hate speech is best understood as a form of group defamation, launching spurious attacks on others’ reputations and thereby undermining their standing as respected equals in their own community (relatedly, see Beauharnais v. Illinois 1952).

Countries that ban hate speech, accordingly, are plausibly understood not as opposed to free speech, but as recognizing the importance that it be balanced when conflicting with other values. Such balancing can be understood in different ways. In European human rights law, for example, the relevant idea is that the right to free speech is balanced against other rights ; the relevant task, accordingly, is to specify what counts as a proportionate balance between these rights (see Alexy 2003; J. Greene 2021).

For others, the very idea of balancing rights undermines their deontic character. This alternative framing holds that the balancing occurs before we specify what rights are; on this view, we balance interests against each other, and only once we’ve undertaken that balancing do we proceed to define what our rights protect. As Scanlon puts it,

The only balancing is balancing of interests. Rights are not balanced, but are defined, or redefined, in the light of the balance of interests and of empirical facts about how these interests can best be protected. (2008: 78)

This balancing need not come in the form of some crude consequentialism; otherwise it would be acceptable to limit the rights of the few to secure trivial benefits for the many. On a contractualist moral theory such as Scanlon’s, the test is to assess the strength of any given individual’s reason to engage in (or access) the speech, against the strength of any given individual’s reason to oppose it.

Note that those who engage in balancing need not give up on the idea of viewpoint neutrality; they can accept that, as a general principle, the state should not restrict speech on the grounds that it disapproves of its message and dislikes that others will hear it. The point, instead, is that this commitment is defeasible; it is possible to be overridden.

One final comment is apt. Those who are keen to balance free speech against other values tend to be motivated by the concern that speech can cause harm, either directly or indirectly (on this distinction, see Schauer 1993). But to justify restrictions on speech, it is not sufficient (and perhaps not even necessary) to show that such speech imposes or risks imposing harm. The crucial point is that the speech is wrongful (or, perhaps, wrongfully harmful or risky) , breaching a moral duty that speakers owe to others. Yet very few in the free speech literature think that the mere offensiveness of speech is sufficient to justify restrictions on it. Even Joel Feinberg, who thinks offensiveness can sometimes be grounds for restricting conduct, makes a sweeping exception for

[e]xpressions of opinion, especially about matters of public policy, but also about matters of empirical fact, and about historical, scientific, theological, philosophical, political, and moral questions. (1985: 44)

And in many cases, offensive speech may be actively salutary, as when racists are offended by defenses of racial equality (Waldron 1987). Accordingly, despite how large it looms in public debate, discussion of offensive speech will not play a major role in the discussion here.

We saw that one way to justify limits on free speech is to balance it against other values. On that approach, free speech is externally constrained. A second approach, in contrast, is internally constrained. On this approach, the very values that justify free speech themselves determine its own limits. This is a revisionist approach to free speech since, unlike orthodox thinking, it contends that a commitment to free speech values can counterintuitively support the restriction of speech—a surprising inversion of traditional thinking on the topic (see Howard and Simpson forthcoming). This move—justifying restrictions on speech by appealing to the values that underpin free speech—is now prevalent in the philosophical literature (for an overview, see Barendt 2005: 1ff).

Consider, for example, the claim that free speech is justified by concerns of listener autonomy. On such a view, as we saw above, autonomous citizens have interests in exposure to a wide range of viewpoints, so that they can decide for themselves what to believe. But many have pointed out that this is not autonomous citizens’ only interest; they also have interests in not getting murdered by those incited by incendiary speakers (Amdur 1980). Likewise, insofar as being targeted by hate speech undermines the exercise of one’s autonomous capacities, appeal to the underlying value of autonomy could well support restrictions on such speech (Brison 1998; see also Brink 2001). What’s more, if our interests as listeners in acquiring accurate information is undermined by fraudulent information, then restrictions on such information could well be compatible with our status as autonomous; this was one of the insights that led Scanlon to complicate his theory of free speech (1978).

Or consider the theory that free speech is justified because of its role in enabling autonomous speakers to express themselves. But as Japa Pallikkathayil has argued, some speech can intimidate its audiences into staying silent (as with some hate speech), out of fear for what will happen if they speak up (Pallikkathayil 2020). In principle, then, restrictions on hate speech may serve to support the value of speaker expression, rather than undermine it (see also Langton 2018; Maitra 2009; Maitra & McGowan 2007; and Matsuda 1989: 2337). Indeed, among the most prominent claims in feminist critiques of pornography is precisely that it silences women—not merely through its (perlocutionary) effects in inspiring rape, but more insidiously through its (illocutionary) effects in altering the force of the word “no” (see MacKinnon 1984; Langton 1993; and West 204 [2022]; McGowan 2003 and 2019; cf. Kramer 2021, pp. 160ff).

Now consider democracy theories. On the one hand, democracy theorists are adamant that citizens should be free to discuss any proposals, even the destruction of democracy itself (e.g., Meiklejohn 1948: 65–66). On the other hand, it isn’t obvious why citizens’ duties as democratic citizens could not set a limit to their democratic speech rights (Howard 2019a). The Nazi propagandist Goebbels is said to have remarked:

This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed. (as quoted in Fox & Nolte 1995: 1)

But it is not clear why this is necessarily so. Why should we insist on a conception of democracy that contains a self-destruct mechanism? Merely stipulating that democracy requires this is not enough (see A. Greene and Simpson 2017).

Finally, consider Shiffrin’s thinker-based theory. Shiffrin’s view is especially well-placed to explain why varieties of harmful communications are protected speech; what the theory values is the sincere transmission of veridical testimony, whereby speakers disclose what they genuinely believe to others, even if what they believe is wrongheaded and dangerous. Yet because the sincere testimony of thinkers is what qualifies some communication for protection, Shiffrin is adamant that lying falls outside the protective ambit of freedom of expression (2014) This, then, sets an internal limit on her own theory (even if she herself disfavors all lies’ outright prohibition for reasons of tolerance). The claim that lying falls outside the protective ambit of free speech is itself a recurrent suggestion in the literature (Strauss 1991: 355; Brown 2023). In an era of rampant disinformation, this internal limit is of substantial practical significance.

Suppose the moral right (or principle) of free speech is limited, as most think, such that not all communications fall within its protective ambit (either for external reasons, internal reasons, or both). Even so, it does not follow that laws banning such unprotected speech can be justified all-things-considered. Further moral tests must be passed before any particular policy restricting speech can be justified. This sub-section focuses on the requirement that speech restrictions be proportionate .

The idea that laws implicating fundamental rights must be proportionate is central in many jurisdictions’ constitutional law, as well as in the international law of human rights. As a representative example, consider the specification of proportionality offered by the Supreme Court of Canada:

First, the measures adopted must be carefully designed to achieve the objective in question. They must not be arbitrary, unfair, or based on irrational considerations. In short, they must be rationally connected to the objective. Second, the means, even if rationally connected to the objective in this first sense, should impair “as little as possible” the right or freedom in question[…] Third, there must be a proportionality between the effects of the measures which are responsible for limiting the Charter right or freedom, and the objective which has been identified as of “sufficient importance” ( R v. Oakes 1986).

It is this third element (often called “proportionality stricto sensu ”) on which we will concentrate here; this is the focused sense of proportionality that roughly tracks how the term is used in the philosophical literatures on defensive harm and war, as well as (with some relevant differences) criminal punishment. (The strict scrutiny and intermediate scrutiny tests of U.S. constitutional law are arguably variations of the proportionality test; but set aside this complication for now as it distracts from the core philosophical issues. For relevant legal discussion, see Tsesis 2020.)

Proportionality, in the strict sense, concerns the relation between the costs or harms imposed by some measure and the benefits that the measure is designed to secure. The organizing distinction in recent philosophical literature (albeit largely missing in the literature on free speech) is one between narrow proportionality and wide proportionality . While there are different ways to cut up the terrain between these terms, let us stipulatively define them as follows. An interference is narrowly proportionate just in case the intended target of the interference is liable to bear the costs of that interference. An interference is widely proportionate just in case the collateral costs that the interference unintentionally imposes on others can be justified. (This distinction largely follows the literature in just war theory and the ethics of defensive force; see McMahan 2009.) While the distinction is historically absent from free speech theory, it has powerful payoffs in helping to structure this chaotic debate (as argued in Howard 2019a).

So start with the idea that restrictions on communication must be narrowly proportionate . For a restriction to be narrowly proportionate, those whose communications are restricted must be liable to bear their costs, such that they are not wronged by their imposition. One standard way to be liable to bear certain costs is to have a moral duty to bear them (Tadros 2012). So, for example, if speakers have a moral duty to refrain from libel, hate speech, or some other form of harmful speech, they are liable to bear at least some costs involved in the enforcement of that duty. Those costs cannot be unlimited; a policy of executing hate speakers could not plausibly be justified. Typically, in both defensive and punitive contexts, wrongdoers’ liability is determined by their culpability, the severity of their wrong, or some combination of the two. While it is difficult to say in the abstract what the precise maximal cost ceiling is for any given restriction, as it depends hugely on the details, the point is simply that there is some ceiling above which a speech restriction (like any restriction) imposes unacceptably high costs, even on wrongdoers.

Second, for a speech restriction to be justified, we must also show that it would be widely proportionate . Suppose a speaker is liable to bear the costs of some policy restricting her communication, such that she is not wronged by its imposition. It may be that the collateral costs of such a policy would render it unacceptable. One set of costs is chilling effects , the “overdeterrence of benign conduct that occurs incidentally to a law’s legitimate purpose or scope” (Kendrick 2013: 1649). The core idea is that laws targeting unprotected, legitimately proscribed expression may nevertheless end up having a deleterious impact on protected expression. This is because laws are often vague, overbroad, and in any case are likely to be misapplied by fallible officials (Schauer 1978: 699).

Note that if a speech restriction produces chilling effects, it does not follow that the restriction should not exist at all. Rather, concern about chilling effects instead suggests that speech restrictions should be under-inclusive—restricting less speech than is actually harmful—in order to create “breathing space”, or “a buffer zone of strategic protection” (Schauer 1978: 710) for legitimate expression and so reduce unwanted self-censorship. For example, some have argued that even though speech can cause harm recklessly or negligently, we should insist on specific intent as the mens rea of speech crimes in order to reduce any chilling effects that could follow (Alexander 1995: 21–128; Schauer 1978: 707; cf. Kendrick 2013).

But chilling effects are not the only sort of collateral effects to which speech restrictions could lead. Earlier we noted the risk that states might abuse their censorial powers. This, too, could militate in favor of underinclusive speech restrictions. Or the implication could be more radical. Consider the problem that it is difficult to author restrictions on hate speech in a tightly specified way; the language involved is open-ended in a manner that enables states to exercise considerable judgment in deciding what speech-acts, in fact, count as violations (see Strossen 2018). Given the danger that the state will misuse or abuse these laws to punish legitimate speech, some might think this renders their enactment widely disproportionate. Indeed, even if the law were well-crafted and would be judiciously applied by current officials, the point is that those in the future may not be so trustworthy.

Those inclined to accept such a position might simply draw the conclusion that legislatures ought to refrain from enacting laws against hate speech. A more radical conclusion is that the legal right to free speech ought to be specified so that hate speech is constitutionally protected. In other words, we ought to give speakers a legal right to violate their moral duties, since enforcing those moral duties through law is simply too risky. By appealing to this logic, it is conceivable that the First Amendment position on hate speech could be justified all-things-considered—not because the underlying moral right to free speech protects hate speech, but because hate speech must be protected for instrumental reasons of preventing future abuses of power (Howard 2019a).

Suppose certain restrictions on harmful speech can be justified as proportionate, in both the narrow and wide senses. This is still not sufficient to justify them all-things-considered. Additionally, they must be justified as necessary . (Note that some conceptions of proportionality in human rights law encompass the necessity requirement, but this entry follows the prevailing philosophical convention by treating them as distinct.)

Why might restrictions on harmful speech be unnecessary? One of the standard claims in the free speech literature is that we should respond to harmful speech not by banning it, but by arguing back against it. Counter-speech—not censorship—is the appropriate solution. This line of reasoning is old. As John Milton put it in 1644: “Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” The insistence on counter-speech as the remedy for harmful speech is similarly found, as noted above, throughout chapter 2 of Mill’s On Liberty .

For many scholars, this line of reply is justified by the fact that they think the harmful speech in question is protected by the moral right to free speech. For such scholars, counter-speech is the right response because censorship is morally off the table. For other scholars, the recourse to counter-speech has a plausible distinct rationale (although it is seldom articulated): its possibility renders legal restrictions unnecessary. And because it is objectionable to use gratuitous coercion, legal restrictions are therefore impermissible (Howard 2019a). Such a view could plausibly justify Mill’s aforementioned analysis in the corn dealer example, whereby censorship is permissible but only when there’s no time for counter-speech—a view that is also endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio 395 U.S. 444 (1969).

Whether this argument succeeds depends upon a wide range of further assumptions—about the comparable effectiveness of counter-speech relative to law; about the burdens that counter-speech imposes on prospective counter-speakers. Supposing that the argument succeeds, it invites a range of further normative questions about the ethics of counter-speech. For example, it is important who has the duty to engage in counter-speech, who its intended audience is, and what specific forms the counter-speech ought to take—especially in order to maximize its persuasive effectiveness (Brettschneider 2012; Cepollaro, Lepoutre, & Simpson 2023; Howard 2021b; Lepoutre 2021; Badano & Nuti 2017). It is also important to ask questions about the moral limits of counter-speech. For example, insofar as publicly shaming wrongful speakers has become a prominent form of counter-speech, it is crucial to interrogate its permissibility (e.g., Billingham and Parr 2020).

This final section canvasses the young philosophical debate concerning freedom of speech on the internet. With some important exceptions (e.g., Barendt 2005: 451ff), this issue has only recently accelerated (for an excellent edited collection, see Brison & Gelber 2019). There are many normative questions to be asked about the moral rights and obligations of internet platforms. Here are three. First, do internet platforms have moral duties to respect the free speech of their users? Second, do internet platforms have moral duties to restrict (or at least refrain from amplifying) harmful speech posted by their users? And finally, if platforms do indeed have moral duties to restrict harmful speech, should those duties be legally enforced?

The reference to internet platforms , is a deliberate focus on large-scale social media platforms, through which people can discover and publicly share user-generated content. We set aside other entities such as search engines (Whitney & Simpson 2019), important though they are. That is simply because the central political controversies, on which philosophical input is most urgent, concern the large social-media platforms.

Consider the question of whether internet platforms have moral duties to respect the free speech of their users. One dominant view in the public discourse holds that the answer is no . On this view, platforms are private entities, and as such enjoy the prerogative to host whatever speech they like. This would arguably be a function of them having free speech rights themselves. Just as the free speech rights of the New York Times give it the authority to publish whatever op-eds it sees fit, the free speech rights of platforms give them the authority to exercise editorial or curatorial judgment about what speech to allow. On this view, if Facebook were to decide to become a Buddhist forum, amplifying the speech of Buddhist users and promoting Buddhist perspectives and ideas, and banning speech promoting other religions, it would be entirely within its moral (and thus proper legal) rights to do so. So, too, if it were to decide to become an atheist forum.

A radical alternative view holds that internet platforms constitute a public forum , a term of art from U.S. free speech jurisprudence used to designate spaces “designed for and dedicated to expressive activities” ( Southeastern Promotions Ltd., v. Conrad 1975). As Kramer has argued:

social-media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and YouTube have become public fora. Although the companies that create and run those platforms are not morally obligated to sustain them in existence at all, the role of controlling a public forum morally obligates each such company to comply with the principle of freedom of expression while performing that role. No constraints that deviate from the kinds of neutrality required under that principle are morally legitimate. (Kramer 2021: 58–59)

On this demanding view, platforms’ duties to respect speech are (roughly) identical to the duties of states. Accordingly, if efforts by the state to restrict hate speech, pornography, and public health misinformation (for example) are objectionable affronts to free speech, so too are platforms’ content moderation rules for such content. A more moderate view does not hold that platforms are public forums as such, but holds that government channels or pages qualify as public forums (the claim at issue in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump (2019).)

Even if we deny that platforms constitute public forums, it is plausible that they engage in a governance function of some kind (Klonick 2018). As Jack Balkin has argued, the traditional model of free speech, which sees it as a relation between speakers and the state, is today plausibly supplanted by a triadic model, involving a more complex relation between speakers, governments, and intermediaries (2004, 2009, 2018, 2021). If platforms do indeed have some kind of governance function, it may well trigger responsibilities for transparency and accountability (as with new legislation such as the EU’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act).

Second, consider the question of whether platforms have a duty to remove harmful content posted by users. Even those who regard them as public forums could agree that platforms may have a moral responsibility to remove illegal unprotected speech. Yet a dominant view in the public debate has historically defended platforms’ place as mere conduits for others’ speech. This is the current position under U.S. law (as with 47 U.S. Code §230), which broadly exempts platforms from liability for much illegal speech, such as defamation. On this view, we should view platforms as akin to bulletin boards: blame whoever posts wrongful content, but don’t hold the owner of the board responsible.

This view is under strain. Even under current U.S. law, platforms are liable for removing some content, such as child sexual abuse material and copyright infringements, suggesting that it is appropriate to demand some accountability for the wrongful content posted by others. An increasing body of philosophical work explores the idea that platforms are indeed morally responsible for removing extreme content. For example, some have argued that platforms have a special responsibility to prevent the radicalization that occurs on their networks, given the ways in which extreme content is amplified to susceptible users (Barnes 2022). Without engaging in moderation (i.e., removal) of harmful content, platforms are plausibly complicit with the wrongful harms perpetrated by users (Howard forthcoming).

Yet it remains an open question what a responsible content moderation policy ought to involve. Many are tempted by a juridical model, whereby platforms remove speech in accordance with clearly announced rules, with user appeals mechanisms in place for individual speech decisions to ensure they are correctly made (critiqued in Douek 2022b). Yet platforms have billions of users and remove millions of pieces of content per week. Accordingly, perfection is not possible. Moving quickly to remove harmful content during a crisis—e.g., Covid misinformation—will inevitably increase the number of false positives (i.e., legitimate speech taken down as collateral damage). It is plausible that the individualistic model of speech decisions adopted by courts is decidedly implausible to help us govern online content moderation; as noted in Douek 2021 and 2022a, what is needed is analysis of how the overall system should operate at scale, with a focus on achieving proportionality between benefits and costs. Alternatively, one might double down and insist that the juridical model is appropriate, given the normative significance of speech. And if it is infeasible for social-media companies to meet its demands given their size, then all the worse for social-media companies. On this view, it is they who must bend to meet the moral demands of free speech theory, not the other way around.

Substantial philosophical work needs to be done to deliver on this goal. The work is complicated by the fact that artificial intelligence (AI) is central to the processes of content moderation; human moderators, themselves subjected to terrible working conditions at long hours, work in conjunction with machine learning tools to identify and remove content that platforms have restricted. Yet AI systems notoriously are as biased as their training data. Further, their “black box” decisions are cryptic and cannot be easily understood. Given that countless speech decisions will necessarily be made without human involvement, it is right to ask whether it is reasonable to expect users to accept the deliverances of machines (e.g., see Vredenburgh 2022; Lazar forthcoming a). Note that machine intelligence is used not merely for content moderation, narrowly understood as the enforcement of rules about what speech is allowed. It is also deployed for the broader practice of content curation, determining what speech gets amplified — raising the question of what normative principles should govern such amplification; see Lazar forthcoming b).

Finally, there is the question of legal enforcement. Showing that platforms have the moral responsibility to engage in content moderation is necessary to justifying its codification into a legal responsibility. Yet it is not sufficient; one could accept that platforms have moral duties to moderate (some) harmful speech while also denying that those moral duties ought to be legally enforced. A strong, noninstrumental version of such a view would hold that while speakers have moral duties to refrain from wrongful speech, and platforms have duties not to platform or amplify it, the coercive enforcement of such duties would violate the moral right to freedom of expression. A more contingent, instrumental version of the view would hold that legal enforcement is not in principle impermissible; but in practice, it is simply too risky to grant the state the authority to enforce platforms’ and speakers’ moral duties, given the potential for abuse and overreach.

Liberals who champion the orthodox interpretation of the First Amendment, yet insist on robust content moderation, likely hold one or both of these views. Yet globally such views seem to be in the minority. Serious legislation is imminent that will subject social-media companies to burdensome regulation, in the form of such laws as the Digital Services Act in the European Union and the Online Safety Bill in the UK. Normatively evaluating such legislation is a pressing task. So, too, is the task of designing normative theories to guide the design of content moderation systems, and the wider governance of the digital public sphere. On both fronts, political philosophers should get back to work.

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• –––, 1993, Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech , New York: The Free Press.
• –––, 2017, #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Tadros, Victor, 2012, “Duty and Liability”, Utilitas , 24(2): 259–277.
• Turner, Piers Norris, 2014, “‘Harm’ and Mill’s Harm Principle”, Ethics , 124(2): 299–326. doi:10.1086/673436
• Tushnet, Mark, Alan Chen, and Joseph Blocher, 2017, Free Speech beyond Words: The Surprising Reach of the First Amendment , New York: New York University Press.
• Volokh, Eugene, 2011, “In Defense of the Marketplace of Ideas/Search for Truth as a Theory of Free Speech Protection Responses”, Virginia Law Review , 97(3): 595–602.
• Vredenburgh, Kate, 2022, “The Right to Explanation”, Journal of Political Philosophy , 30(2): 209–229. doi:10.1111/jopp.12262
• Waldron, Jeremy, 1987, “Mill and the Value of Moral Distress”, Political Studies , 35(3): 410–423. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9248.1987.tb00197.x
• –––, 2012, The Harm in Hate Speech (The Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures, 2009), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Weinstein, James, 2011, “Participatory Democracy as the Central Value of American Free Speech Doctrine”, Virginia Law Review , 97(3): 491–514.
• West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette 319 U.S. 624 (1943).
• Whitten, Suzanne, 2022, A Republican Theory of Free Speech: Critical Civility , Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-78631-1
• Whitney, Heather M. and Robert Mark Simpson, 2019, “Search Engines and Free Speech Coverage”, in Free Speech in the Digital Age , Susan J. Brison and Katharine Gelber (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 33–51 (ch. 2). doi:10.1093/oso/9780190883591.003.0003
• West, Caroline, 2004 [2022], “Pornography and Censorship”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 edition), Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2022/entries/pornography-censorship/ >.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) , adopted: 16 December 1966; Entry into force: 23 March 1976.
• Free Speech Debate
• Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
• van Mill, David, “Freedom of Speech”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/freedom-speech/ >. [This was the previous entry on this topic in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – see the version history .]

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the editors and anonymous referees of this Encyclopedia for helpful feedback. I am greatly indebted to Robert Mark Simpson for many incisive suggestions, which substantially improved the entry. This entry was written while on a fellowship funded by UK Research & Innovation (grant reference MR/V025600/1); I am thankful to UKRI for the support.

Copyright © 2024 by Jeffrey W. Howard < jeffrey . howard @ ucl . ac . uk >

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Freedom of Speech

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 27, 2023 | Original: December 4, 2017

Freedom of speech—the right to express opinions without government restraint—is a democratic ideal that dates back to ancient Greece. In the United States, the First Amendment guarantees free speech, though the United States, like all modern democracies, places limits on this freedom. In a series of landmark cases, the U.S. Supreme Court over the years has helped to define what types of speech are—and aren’t—protected under U.S. law.

The ancient Greeks pioneered free speech as a democratic principle. The ancient Greek word “parrhesia” means “free speech,” or “to speak candidly.” The term first appeared in Greek literature around the end of the fifth century B.C.

During the classical period, parrhesia became a fundamental part of the democracy of Athens. Leaders, philosophers, playwrights and everyday Athenians were free to openly discuss politics and religion and to criticize the government in some settings.

First Amendment

In the United States, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech.

The First Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution . The Bill of Rights provides constitutional protection for certain individual liberties, including freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.

The First Amendment doesn’t specify what exactly is meant by freedom of speech. Defining what types of speech should and shouldn’t be protected by law has fallen largely to the courts.

In general, the First Amendment guarantees the right to express ideas and information. On a basic level, it means that people can express an opinion (even an unpopular or unsavory one) without fear of government censorship.

It protects all forms of communication, from speeches to art and other media.

Flag Burning

While freedom of speech pertains mostly to the spoken or written word, it also protects some forms of symbolic speech. Symbolic speech is an action that expresses an idea.

Flag burning is an example of symbolic speech that is protected under the First Amendment. Gregory Lee Johnson, a youth communist, burned a flag during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas to protest the Reagan administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court , in 1990, reversed a Texas court’s conviction that Johnson broke the law by desecrating the flag. Texas v. Johnson invalidated statutes in Texas and 47 other states prohibiting flag burning.

When Isn’t Speech Protected?

Not all speech is protected under the First Amendment.

Forms of speech that aren’t protected include:

• Obscene material such as child pornography
• Plagiarism of copyrighted material
• Defamation (libel and slander)
• True threats

Speech inciting illegal actions or soliciting others to commit crimes aren’t protected under the First Amendment, either.

The Supreme Court decided a series of cases in 1919 that helped to define the limitations of free speech. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917, shortly after the United States entered into World War I . The law prohibited interference in military operations or recruitment.

Socialist Party activist Charles Schenck was arrested under the Espionage Act after he distributed fliers urging young men to dodge the draft. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction by creating the “clear and present danger” standard, explaining when the government is allowed to limit free speech. In this case, they viewed draft resistant as dangerous to national security.

American labor leader and Socialist Party activist Eugene Debs also was arrested under the Espionage Act after giving a speech in 1918 encouraging others not to join the military. Debs argued that he was exercising his right to free speech and that the Espionage Act of 1917 was unconstitutional. In Debs v. United States the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Espionage Act.

Freedom of Expression

The Supreme Court has interpreted artistic freedom broadly as a form of free speech.

In most cases, freedom of expression may be restricted only if it will cause direct and imminent harm. Shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater and causing a stampede would be an example of direct and imminent harm.

In deciding cases involving artistic freedom of expression the Supreme Court leans on a principle called “content neutrality.” Content neutrality means the government can’t censor or restrict expression just because some segment of the population finds the content offensive.

Free Speech in Schools

In 1965, students at a public high school in Des Moines, Iowa , organized a silent protest against the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to protest the fighting. The students were suspended from school. The principal argued that the armbands were a distraction and could possibly lead to danger for the students.

The Supreme Court didn’t bite—they ruled in favor of the students’ right to wear the armbands as a form of free speech in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District . The case set the standard for free speech in schools. However, First Amendment rights typically don’t apply in private schools.

What does free speech mean?; United States Courts . Tinker v. Des Moines; United States Courts . Freedom of expression in the arts and entertainment; ACLU .

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Why Free Speech Is An Important Freedom Argumentative Essay

Introduction.

Freedom of speech is synonymous with freedom of expression. These two terms do not only explain the ability to speak or voice opinions without limitation or interference, but also the use of other means in communicating or impacting information.

This includes the use of expressions, music and art like painting, photography, and performing. In many countries, this freedom is provided for in as a basic freedom. Under the Universal Declaration of human rights in the United Nations there is a provision for this freedom. There are many genuine reasons why free speech is an important freedom.

Expressing oneself is a basic and important aspect of life and is also part of the basis for communication; it is more instinctive than learned. Throughout childhood and life, freedom of speech supports the learning of an individual through the acquisition of new views, ideas, concepts and theories in scientific, social and other fields of education.

One is able to participate in healthy debates and discussions, learn how to win and persuade in arguments and tolerate or even accept other people’s perceptions and ways of thinking. When an individual is able to express their ideas and opinions, it enables them to relate with others, participate in and enjoy interaction and bonding with other members of a group, team and community.

The main importance of speech learning and development is to facilitate expression and help an individual to live in harmony with other people in society, making sure that there needs are met and their rights, values and principles are not violated. Limiting or interfering with the freedom to speak and express oneself is a big violation of the basic rights of an individual and it restrains an individual from living a normal, productive and independent life.

Freedom of speech is an important aspect of social life in a civilized and democratic society. It enables people to make decisions on their rulers, systems of development and administration and initiate debates and discussions on important issues that concern public policy and governance.

People can voice their concerns over any problems or issues on accountability, responsibility and transparency of leadership. Freedom of speech is essential in the maintaining of law and order and making sure that there are checks and balances on individuals or groups which violate the law.

Although there has been debate on the justification of freedom of speech, it is important to realize that society cannot develop or advance when imparting of and access to information is impeded. In some instances privacy, control and protection of information is required but this does not mean that information should be completely barred from the public.

Freedom of expression is also important where social and cultural issues are concerned. When people are at liberty to express their opinions on critical issues concerning social values, norms and standards, social harmony and order is achieved.

In order to facilitate effective change which is inevitable, sensitive Issues concerning social life, like abortion, aesthesia, divorce, parenting, marriage etc. should be open to debate whether there is consensus or not. It is obviously clear that not all forms and means of freedom of expression that supported and defended but in order to prevent social tension and chaos people should be free to speak.

There are many reasons why free speech is an important freedom. Most societies agree that there should be clearly set guarantees on protecting and defending of this freedom without very little limitation except when it is very necessary and there has been general consensus on taking action against disbursement of information.

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Top stories, winners of the 2024 uchicago science as art competition announced, ways to celebrate earth month 2024 at the university of chicago, ecologist tracks how insects can devastate forests—and how to stop them, what is the role of free speech in a democratic society, book co-edited by prof. geoffrey stone examines evolution, future of first amendment.

Free speech has been an experiment from the start—or at least that’s what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes suggested nearly a century ago in his dissent in  Abrams v. United States , one of the first decisions to interpret and shape the doctrine that would come to occupy a nearly sacred place in America’s national identity.

Since then, First Amendment jurisprudence has stirred America in novel ways, forcing deep introspection about democracy, society and human nature and sometimes straddling the political divide in unexpected fashion. In the past 100 years, free speech protections have ebbed and flowed alongside America’s fears and progress, adapting to changing norms but ultimately growing in reach.

And now, this piece of the American experiment faces a new set of challenges presented by the ever-expanding influence of technology as well as sharp debates over the government’s role in shaping the public forum.

That’s why Geoffrey R. Stone, the Edward Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, two of the country’s leading First Amendment scholars, brought together some of the nation’s most influential legal scholars in a new book to explore the evolution—and the future—of First Amendment doctrine in America. 

The Free Speech Century  (Oxford University Press) is a collection of 16 essays by Floyd Abrams, the legendary First Amendment lawyer; David Strauss, the University of Chicago’s Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law; Albie Sachs, former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; Tom Ginsburg, the University of Chicago’s Leo Spitz Professor of International Law; Laura Weinrib, a University of Chicago Professor of Law; Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School; and others.

“Lee and I were law clerks together at the Supreme Court during the 1972 term,” Stone said. “I was with Justice Brennan and Lee was with Chief Justice Burger. We have both been writing, speaking and teaching about the First Amendment now for 45 years. This was a good time, we decided, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s first decision on the First Amendment with a volume that examines four basic themes: The Nature of First Amendment Jurisprudence, Major Critiques and Controversies over Current Doctrine, The International Impact of our First Amendment Jurisprudence, and the Future of Free Speech in a World of Ever-Changing Technology. Our hope is that this volume will enlighten, inspire and challenge readers to think about the role of free speech in a free and democratic society.”

Stone, JD’71, has spent much of his career examining free speech— a topic he first became passionate about as a University of Law School student.

The University has a long tradition of upholding freedom of expression. UChicago’s influential 2015 report by the Committee on Freedom of Expression, which Stone chaired, became a model for colleges and universities across the country.

The collection takes on pressing issues, such as free expression on university campuses, hate speech, the regulation of political speech and the boundaries of free speech on social media, unpacking the ways in which these issues are shaping the norms of free expression.

One essay, for instance, explores how digital behemoths like Facebook, Twitter and Google became “gatekeepers of free expression”—a shift that contributor Emily Bell, a Columbia University journalism professor, writes “leaves us at a dangerous point in democracy and freedom of the press.” Her article examines foreign interference in the 2016 election and explores some of the questions that have emerged since, such as how to balance traditional ideas of a free press with the rights of citizens to hear accurate information in an information landscape that is now dominated by social media.

Technology, the editors write, has presented some of the most significant questions that courts, legal scholars, and the American public will face in the coming decades.

“While vastly expanding the opportunities to participate in public discourse, contemporary means of communication have also arguably contributed to political polarization, foreign influence in our democracy, and the proliferation of ‘fake’ news,” Stone writes in the introduction. “To what extent do these concerns pose new threats to our understanding of ‘the freedom of speech, and of the press’? To what extent do they call for serious reconsideration of some central doctrines and principles on which our current First Amendment jurisprudence is based?”

In another essay, Strauss, an expert in constitutional law, examines the principles established in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case,  New York Times Co. v. United States.  The landmark ruling blocked an attempt at prior restraint by the Nixon administration, allowing the  New York Times  and  Washington Post  to publish a classified report that reporters had obtained about America’s role in Vietnam. The threat to national security wasn’t sufficiently immediate or specific to warrant infringing on the papers’ right to publish, the Court said at the time.

But today’s world is different, Strauss argues. It is easier to leak large amounts of sensitive information—and publication is no longer limited to a handful of media companies with strict ethical guidelines. What’s more, the ease with which information can be shared—digitally as opposed to carefully sneaking papers in batches from locked cabinets to a photocopier, as military analyst Daniel Ellsberg did when leaking the Pentagon Papers—means that a larger number of people can act as leakers. That can include those who don’t fully understand the information they are sharing, which many have argued was the case when former IT contractor Edward Snowden allegedly leaked millions of documents from the National Security Agency in 2013.

“[T]he stakes are great on both sides,” Strauss writes, “and the world has changed in ways that make it important to rethink the way we deal with the problem.”

Ultimately, the health of the First Amendment will depend on two things, Bollinger writes: a continued understanding that free speech plays a critical role in democratic society—and a recognition that the judicial branch doesn’t claim sole responsibility for achieving that vision. The legislative and executive branches can support free speech as well.

What’s more, modern-day challenges do not have to result in an erosion of protections, Bollinger argues.

“[O]ur most memorable and consequential decisions under the First Amendment have emerged in times of national crises, when passions are at their peak and when human behavior is on full display at its worst and at its best, in times of war and when momentous social movements are on the rise,” he writes. “Freedom of speech and the press taps into the most essential elements of life—how we think, speak, communicate, and live within the polity. It is no wonder that we are drawn again and again into its world.”

—Adapted from an article that first appeared on the University of Chicago Law School website.

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The Free Speech Century

Geoffrey R. Stone, Lee C. Bollinger

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Events, news & press, free speech.

While many Americans take free speech for granted, the tradition is far from universal. Many developed nations restrict speech that is deemed hurtful or offensive. And in the United States, there is increasing sentiment that some speech is not worth protecting. Is it time to reconsider the nation’s free-speech orthodoxy?

Nearly everyone has experiences that contradict the children’s rhyme “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Words can be painful. And that is particularly true in the age of social media, when a viral tweet or insensitive post can hurt feelings and damage reputations.

Despite this reality, the United States maintains a strong legal and cultural tradition of free speech. While many Americans take it for granted, the tradition is far from universal. Many developed nations restrict speech that is deemed hurtful or offensive. And in the United States, there is increasing sentiment that some speech is not worth protecting.

Is it time to reconsider the nation’s free-speech orthodoxy?

Part 1: What is freedom of speech?

The First Amendment of the Constitution says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

At its core, the Constitution’s robust protections for speech are intended to preserve and protect liberty. Hoover Institution senior fellow Peter Berkowitz  highlights  how the First Amendment connects freedom of speech with liberty:

Its position in the text of the First Amendment symbolizes free speech’s indissoluble connection to religious and political liberty. One can neither worship (or decline to worship) God in accordance with one’s conscience, nor persuade and be persuaded by fellow citizens, if government dictates orthodox opinions and punishes the departure from them. Indeed, the more authorities—whether formally through the exercise of government power, or informally through social intolerance—prescribe a single correct view and demonize others, the more citizens lose the ability to form responsible judgments and defend the many other freedoms that undergird human dignity and self-government.

Freedom of speech protects your right to say things that are disagreeable. It gives you—and everyone else—the right to criticize government policies and actions.

Part 2: What isn’t protected?

It sounds straightforward, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech,” but the First Amendment isn’t absolute. Hoover Institution senior fellow Richard Epstein  offers a framework  for how to think about free speech and its limits:

The First Amendment clearly covers the spoken word, written pamphlets, and books. By analogy, it also reaches other expressive activities like drawing, dancing, and acting. But no one could claim that it also protects mayhem, murder, defamation, and deceit. The only way to draw the right line—that between expression and violence—is to recognize that the First Amendment is as much about  freedom  as it is about speech. The necessary theory of freedom applies equally to all forms of speech and action, and it draws the line at the threat or use of force, even if the former counts as speech and the latter does not.

As the video below explains, the general principle of the nation’s free-speech rules is that your speech is protected so long as it doesn’t harm others.

But this raises the question: what should count as a harm? In our legal system there are well-defined examples where speech is not protected, because it hurts someone. You can’t lie about someone to harm their reputation. That’s called defamation. You can’t misrepresent the truth to people for your own gains. That’s fraud. And the First Amendment doesn’t permit you to advocate for the immediate use of force against someone else.

But there are other times when speech is protected even when someone may claim to be harmed. Mean or hateful words that may be true or a matter of opinion are generally protected by the First Amendment, even if they offend someone. You may think that is wrong. And there are plenty of countries that agree with you. Many countries have enacted strong hate-speech laws that prohibit derogatory remarks about a person’s race or religion. Peter Berkowitz  summarizes  new restrictive speech laws recently enacted by other nations:

In 2017, Germany enacted a law that obliges social media networks to be more “diligent in policing ‘hate speech’ on their platforms.” The next year, France adopted a similar law. A substantial plurality of British voters in 2018 believed that people do not feel free to express their opinions on “important issues.”

But there is a danger to these rules. As the video below highlights, enacting laws that ban offensive speech mean that “the people who disagree with you the  most  would have the most control over what you’re allowed to say.”

In an interview with Tunku Varadarajan , Richard Epstein explains the consequences of laws that ban offensive speech: “Everybody offends everybody a large fraction of the time. So, if I am insulting to you because you’re a progressive and you’re insulting to me because I’m a conservative, and if we allow both people to sue, then neither can talk.” The end result is that debate and free expression are stifled.

Part 3:  What about private restrictions on speech?

The First Amendment constrains the federal government from infringing on most speech, and the Fourteenth Amendment extended these constraints to state and local governments. But the First Amendment’s protections don’t apply to the personal and private interactions of people or businesses. If people disagree with you, they are free to stop listening. And companies are generally free to stop doing business with people with whom they disagree. Nor is anyone obligated to provide a forum for anyone else’s speech. Richard Epstein  explains:

Freedom of speech means that you have the right to use your own resources to advance your own causes. But it doesn’t give you, in the name of free speech, the right to take somebody’s telephone, somebody’s house, or somebody’s anything in order to use it for your own purposes.

But while private actors are not bound by the First Amendment, many private institutions have thrived because they have embraced a culture of free speech. For example, private universities have historically maintained broad academic freedoms for its faculty and students that allow for robust dissent on campuses. Recently, however, some universities have adopted policies that take a narrower view of what is acceptable speech.  Here’s Peter Berkowitz :

At universities, America’s founding promise of individual freedom and equality under law is often treated as irredeemably tainted by racism and sexism, colonialism and imperialism. In some cases, free speech is placed on the list of “incorrect phrases” that ought not be uttered, because it belongs among the “impure thoughts” of which minds must be cleansed.

Berkowitz notes, “Ninety percent of American universities censor speech or maintain policies that could authorize administrators to engage in censorship.” These rules are well intentioned. They are intended to promote a safe and welcoming environment for students and faculty. But a rejection of free speech has significant costs.

Part 4:  What are the benefits of free speech?

Without protections for speech—particularly for disagreeable speech—our liberties are more easily threatened. But free speech is important even beyond its value to our liberty. The free exchange of ideas—even ones that are disagreeable—is key to future prosperity. Hoover Institution research fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali  explains  why:

Societies since the Enlightenment have progressed because of their willingness to question sacred cows, to foster critical thinking and rational debate. Societies that blindly respect old hierarchies and established ways of thinking, that privilege traditional norms and cower from giving offense, have not produced the same intellectual dynamism as Western civilization. Innovation and progress happened precisely in those places where perceived “offense” and “hurt feelings” were not regarded as sufficient to stifle critical thinking.

Diversity of thought isn’t just a matter of freedom; it is also an important ingredient to progress. When society discourages dissent or governments dictate the bounds of acceptable opinions, there is less innovation, and incorrect yet popular ideas go unchallenged. Economist Milton Friedman explains how diversity and freedom of all types are integral to a thriving society in this video:

Part 5: How do we preserve freedom of speech?

Preserving our liberties and ensuring a vibrant, innovative society requires free speech. Well-intentioned efforts to protect people from speech that offends is thus a threat to our free and prosperous society. What steps can we take to ensure free speech remains a cherished value for future generations?

Hoover Institution research fellow David Davenport  makes a case  for reprioritizing civic education in US schools. Testing reveals that a shrinking number of students are knowledgeable about US history. Increased funding and improved curriculum for civic education will ensure that future generations understand and appreciate the nation’s tradition of free speech.

Higher education also has a role to play. Public universities are generally bound by the First Amendment, but all universities—public and private—should remember the value academic freedom brings to campuses and to all of society. As Richard Epstein  argues :

The First Amendment prohibition does not allow one person to commandeer the property of another for his own purposes. But in terms of their roles in society, there is a critical difference between a university and a private business: Universities have as their central mission the discovery and promotion of knowledge across all different areas of human life.

Part 6:  Conclusion

All too often, support for free speech depends on who is talking and what is being said. Partisanship too frequently shapes our view of just how expansive the First Amendment should be. But we should remember how the nation’s strong tradition of free speech has helped protect the freedoms of all Americans. It has empowered citizens to speak against and undo unjust laws. And it has helped create a vibrant, diverse economy with widespread prosperity.

Does this mean there is nothing we can do about speech we find disagreeable or offensive? Certainly not. As  the video above explains : “The way to respond to offensive speech isn’t to use force—it’s to counter with persuasive speech of your own.”

Citations and Further Reading

In his essay  Rewriting the First Amendment ,  Richard Epstein explains the dangers of a proposed constitutional amendment to restrict spending for political speech.

In  an interview on  Uncommon Knowledge ,  Ayaan Hirsi Ali emphasizes the importance of free speech in addressing the nation’s racial inequalities.

To view the original article, click here .

View the discussion thread.

Join the Hoover Institution’s community of supporters in ideas advancing freedom.

Chapter 6: The Right to Freedom of Speech

The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man; and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.

Free speech is our most fundamental—and our most contested—right. It is an essential freedom because it is how we protect all of our other rights and liberties. If we could not speak openly about the policies and actions of government, then we would have no effective way to participate in the democratic process or protest when we believed governmental behavior threatened our security or our freedom. Although Americans agree that free speech is central to democratic government, we disagree sharply about what we mean by speech and about where the right begins and ends. Speech clearly includes words, but does it also include conduct or symbols? Certainly, we have the right to criticize the government, but can we also advocate its overthrow? Does the right to free speech allow us to incite hate or use foul language in public?

The framers of the Bill of Rights understood the importance of free expression and protected it under the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech.” Both English history and their own colonial past had taught them to value this right, but their definition of free speech was much more limited than ours. Less than a decade after the amendment’s ratification, Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798, making it a crime to criticize the government. Many citizens believed government could forbid speech that threatened public order, as witnessed by numerous early nineteenth-century laws restricting speech against slavery. During the Civil War, thousands of antiwar protestors were arrested on the theory that the First Amendment did not protect disloyal speech. Labor unrest in the 1800s and 1890s brought similar restraints on the right of politically unpopular groups, such as socialists, to criticize government’s failure to protect working people from the ills of industrialization and economic depression.

Freedom of speech did not become a subject of important court cases until the twentieth century when the Supreme Court announced one of the most famous principles in constitutional law, the clear and present danger test. The test was straightforward: government could not restrict speech unless it posed a known, immediate threat to public safety. The standard sought to balance the need for order with the right to speak freely. At its heart was the question of proximity, or closeness, and degree. If speech brought about an action that was dangerous under the immediate circumstances, such as falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, then it did not enjoy First Amendment protection. With this case, Schenck v. United States (1919), the Court began a decades-long process of seeking the right balance between free speech and public safety.

The balance, at first, was almost always on the side of order and security. Another case decided in 1919, Debs v. United States , illustrates how restrictive the test could be. Eugene Debs was a labor leader from Indiana who had run for President four times as the candidate of the Socialist Party of America, once polling more than one million votes. At a June 1918 rally in Chicago, while U.S. troops were fighting in World War I, he told the working-class crowd, “You need to know you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.”

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic . . . The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.

He was sentenced under an existing federal statute to twenty years in prison for inciting disloyalty and obstruction of military recruitment, which the Supreme Court upheld.

For the next five decades, the Court wrestled with the right balance between speech and order. Much of what defined freedom of speech emerged from challenges to the government’s ability to regulate or punish political protest. Each case brought a new set of circumstances that allowed the justices an opportunity to modify or extend the clear and present danger test. Many decisions recognized the abstract right of individuals to speak freely, but each one hedged this right in important ways. Always in the background were conditions that pointed to disorder, dissension, and danger—the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, among them—so the justices were cautious in expanding a right that would expose America to greater threats. These cases, however, gradually introduced a new perspective on the value of free speech in a democracy, namely, the belief that truth is best reached by the free trade in ideas.

The belief that society is best served by a marketplace of ideas open to all opinions, no matter how radical, ultimately prevailed. In 1927, the Court had endorsed what came to be called the bad tendency test: if officials believed speech was likely to lead to a bad result, such as urging people to commit a violent act, it was not protected under the First Amendment even if no violence occurred. By 1969, however, similar facts produced a different outcome. Ku Klux Klan members in Ohio invited a television station to film their rally. Waving firearms, they shouted racist and anti-Semitic slurs and threatened to march on Congress before their leader was arrested and later convicted under a state law banning speech that had a tendency to incite violence. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction in Brandenburg v. Ohio and established the rule still in effect today: the First Amendment protects the right to advocate the use of force or violence, but it does not safeguard speech likely to incite or produce an immediate unlawful act. The Brandenburg test has allowed Nazis to march, Klan members to hold rallies, and other extremist groups to promote views far outside the mainstream of public opinion. With few exceptions—fighting words and obscenity, for example—government today cannot regulate the content of speech.

Even as society was coming to accept a wide range of political ideas, opposition to an unpopular war raised other questions about the limits and forms of free speech. By the mid- to late 1960s, the Vietnam War divided Americans. Although many citizens supported the use of U.S. troops to stop communism in Asia, a growing minority, including many draft-age young people, took to the streets to oppose the war. The protestors did not limit their efforts to antiwar speeches; they also wore shirts with obscene slogans, burned draft cards, and desecrated American flags. Using these symbols to protest, they argued, was a form of free speech. Soon, the Supreme Court faced the question squarely in a case involving a youthful protestor from the nation’s heartland: is symbolic speech—messages using symbols or signs, not words—protected by the First Amendment?

The first large-scale American demonstration against the Vietnam War occurred in November 1965 when more than 25,000 protestors converged on the nation’s capital. Fifty Iowans made the long bus ride, and on the way home they decided to make their opposition known locally by wearing black armbands to work and school. One member of the peace contingent was Lorena Tinker, the wife of a Des Moines Methodist minister and mother of five children. Mary Beth Tinker, a thirteen-year-old eighth grader, followed her mother’s suggestion and became one of a handful of local public school students who wore this symbol of protest to school. This act placed her in the middle of a national controversy about student rights and freedom of expression.

In many ways, Mary Beth was a normal eighth grader. She was a good student who enjoyed singing, spending time with her friends, and taking part in church activities. What made her different was a commitment to social justice, a passion encouraged by her parents, both of whom were known for their activism. Her parents wanted their children to share their moral and social values, and Mary Beth responded eagerly to their invitation to participate with them. By the time she became a teenager, she already had attended her first protest, accompanying her father to a rally about fair housing.

Mary Beth Tinker, her brother, John, and a handful of Des Moines students planned their demonstration for December 16, 1965. The students’ aim was not to protest the war but to mourn its casualties, Vietnamese and American, and to show support for proposed peace talks. School officials, however, promised to suspend anyone who came to school wearing the armbands, and the school principal suspended Mary Beth and sent her home. She was one of five students suspended that day for wearing the offending cloth. Significantly, the school ban applied only to armbands, in other words, to students who opposed the Vietnam War; a number of students that day wore an array of other symbols, including the Iron Cross, a Nazi medal.

When the school board upheld the suspensions, the Tinkers persuaded the Iowa Civil Liberties Union to take the case to federal court. Two lower federal courts agreed with the school’s action, rebuffing the argument that the policy violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The Supreme Court decided otherwise. In its 7-to-2 decision, announced in February 1969, the justices held that the wearing of armbands is a symbolic act akin to “pure speech” and protected by the right to free expression. The protesting students posed no threat to the order required for effective instruction, nor did the wearing of armbands interfere with the school’s educational mission. In this instance, the balance between order and liberty was weighted on the side of the First Amendment. Students and teachers, the Court concluded, do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

Symbolic speech has been the focus of some of our greatest constitutional drama. Words may be powerful and provocative, but symbols are often more inflammatory because they are visual and evoke an emotional response. We live in an age when we use pictures and symbols to convey important messages, whether in politics or the marketplace. For these reasons, the Supreme Court’s recognition of symbolic speech as a right protected by the First Amendment has been a significant development. Twenty-five years after Mary Beth Tinker put on her armband in remembrance of the war dead, Life magazine featured a handful of civil liberties cases to celebrate the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights. Mary Beth’s case was included, even though the rights of students remained, and still are, more limited than those of adult citizens. But her actions as an eighth grader expanded our conception of constitutionally protected speech to include the symbols we use to express our convictions.

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

More than most other recent decisions, cases involving symbolic speech have revealed how contentious the right of free speech remains in our society. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protected individuals who burned the American flag in protest. This decision was highly controversial, and it has resulted in numerous attempts to amend the Constitution to protect the flag and, in effect, limit speech in this circumstance. The outcome of this effort is uncertain, but the debate raises important questions: What role does this right play in our democracy? How does it contribute to our liberty as Americans?

The right to speak freely, without restraint, is essential to democratic government because it helps us develop better laws and policies through challenge, rebuttal, and debate. When we all have the ability to speak in the public forum, offensive opinions can be combated with an opposing argument, a more inclusive approach, a more effective idea. We tolerate offensive speech and protect the right to speak even for people who would deny it to us because we believe that exposing their thoughts and opinions to open debate will result in the discovery of truth. This principle is an old one in Western thought. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissent in Abrams v. United States , a 1919 case suppressing free speech, is a classic statement of this view: “The best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which [the public’s] wishes safely can be carried out.”

Governmental actions to deny differing points of view, even distasteful or unpopular opinions, rob us of the range of ideas that might serve the interests of society more effectively. In a case decided almost a decade before Tinker v. Des Moines , the Supreme Court found this rationale especially applicable to the classroom. “The Nation’s future,” the justices wrote, “depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth out of a multitude of tongues.” As a nation, we are willing to live with the often bitter conflict over ideas because we believe it will lead to truth and to improved lives for all citizens. We recognize that freedom of speech is the first freedom of democracy, as the English poet John Milton argued during his own seventeenth-century struggle to gain this right: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” The ability to speak freely allows us to pursue truth, to challenge falsehoods, to correct mistakes—all are necessary for a healthy society.

Free speech also reflects a commitment to individual freedom and autonomy, the right to decide for ourselves and to pursue our own destiny. Throughout our history, we have been so committed to individual choice that many foreign observers believe it is our most characteristic trait. We see it reflected daily in everything from advertising slogans—“Have It Your Way”— to fashion statements, but fail to recognize how closely freedom is tied to the right to speak freely. Free speech guarantees us an individual voice, no matter how far removed our opinions and beliefs are from mainstream society. With this voice we are free to contribute as individuals to the marketplace of ideas or a marketplace of goods, as well as to decide how and under what circumstances we will join with others to decide social and governmental policies.

A commitment to free speech, of course, will not resolve all conflict, not if our history is any guide. The debate is most contentious during times of war or other moments when national security is at stake. Even then—perhaps especially then—we will continue to fight over words and symbols because they express our deepest hopes and our most worrisome fears. This contest over what speech is acceptable and what is not has been a constant theme of our past. Rarely do these struggles produce a neat consensus. More often, intemperate rhetoric and bitter division have been their legacy, and this angry clamor is one of the basic noises of our history. What makes the struggle to protect free speech worthwhile is its ability to serve as a lever for change. When we practice our right to speak openly, we are defining the contours of our democracy. It is messy work, but through it, we keep the Constitution alive and, with it, our dreams of a just society.

“Free Trade in Ideas”

Jacob Abrams was a Russian immigrant and anarchist convicted of violating the Sedition Act of 1918, which made it a crime to advocate anything that would impede the war effort during World War I. In 1917 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., had written the Court’s opinion in Schenck v. United States , upholding similar convictions because Congress had a right to regulate speech that posed a “clear and present danger” to public safety. But by the time Abrams’s appeal reached the Court in 1919, Holmes had modified his views. Disturbed by anti-radical hysteria, he dissented from the majority’s decision upholding Abrams’s conviction in Abrams v. United States . His eloquent discussion of the connection between freedom of speech and the search for truth soon became the standard used by the Supreme Court to judge free speech cases until Brandenberg v. Ohio in 1972. The First Amendment, Holmes reasoned, protected the expression of all opinions “unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.”

But as against dangers peculiar to war, as against others, the principle of the right to free speech is always the same. It is only the present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion where private rights are not concerned. Congress certainly cannot forbid all effort to change the mind of the country. Now nobody can suppose that the surreptitious publishing of a silly leaflet by an unknown man, without more, would present any immediate danger that its opinions would hinder the success of the government arms or have any appreciable tendency to do so . . .

Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care whole heartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country . . . Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.” Of course I am speaking only of expressions of opinion and exhortations, which were all that were uttered here, but I regret that I cannot put into more impressive words my belief that in their conviction upon this indictment the defendants were deprived of their rights under the Constitution of the United States.

“Malicious Words” versus “Free Communication”

In response to fears about imminent wars with France in 1798, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed a series of four acts known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Section 2 of the Sedition Act made it a crime to make defamatory statements about the government or President. (Sedition is an action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to lead to the overthrow of the government.) The act was designed to suppress political opposition. Its passage by Congress reveals how limited the definition of the right of free speech was for some Americans only a few years after the ratification of the First Amendment.

Sec. 2 . . . That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United Sates, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

James Madison, congressman from Virginia, and Thomas Jefferson, the sitting Vice President, secretly drafted resolutions protesting the Sedition Act as unconstitutional. The Virginia and Kentucky legislatures passed these resolutions in 1798. Both resolutions especially pointed to the act’s violation of First Amendment protections, as seen in the Virginia Resolution here.

Resolved, . . . That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution in the two late cases of the “Alien and Sedition Acts” passed at the last session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power no where delegated to the federal government, and which by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of executive, subverts the general principles of free government; as well as the particular organization, and positive provisions of the federal constitution; and the other of which acts, exercises in like manner, a power not delegated by the constitution, but on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto; a power, which more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.

That this state having by its Convention, which ratified the federal Constitution, expressly declared, that among other essential rights, “the Liberty of Conscience and of the Press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any authority of the United States,” and from its extreme anxiety to guard these rights from every possible attack of sophistry or ambition, having with other states, recommended an amendment for that purpose, which amendment was, in due time, annexed to the Constitution; it would mark a reproachable inconsistency, and criminal degeneracy, if an indifference were now shewn, to the most palpable violation of one of the Rights, thus declared and secured; and to the establishment of a precedent which may be fatal to the other.

The Sedition Act expired in 1801 but not until a number of the Federalists’ opponents, including Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont, had been convicted of violating the law. Today, historians consider the Sedition Act to have been a gross misuse of government power. In 1798, the Kentucky Resolutions focused on the rights of states to determine the limits of free speech.

Resolved, that it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;” and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be destroyed.

Related Resources

• Timeline: First Amendment - Freedom of Speech
• Video: A Conversation on the Constitution with Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor: Freedom of Speech

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The good, the bad, and the ugly of free speech

• Pamela J. Forsythe

Daryl Tempesta is shown with tape over his mouth in protest in April, in Berkeley, Calif. Demonstrators gathered near the University of California, Berkeley campus amid a strong police presence and rallied to show support for free speech and condemn the views of Ann Coulter and her supporters. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, file)

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Democracy & justice, why is freedom of speech important in a democracy: 5 reasons, why is freedom of speech important why is it a core principle in a democracy how is it being threatened how do we protect it, by eleanor brooks.

Knowledge is power. Your contribution counts.

What is freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech is one of the core pillars upholding the democratic process and protecting it is essential if we want to live in a society that is fair and equal for everyone. Failing to do so weakens democracy.

Every time you share a news story on your social media channel, attend a protest, or write to your local politician about an issue you care about, this is free speech in action. Not just any speech is considered free speech. For example, having an argument around the dinner table about whether or not to eat your vegetables is not considered free speech.

We all deserve to have our say

But it is becoming harder to speak up about the issues we care about. Support Liberties standing up for our right to free speech.

Free speech gives us our voice

Free speech exists when citizens can express their opinion – including views that are critical towards the government - without fearing negative consequences, such as being put into prison or receiving threats of violence.

In 2000 freedom of expression was enshrined as a fundamental right in Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union:

• Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
• The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.

However, the definition of free speech does not protect every kind of speech. Like all fundamental rights the right to freedom of expression is not absolute, meaning it can be subject to limitations provided they have a legal basis. The limitations must meet two conditions: 1) they are proportional - the limitations are no stronger than needed to achieve their aim 2) they are necessary and genuinely fulfill objectives in the interest of the general public or are needed to protect the rights and freedoms of others.

Therefore, someone who engages in criminalised forms of speech such as hate speech, terrorist content or child pornography cannot defend themselves by relying on their right to freedom of expression.

Why is freedom of speech important in a democracy? Why is it a core principle?

Democracy’s goal is to have a plural and tolerant society. For this to happen successfully, citizens should be able to speak freely and openly about how they would like to be governed and criticize those who are in power.

This exchange of ideas and opinions isn’t just a once off on election day, rather it is an on-going two-way communication which happens throughout a government’s term.

1. It battles for the truth

To enable citizens to make meaningful decisions about how they want society to function, they need access to truthful and accurate information about a wide variety of topics. This can only happen if people feel safe vocalizing the issues affecting their communities.

Safeguarding freedom of speech encourages people to speak out, which makes it easier to tackle systemic issues from the inside. This deters people from abusing their power, which helps everyone in the long run.

2. It makes everyone more accountable

When it comes to elections, citizens are given the opportunity to hold their politicians accountable. In order to decide who to vote for, they need to understand how well a political party has performed while in power and whether or not they fulfilled their election promises.

By reporting on society’s most pressing social issues, media outlets and civil society organisations (CSOs) contribute to the public’s perception of how well the government is doing. However, this is only helpful if they are free to truthfully cover stories that are critical of the state.

3. Active participation of citizens

Elections and referendums are a good opportunity for citizens to shape the direction of society, but they only come round every couple of years.

Free speech reinforces other fundamental rights such as freedom of assembly, which citizens exercise to influence public decision-making by attending protests, demonstrations or participating in campaigns.

This allows them to protest an unpopular decision, such as the ban on abortion in Poland, or show the government they want stronger political action on an important issue. When protestors in Germany filled the streets in their hundreds of thousands protesting the war in Ukraine, this sent a strong message to the government that the people supported strong sanctions against Russia.

4. Promotes equal treatment of minorities

In a democratic society everyone should be treated equally and fairly. However, minority groups who are underrepresented in government are often side-lined, and their opinions' neglected in favour of those belonging to the dominant social group.

By campaigning and speaking openly about the issues faced by their communities, marginalized people can gain widespread public support for their cause. This increases their ability to influence public agenda-setting and put an end to human rights abuses.

Speaking up starts with getting informed.

5. necessary for change and innovation.

We all want society to become better for everyone, but for that to happen society’s need to encourage and foster freedom of expression. Authoritarian governments who suppress criticism and withhold public interest information deny citizens the right to make informed decisions or take action about important social issues.

Concealing vital intelligence causes problems to fester and worsen. This hinders progress and makes finding a solution much harder when the issue finally comes to light.

For example in China, the doctor who attempted to warn the medical community of a deadly virus – Covid-19 – was told to "stop making false comments" and was investigated for "spreading rumours". This had the devastating effect of delaying the introduction of measures to contain Covid-19, which resulted in a global pandemic and millions of deaths.

How is freedom of speech being threatened?

1.government.

Authoritarian governments whose primary aim is to stay in power want to ensure that any media coverage is favourable. In order to control the public narrative, they appoint political figures to media authorities and exercise financial and editorial control over mainstream media outlets. As reported by our member organization in our 2022 Media Freedom Act . Hungary is an egregious example of this where over 80% of the media market is controlled directly or indirectly by the Hungarian government.

Governments use restrictive legal reforms, crowd control by police or exceptional emergency measures to curb freedom of expression.

As an emergency response during the Covid-19 pandemic countries such as Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Slovenia and Spain disproportionately curtailed exercise of the right to protest in the interest of public health through heavy-handed policing and the arrest of activists.

Other legal tools used by the state to control the flow of information is to criminalize the spread of false information or deny access to information.

In Russia, the invasion of Ukraine is referred to by Putin as a “military operation” and it is understood amongst Russians that using the word ‘war’ will put them afoul of the “fake news” laws which could land them with a prison sentence of up to 15 years. As a result, many Russians who oppose the war are cowed into silence, while others aren’t aware of the truth of what is happening.

3.Attacks on journalists, CSOs and Whistleblowers

Politicians and powerful figures who fear journalists will expose their corrupt behaviour resort to dirty, extra-legal tactics to silence them. Common strategies include legal harassment through SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits) or smear campaigns aimed at discrediting critical CSOs .

Whistleblowers have faced devastating personal consequences for shedding light on activities against the public’s interest such as corruption, illegal activities or malpractice.

Journalists and civil rights defenders are also increasingly in danger of verbal or physical violence, including by police.

Hate speech or online trolling can create a hostile digital environment which discourages women and margainlized people from participating in online social debates.

However, well-intentioned efforts to tackle this issue can inadvertently create the same silencing effects.

The European Union is currently pushing through the Digital Services Act , aimed at making the internet a safer place and protecting freedom of expression online. However, its proposed solution to stamp out disinformation could do the opposite. In our letter to MEPs we advised against the mandatory use of upload filters to remove harmful online content, as they are not sophisticated enough to distinguish between humour and abuse. If used, they could limit free speech online.

5. Self-censorship

When freedom of speech is under attack, it sends the message that telling the truth can put you in danger. The ambiguity that exists around what is acceptable or not leads people to tread with caution, so they begin to self-censor . Our 2022 Media Freedom Report found that journalists in Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia and Sweden were self-censoring due to online attacks or harassment.

How to protect freedom of speech?

In order to safeguard free speech, there should be laws in place which protect individuals and organisations who are threatened for exposing corruption or unethical behaviour. Journalists, watchdogs, activists and whistleblowers should be given robust legal protection which enables them to carry out their work safely and shields them from retaliation from those seeking to silence them.

This is why Liberties is working hard to campaign for better laws to safeguard media freedom. The Media Freedom Act (MFA) currently being drafted by the European Commission has the potential to make a real difference. We sent the Commission our Media Freedom Report auditing the state of media freedom in 15 EU countries, as well as a policy paper outlining recommendations which we believe the MFA should address. It should include measures to further transparency in media ownership and elaborate on rules on how to make journalistic work more safe.

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Remembering why free speech is important

At a time when freedom of speech seems to be under assault , it’s worth stepping back to reconsider why it matters.

In a free society, all citizens must be able to pursue their own paths, set their own goals, and think for themselves. Of course, in America and elsewhere, there are norms, orthodoxies, and taboos. And dissident personalities frequently challenge these norms by eschewing orthodoxy and venturing into the taboo.

How a society treats these dissidents can tell you a lot about how truly free that society is. In some places, government silences or punishes those with unpopular viewpoints for refusing to sacrifice their independence and their ideas (the recent protests in Hong Kong are an instructive example).

America offers a richer tradition. People are free to express their ideas , even if those ideas are unpopular, unconventional, or wrong (though, in many cases, they may eventually be proven right). Americans are thus free to participate in peaceful protests, wear black armbands to school, and even burn the nation’s flag . A speaker may say things that are unpopular, uncomfortable, or downright grotesque. But in a free society, we engage dissent through discussion and debate rather than through censorship and punishment.

Free speech is inextricably linked to prosperity. After all, prosperity comes from ideas, and new ideas can thrive only in a society in which they are free from suppression. It’s easy to think of widely embraced ideas that were once controversial—for example, the idea that all children, regardless of race, should have the same educational opportunities . Thanks to our tradition of free speech, such forward-looking ideas reshaped our society for the better.

Today it is more important than ever to protect our freedom of speech. Too many people have come to believe that discussion and debate are inadequate; they seek a society that squelches dissent with force. In law, government regulations are censoring speech that is “ disparaging ,” “ immoral ,” and “ offensive .”

In culture, people attack the speaker rather than engaging their ideas. Opponents vilify speakers as “misogynists,” or “racists,” and then attempt to drive them from the public square, or deprive them of their livelihood. In worst-case scenarios, disagreeable speech is met with violence. These attacks on the tradition of free speech are damaging to a free society and suppress uninhibited, robust, and wide open debate.

Freedom of speech is an invaluable cornerstone of a free society—and it’s worth fighting to protect.

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Why Is Freedom of Speech Important? (20 Reasons)

Freedom of speech is something many of us might take for granted, but it’s actually one of the most powerful rights we have. This freedom lets us tell our thoughts to the world, share our ideas, and even disagree with others safely. It is like the air that keeps the fire of democracy burning, helping society progress and improve over time.

But what makes being able to talk freely so important? It’s more than just the ability to say what you want; it’s our power to ask tough questions, to cheer for what’s right, and to come together with others who think differently.

Now, picture a day when you couldn’t speak your heart or stand up for what you believe in—how would that change your life? Let’s dive in and see just how crucial our voices really are.

Table of Contents

Freedom of Speech Upholds Democracy

One of the essential pillars of a democratic society is the ability of its citizens to engage in free and open discourse  without  fear of coercion or repression. 

Freedom of speech allows individuals to participate fully in the democratic process, share their views, and influence the direction of governance. The democratic system thrives when citizens can  freely  criticize their leaders, propose new ideas, and hold those in power accountable for their actions. 

Without freedom of speech, democracy would merely be a facade, incapable of reflecting the people’s will.

In democratic nations, history has shown that some of the most significant social changes have occurred when individuals voice their discontent and call for action. 

For instance, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States significantly benefited from an environment where activists could speak out against racial injustice. This right also enables the press to function as a “ fourth estate ,” acting as a watchdog to press politicians and leaders to act ethically and responsibly.

Freedom of Speech Is a Human Right

The right to freedom of speech is recognized as a fundamental human right in various international legal documents, including Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). 

It states that everyone has the right to express opinions without interference and seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media. This recognition is significant because it lays the groundwork for universal protection, suggesting that violating this right is an affront to human dignity worldwide.

Here’s why this matters:

• It’s foundational:  As a fundamental right, freedom of speech forms the bedrock upon which other rights are realized. For instance, the right to freely express religious beliefs or to campaign for societal changes.
• It’s globally recognized:  Over 160 countries have committed to protecting free expression through the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
• It’s about dignity and respect:  Allowing people to express themselves is a form of respect for individual autonomy and dignity.

Freedom of Speech Safeguards All Rights

Freedom of speech is essential in protecting all of our fundamental rights. It allows us to question, hold accountable, and seek solutions when other rights are threatened or breached.

It’s the tool that ensures rights don’t only exist on paper but are actively practiced and respected. When speech is suppressed, it often signals the erosion of other rights.

An example of this protective property can be observed in court systems worldwide, where the right to speak is integral to the concept of a fair trial. Defendants must be free to speak in their own defense, and advocates must be free to argue on behalf of their clients. 

When rights come under threat, the first line of defense is often the spoken or written word, signaling to society that action is needed to protect liberties. Freedom of speech maintains a watchful eye over all rights , affirming its role as their staunch defender.

Freedom of Speech Ensures Governance Transparency and Accountability

Transparency and accountability are hallmarks of good governance, and freedom of speech is crucial in maintaining these standards. 

A government’s decisions and actions must be open to scrutiny—with journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens having the freedom to ask questions and demand answers. This exposure prevents governments from operating in the dark, where mismanagement and corruption can thrive. 

Freedom of speech enables:

• Investigative journalism to uncover malpractices.
• Citizens to raise concerns regarding public services.
• Opposition parties to challenge and critique the ruling government’s policies.

Freedom of Speech Counters Misinformation

Misinformation thrives in environments where speech is controlled or censored. Freedom of speech is critical in battling the spread of falsehoods, allowing many voices to challenge inaccuracies and share verified information. 

The dynamic interplay of competing narratives is a natural fact-checking mechanism that helps to keep misinformation at bay.

Challenging misinformation through free speech:

• Experts and fact-checkers can publicly correct false claims.
• Open debate can dispel harmful myths and conspiracy theories.
• Media literacy can be fostered, equipping individuals to discern truth from falsehood.

Freedom of Speech Enables Idea Exchange

In a constantly evolving world, the exchange of ideas is essential for:

Innovation and Economic Growth:  New business ideas often originate in environments where creative thought and open expression are encouraged. The technological boom in Silicon Valley is partly attributed to a culture that fosters open communication and exchange.

Problem-Solving:  Social issues are complex and multifaceted. The more viewpoints are expressed, the greater the likelihood of finding effective solutions. Consider how global collaborations and discussions have been crucial in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cultural Development:  Art, literature, and philosophy all flourish when creators and thinkers are free to express and debate new concepts, leading to cultural enrichment. Take, for example, the Renaissance period, which was characterized by a significant shift in thought and creativity fueled by the relative freedom of expression enjoyed by artists and intellectuals of the time.

Freedom of Speech Advances Knowledge

Freedom of speech is a critical catalyst for the pursuit and expansion of knowledge.  The premise is simple:  by allowing researchers, academics, and thinkers to share their findings and theories openly, society benefits from a collective pool of ever-growing knowledge and refining itself.

Advancing human knowledge through free speech involves:

• Facilitating academic discourse that challenges and improves understanding.
• Encouraging dissenting opinions that may lead to breakthroughs.
• Distributing research findings that can be built upon by others.

Freedom of Speech Drives Societal Progress

Movements for social change, whether they concern civil rights, gender equality, or environmental action, start with the ability to speak out against injustices and envision a different future.

Three ways freedom of speech has driven progress:

• Civil Rights Movement : Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and organizations like the NAACP used speech to combat racial segregation and discrimination.
• Feminist Movements : From the suffragettes to modern-day activists, speech has been used to advocate for gender equality and women’s rights.
• Environmental Advocacy : Spoken advocacy has been and remains pivotal in raising awareness and driving action on environmental issues, including climate change.

Each social movement illustrates how essential free speech has been in challenging injustices and pushing forward reforms that have led to greater societal equality and progress.

Freedom of Speech Protects Minority Views

In a society where only the majority opinion prevails, minority groups can often feel marginalized and disenfranchised. Freedom of speech allows these diverse perspectives to contribute to the societal discourse, thereby enhancing the richness and diversity of thought.

Historically, the ability to express dissenting views has protected minorities from discrimination and persecution.

For example, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has fought many free speech battles to ensure that voices from all walks of life can be heard, regardless of their popularity. This ongoing protection ensures that progress isn’t only for the majority but is inclusive, benefiting the entire fabric of society.

Freedom of Speech Fosters Cross-Cultural Understanding

Societies are increasingly interconnected, and the exchange of cultural norms, values, and stories through free speech enhances this connection.

For instance, international exchanges and educational programs are prime examples where free speech enables individuals from various cultural backgrounds to share their experiences, contributing to a more inclusive and understanding global society.

Freedom of Speech Boosts Political Engagement

Freedom of speech is integral to political engagement, as it empowers citizens to express their political opinions, campaign for candidates or causes they believe in, and hold elected officials accountable.

• Voter mobilization : Citizens can rally others to vote, enhancing democratic participation.
• Public discourse : Discussions about policies and reforms stimulate civic involvement and awareness.
• Political dissent : Vocal opposition to government actions can result in policy revisions or changes in leadership.

During the 2020 United States presidential elections, an unprecedented number of citizens used their right to free speech to engage in political discourse, leading to one of the highest voter turnout rates in recent history. This example illustrates how the freedom to express oneself directly impacts the level of political engagement in society.

Freedom of Speech is Essential in Education

Education is not merely the transfer of information; it’s a dialogue between teacher and student, amongst students, and between educational institutions and society. 

Freedom of speech in education enables an exchange of ideas, which in turn helps individuals become more informed through:

• Critical thinking : Students learn to question, analyze, and form opinions.
• Safe environments for discourse : Educational institutions become hubs where complex issues can be discussed civilly.
• Global competence : Exposure to multiple viewpoints prepares students for participation in the global community.

Take, for example, the “ Socratic method ” tradition in educational institutions, which relies on open questioning to stimulate thought and illuminate ideas. This practice highlights the integral role that freedom of speech plays in fostering educational environments that stimulate learning and intellectual development.

Freedom of Speech Enriches Artistic Creativity

Freedom of speech is not just about words but also about expressing ideas, emotions, and perspectives through art. This freedom is vital for artists to push boundaries, innovate, and reflect society’s complexities without fear of censorship or retaliation.

How freedom of speech affects art:

• Innovation : Artists can experiment with new forms and materials.
• Societal commentary : Art becomes a medium for social and political critique.
• Cultural exchange : Diverse artistic traditions can be shared and appreciated universally.

Freedom of Speech Contributes to Personal Development

Expressing one’s thoughts and feelings is invaluable for personal growth and self-actualization. Freedom of speech encourages individuals to explore and express their identities, beliefs, and dreams, leading to a richer, more fulfilling human experience.

It paves the way for:

• Self-discovery:  Identifying and communicating personal values and passions.
• Confidence building:  Gaining the courage to voice opinions.
• Empowerment:  Speaking out to affect change in one’s life and community.

Personal anecdotes abound, such as the transformative journey of Malala Yousafzai, who used her voice to advocate for girls’ education and, in doing so, became a symbol of resistance and empowerment.

Freedom of Speech Aids Peaceful Reform

History is replete with instances of peaceful change being precipitated by the power of the spoken or written word. From sermons and speeches to essays and articles, ideas expressed freely have often stirred the hearts and minds of people toward progressive change.

Historical examples of peaceful reform:

• Mahatma Gandhi’s Writings and Speeches : Advocated for non-violent civil disobedience.
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech : Galvanized the civil rights movement.
• Vaclav Havel’s Political Essays : Played a part in the peaceful Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia.

These historical moments underscore the transformative power that freedom of speech holds in advocating for and achieving peaceful reform.

Freedom of Speech Informs the Public

In a democratic society, a well-informed public is integral to the process of self-governance. Freedom of speech enables individuals to share and contribute to a collective understanding of local, national, and global issues.

• The Role of the Press : Journalists investigate and disseminate information, keeping the public aware of current events.
• Public Dialogue : Social media and public forums are modern agoras where ideas are freely exchanged.

Freedom of Speech Underpins Individual Autonomy

In essence, autonomy grants individuals the authority over their own choices and life paths, and freedom of speech catalyzes this self-governance. 

Through speaking our minds, we carve out our identity and navigate the myriad of life’s choices. Every opinion expressed, and every stance taken embodies our unique perspectives and reinforces our independence.

Conversations, debates, and even social media discussions are the building blocks of a society that values and relies on the independence of its people. Therefore, freedom of speech is essential for individual freedom. It allows people to express their truth and shape their world.

Freedom of Speech Facilitates Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution is significantly advanced by the freedom to speak openly. This freedom serves as a cornerstone for various peaceful dispute settlement mechanisms.

Freedom of Speech Improves Decision-Making

When decisions need to be made, having access to a full spectrum of opinions and data is crucial. Freedom of speech ensures that decision-making processes are informed by various voices, contributing to better outcomes.

The benefits:

• Diverse input:  Nurtures policies that are considerate of different needs and viewpoints.
• Feedback loops:  Encourages revisions and improvements based on public or consumer input.
• Informed choices:  Fosters educated decisions in personal matters.

An example is the open government initiatives, where public consultation and feedback are invited before policies are finalized.

Freedom of Speech Checks Media Power

The power of the media in shaping public perception is considerable, and freedom of speech acts as a check on this power, ensuring a diversity of voices and opinions are heard.

• Critical voices : Allows independent journalism to question and analyze mainstream media narratives.
• Public scrutiny : Provides a platform for the public to critique and hold media outlets accountable.
• Diverse platforms : Encourages alternative media channels to emerge and challenge dominant media structures.

Instances where the public has called out media bias or where independent media have corrected misinformation exemplify this dynamic.

Frequently Asked Questions

What role does the internet play in freedom of speech.

The internet has significantly expanded the reach and impact of free speech. It provides a global platform for individuals to express their views and exchange ideas. 

However, it also raises questions about regulating online speech and the responsibilities of digital platforms to address issues such as misinformation and hate speech.

How can individuals protect their freedom of speech?

Individuals can protect their freedom of speech by: 

– Staying informed about their rights – Voicing their concerns against censorship – Supporting organizations that defend free speech – Engaging in the political process to ensure that legal protections for free speech are maintained and strengthened

What happens when freedom of speech Is restricted?

Restricting freedom of speech can lead to several negative outcomes. It stifles the public exchange of ideas, limiting innovation and societal progress. Such restrictions can also result in unchecked government power, increased corruption, and social inequality. 

Moreover, censorship creates a climate of fear, causing self-censorship among citizens, further eroding trust in institutions, and leading to social unrest.

What does freedom of speech not protect people from?

Freedom of speech does not protect individuals from all forms of accountability and consequences. It does not shield against:

Consequences of violating laws : Speech that incites violence, breaks confidentiality agreements, or includes threats can still be subject to legal repercussions.

Defamation : Freedom of speech does not protect people from being held accountable for damaging someone’s reputation through false statements, known as libel (written) or slander (spoken).

Social and professional consequences : Individuals are not protected from social backlash or professional discipline for their expressions. Employers, for example, may have company policies restricting certain types of speech in the workplace or in association with the company.

Obscenity : Courts often do not protect speech deemed obscene under established legal definitions, which can include certain explicit content without artistic, literary, political, or scientific value.

Hate speech : Depending on the country, hate speech that targets groups based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation may not be protected, especially if it incites discrimination, hostility, or violence.

Freedom of speech is a complex right with boundaries designed to balance individuals’ rights to express themselves and protect other societal values and rights.

From the classroom to the voting booth, from the art studio to the Internet, our ability to say what we think and feel is vital to who we are as individuals and as a society.

It gives us the power to share our stories, learn from others, and push for changes that matter. It keeps the powerful in check and offers hope to those who feel lost or forgotten. It’s our shared responsibility to protect this freedom, ensuring that it’s passed on to the next generation as vigorously as it was to ours.

So the next time you voice an opinion, engage in a debate, or listen to someone else’s point of view, remember the role you’re playing in a bigger picture—one where every voice matters.

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Why Is Freedom of Speech Important? Essay Example

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Freedom of speech is something that we sometimes can take for granted here in America. We do not think about what is would be like if we lived in a country where we could be beaten or arrested or even tortured or killed for voicing an opinion or posting on a blog something that the government did not like or found offensive. But things like that happen all over the world and all over the world, people have risked their lives in order to be able to express themselves freely.

The following speech is about why this freedom of expression in so important, and how it improves society. The speech will talk about how free speech in America has defined our society, and how free speech improves society by protecting against totalitarian government and by helping society to function when there is a large amount of diversity in the population. It will also discuss how certain limitations on free speech is not an argument against free speech itself. Let’s begin.

History of Free Speech in America

After the American Revolution, there were a lot of people in this country who were worried about what the new government would be like.  That was the reason why so many changes were made to the Constitution (Illinois First Amendment Center 1). When the Constitution was first signed, it did not have a Bill of Rights, and many people at the time wer afraid that if they did not have – in writing – a guarantee of freedoms, they would not have any more rights than they did when they were still living under English rule.  After a lot of argument, the Bill of Rights was added (Vanderbilt University Center for the First Amendment 1). Of these first ten amendments, probably the First Amendment is the best known and has probably been the cause of most of the argument over the years. It says that the government cannot pass laws “abridging the freedom of speech” and the fact that this amendment has endured for over 200 years with little real change (Illinois First Amendment Center 2) shows how important it has been in our country, both in the past and present.

Freedom of speech in America has helped improve society in many ways. The movement to end slavery, to give women the right to vote, and the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s are all examples of people trying to make society better and they all benefited from freedom of speech. Newspapers and the press gave a lot of attention to these movements and acted as “a catalyst of social change by bringing information on many national issues to the masses” (Illinois First Amendment Center 9).

Free Speech as a Protection against Dictatorships

One way in which freedom of speech improves society is that is protects democracy against dictatorships. World War II was a time in Europe where many human rights, including the right of free speech and expression were taken away from people all across the content.  Europe, in reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust and the conquest of a lot of Europe by the Nazis, formed the United Nations. One of their early acts in 1948 was to set up its Universal Declaration of Human Rights to try to make sure that Europe never saw such a loss of human rights again.  Article 19 of the Declaration says that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers” (Yamali 3).  In fact, as the writers of this Declaration understood, dictatorships cannot exist in countries where people are free to express themselves, to criticize the government when necessary and to be politically active in in helping to improve their societies (Yamali 5). To put it another way, democracy cannot exist without freedom of expression and if we do want a democracy, then freedom of expression has to be a part of it.  This is true in the United States as well.  Justice Brennan, writing in the case The New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964 noted that the First Amendment provides that “debate on public issues [should be]…uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” (Vanderbilt First Amendment Center 2).

The World Values Survey, which is conducted yearly by an international team of sociologists, has another take on the relationship between self-expression and democracy. According to the researchers in this survey, as societies develop and industrialize, values change from Survival values to Self-Expression values: that is, people put less importance on safety and security and put more importance on well-being, happiness and quality of life.  The researchers note that “this produces a culture in which people place a high value on individual freedom and self-expression and have activist political orientations.  These are precisely the same attributes that literature on political culture defines as being crucial for democracy” (World Values Survey 7).

Free Speech in a Diverse Society

Another way in which freedom of speech improves society is it helps to deal with the amazing amount of diversity in our population (and others). America faces many of the same challenges as Europe does in regard to its population. America, too, is very diverse: we have embraced races, languages, religions, ethnic groups, belief systems from all over the world.  We are both liberal and conservative, urban and rural, wealthy and poor.   As diversity in this country increases, expression issues become even more important.  Harry Malkonian, in his book “Free Speech and Society” notes that “as shared beliefs diminish, economic, social and political decisions cannot be made by a society without freedom of expression” (Malkonian 26) and that “without an expansive freedom of expression, modern society simply cannot effectively operate” (32). His theory is that in any group of people where many different viewpoint are held,  a consensus much be built in order to make decisions for the good of that group. However, a consensus cannot be built when members of that group are not free to express their concerns and beliefs.

The Jasmine Revolution: Free Expression in the Arab World

Most of my speech on how freedom of expression can improve society has focused on the United States and Europe, but I would also like to take a little time to talk about the way it can also improve conditions in the Arab world. We do not normally think of this part of the world as being a place where most people can express themselves freely. But even here, freedom of expression can help improve countries like that. Specifically, I would like to talk about the small North African country of Tunisia, and its recent “Jasmine Revolution” which overthrew the oppressive government of Ben-Ali in 2011. This government persecuted journalists, bloggers, human rights advocates and government opposition and many people in these groups were put in jail or had to flee the country before they could be put in jail. (Elkotbi 1).  There is no doubt that freedom of expression helped to topple this government, and this included expression in the form of street protests, as well as video and Tweets sent from cameras of grassroots organizers from all over the country, who were given a platform by the Aljazeera Network and Al Hiwar TV in London (Ghettas 1).

Eventually, the government was toppled and a new government formed, and organizations like the Free World Centre Article 19 Law Program stepped in to try to help and give advice as the new government was in the process of coming to be. The Free World Centre is active all over the world to bring expression rights to a greater number of people and it believed that the new Tunisian constitution should broadly define those rights and give them to every citizen. It also understood, however, that there should be limitations on this freedom for purposes of national security or to protect the rights of others, issues I will address later in this speech (Free World Centre 4).

Freedom of expression in Tunisia still remains rocky. Recently, protestors from the women’s rights group FEMENA have been detained and so had rapper Weld el, who was sentenced to two years in prison for his song “Police are Dogs”. (Achouri 1). However, though there are still gains left to be made in this country, there have definitely been many improvements: many commentators on the new post-revolution Tunisia have noted an improvement in free expression and when the Tunisian constitution was written, it did follow the recommendations of groups like the Free World Centre and passed many international human rights laws. It has also freed many political prisoners.  A taxi drive in Tunis commented, “We have lived for 23 long years in darkness.  Fortunately this era is over forever.  While you are in Tunis…you will be able to feel there’s more freedom in the air” (Elkotbi 1).

Limits on Free Speech?

Even limitations that have been placed upon free speech in certain situations do not change the fact that free speech is needed for the good of society as a whole.  Even in America, there have been limits placed on First Amendment Rights. The strongest limitations on this have generally taken place in times of war: during the Civil War, and again in World War I and II, government has placed limits on free speech under the plea of “national security” issues (Illinois Center for the First Amendment 3), a debate which we are still having in this country in the wake of the “War on Terror” and American policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.   After the September 11 th attacks, the United States and other countries returned to and in some cases revised guidelines for fighting against the threat of terrorism and many have felt that this has led to a dampening effect on the media; many journalists have reported that they have felt the pressure to “bury or silence controversial voices” (Yamali 8). The European Union responded to these concerns ‘with “Guidelines on Protecting Freedom of Expression and Information in Times of Crisis”. Overall, they urge that “member states should not restrict the public’s access to information in times of crisis beyond the limitations allowed by….The European Convention on Human Rights” (Yawali 8).

Apart from wartime and national security issues, however, there are other situations in which limiting free speech could be seen as good for society.  While embracing the Declaration of Human Rights, the European Parliament also instances when it is understandable to put limits on free expression, noting that it should “be exercised within the limits of the law and should co-exist with personal responsibility and be based on respect for other’s rights and sensibilities” (Yamali 6). This is in reference specifically to the UN Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, which prohibits “national, racial or religious hate speech which constitutes incitement to hostility, discrimination or violence” (Yamali 9).

In conclusion, I would like to underline once more how important it is that the people of a country be able to express themselves freely, to seek and share information and communicate with one another without undue restrictions.  Our Founding Fathers recognized the importance of this, which is why they drafted the First Amendment to guarantee this freedom under the law, and it has proved useful to a variety of movements for social change right here in the United States. Europe, after the horrors of World War II and the massive human rights violations that happened under the Nazis, also codified freedom of expression as part of the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights.

Laws like these help society by allowing for a strong and health democracy which can make decisions based on free access to information and the ability to express different sides of a debate. It can also help to manage the conflicts which can arise in a diverse society by helping to build a consensus as part of the decision-making process.  And freedom of expression has not just helped those in our country and in Europe: only recently, the country of Tunisia was able to overthrow an oppressive regime and gain increased freedom of speech and expression, even though there is still room for improvement. Even limitations that are imposed on free speech for purposes of national security or to protect the rights of others do not mean that free speech is not important.

So when you are talking with your friends today and complaining about the latest stupid thing Congress has done, or reading a cartoon in a newspaper about a  politician, do not take for granted the freedom that allows you to do this or how important these expressions are to our democracy.

Achouri, M. “Free Expression Still Threatened in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia”. Al Monitor Online.  2013.  Web. 13 April 2014.

This article outlines the fact that, though media and the press have fewer restrictions on them than during the Ben-Ali regime, there are still people being jailed for various forms of self-expression in Tunisia today.

Elkotbi, R. “Freedom of Expression in Post-Revolution Tunisia: Gains and Pitfalls”. The North  African Post Online.  2012. Web. 13 April 2014. This article discusses the progress than Tunisia has made since the Jasmine Revolution in granting civil and human rights to its citizens, but also notes that there is still room for improvement.

“First Amendment History”.  This Illinois Center for the First Amendment.  2012. Web. 13 April 2014 This educational center offers information on the history of the First Amendment and different issues and applications it has had in various times in US history, including its role in social reform movements like temperance and women’s suffrage.

Ghettas, L. “The Geopolitical Repercussions of the Tunisian Jasmine Revolution on North Africa”.  School for International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy, London School of  Economics.  2011. 1-16. Print. This paper, written by the London School of Economics, looks at the regional impact of the Jasmine Revolution on diplomacy and political stability throughout the region of North Africa.

“History of Free Speech in America”.  Vanderbilt First Amendment Center.  2014. Web. 13 April 2014.

This academic center, connected with Vanderbilt University, gives information on First Amendment Issues throughout American history and discusses several important events and legal cases in the history of American free speech.

Malochonian, H.  “Freedom of Speech and Society: A Social Guide to Freedom of Expression” New York: Cambrian Press. 2014. 1-234

This book deals with broad social issues of the importance of free expression for the greater good of society and the role that free speech plays in social changes within that society.

“Tunisia: Protecting Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Information in the New Constitution”.  Free World Centre.  2012. 1-5. Print. This paper looks at the Tunisian Revolution specifically through the lens of what it has meant to the development of free expression in the country. It seeks to help Tunisia, in the making of its new constitution, to help preserve and expand freedom of expression in the country.

“What is the Role of Freedom of Speech in a Democratic Society and what are its Limits?”  European Union Youth Media.  2013. Web.  13 April 2014.

Although it is aimed primarily at young people, this European Union website gives excellent insight into the interplay between free expression and social changes and why free expression is so important to the society at large.

“World Values Survey”. World Values Survey Association Website. 2013. Web. 13 April 2014. This accredited association of sociologists track societal changes and shifts in values across the world and how those shifts in values affect those changes. Freedom of expression is emphasized in these studies.

Yamali, N.  The Importance of Freedom of Expression. Turkish Ministry of Justice Website. 2014. Web. 13 April 2014.

This paper, from the Turkish Ministry of Justice, discusses the importance of free expression rights in the greater cultural context of societal change and improvement.

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Why is freedom of expression important?

Freedom of speech, often called “freedom of expression,” is secured by the First Amendment. Not only was America unique in penning a written national Constitution, but also in including in it explicit protection for free speech. It raises the questions of what is “freedom of expression,” and why was it so important that the founders enshrined it in the First Amendment?

Freedom of expression is the natural right to express beliefs and ideas without interference, retaliation, compulsion, or censorship from the government. While “speech” typically refers to verbal communication, “expression” encompasses the full range of ways we can communicate ideas – speech, music, literature, architecture, fashion, comedy, cuisine, and the list goes on.

There are many reasons why free speech is important. Here are just a few.

Freedom of expression is necessary to discover truth and make social progress.

Any great and lasting advance in society – from racial equality to the possibility of self-government – depends on the discovery of truth. And free expression is how we can test and learn the truth.

In the 19 th century essay “On Liberty,” English political philosopher John Stuart Mill argues that in any argument, there are only three possible scenarios: One is either wholly wrong, partially correct, or wholly correct. Free speech helps us know or confirm the truth in every case:

• If I’m wholly wrong, I need to know that and be corrected with the truth.
• If I’m partially correct (the most common status for most human beings), I still benefit from learning where I’m wrong and being corrected.
• And even if I’m wholly correct, I benefit from free speech that challenges my views because it helps me to better understand and be able to defend my correct views.

In the long run, then, truth is always served by free speech.

Indeed, “truth is great and will prevail if left to herself,” as Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson put it in the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

Jefferson was so committed to this idea that free speech leads us to truth that when he founded the University of Virginia, he declared, “For here we are not afraid to follow the truth nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

And as we learn and test ideas, we can use them for good.

“Freedom of speech has been driving progress and making people’s lives better for thousands of years,” said Casey Mattox , Americans For Prosperity (AFP) Vice President of Legal and Judicial Strategy. “Almost any social movement, invention, or innovation you can think of was dependent in some way on the ability to speak and to hear.”

Go back to America’s founding: From the protest of citizens during the Boston Tea Party to the anonymous writings in the Federalist Papers, individual expression played a central role in bringing about and shaping our nation.

“I want to be able to know what the world is really like,” Mattox added. “I want to be able to know what people think. I want to be able to know what motivates people. Because if you want to make the world better, you’ve got to understand it and people’s desires and fears so that you can try to address those concerns and help them.”

“Innovation flourishes within the dynamic arena of public discourse, where a diverse array of minds ignites curiosity and sparks scientific breakthroughs. History’s most profound innovations, like conquering the skies or venturing into space, emerged by daring to challenge conventional beliefs,” said James Czerniawski , AFP Senior Policy Analyst. “Embracing this spirit of audacity is not just a celebration of progress; it’s a testament to the boundless possibilities that arise when we boldly question the limits of what is deemed possible.”

Free expression is important for American self-governance.

Free speech is not only important in the discovery of truth and social and scientific progress. It’s also indispensable in a democratic republic like the United States – where the people themselves select their leaders and hold them accountable for the decisions and laws they make on their behalf.

In a dictatorship or even a monarchy, one might argue that free speech is less important – or even a hindrance to efficient operation of the government. But where the people themselves are the sovereign, where “we the people” are in charge, not controlled as subjects from on high, free speech ensures our government reflects our will and that we can hold them accountable if they do not. And when we disagree, we can deliberate, persuade, or find areas of common ground.

“America is unique because of the way that we propose to do self-governance,” said Mattox. “You can’t self-govern without the people being able to speak to one another and persuade one another of things. ‘We the people’ actually hold the reins of power, and we as citizens have the power to actually change the government, and therefore we have to be able to talk to and persuade one another.”

Self-governance can’t work without the ability of people to participate in civic life, hold government to account, and engage on their deeply held beliefs – without fear of intimidation or harassment from people in positions in power.

In his 1860 address “A Plea for Free Speech in Boston,” American statesman Frederick Douglass said, “No right was deemed by the fathers of the government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men, the great moral renovator of society and government.”

Douglass continued, “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence.”

Because of our First Amendment and our commitment to free expression every American has the right to organize around their beliefs and advance the causes important to them.

And freedom of expression ensures every citizen has a tool to fight back against injustice or corruption. It elevates the voice of the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the oppressed. From women’s suffrage to civil rights, free expression has enabled Americans to advance our country toward equality, justice, and even greater liberty.

“Today, we continue to witness captivating instances of individuals harnessing their First Amendment rights to champion myriad causes, showcasing the power of free expression in advocating for change,” said Czerniawski. “People realize the power of their voice.”

Free speech is universal and inherent in human dignity.

Finally, the ability to think and reason with one another is part of what makes us human. When government compels, prohibits, or censors speech, it treats people as if they aren’t reasoning individuals but as cogs in a machine – as less than human.

Mattox is careful to emphasize that free expression is a natural right innate to us all as humans, not something given to us by our government.

“This idea that free speech is this 200-year-old concept is simply inaccurate,” said Mattox. “It’s actually thousands of years old , and that just proves the First Amendment didn’t grant us anything but instead protected a right that people have contended that human beings have to have as part of human dignity for thousands of years.”

No one individual can know everything or possess all truth. And each individual – regardless of our race, sex, age, religion, politics or other backgrounds or experiences – has something to contribute.

Free expression empowers us to make that contribution to society, whether big or small. Every human being is unique and has value. The protection of free expression honors that truth by ensuring that government cannot decide which classes of citizens or ideas are worthy of being heard and which are not.

Free speech is a cornerstone of a free society, and the people of the United States of America are the most free people in the world in very large part due to the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of expression.

Key to our nation’s founding principles is the belief that every man and woman holds the claim to free speech.

Freedom of expression is the best defense to prevent injustice, the best instrument for correcting injustice when it does occur, and the best tool for advancing freedom and opportunity.

Add your voice to the movement to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans.

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The government attacks the freedom of speech

3-minute read.

“I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

— Voltaire, 1694-1778

Holy Week was not a good week for personal liberty as governments throughout the United States engaged in direct and subtle attacks on free speech.

The freedom of speech is unique in American history and ethos. It was the linchpin of the secession of the 13 colonies from Great Britain. It is often claimed at the most distinguishing characteristic between life in the U.S. and all other countries. It has suffered and survived grievous government assaults from the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s to the suspension of habeas corpus during the War Between the States to the Red Scares in the last century to the monitoring of social media today.

This great freedom continuously pushes back at the governments that assault it. The freedom of speech is a value and metaphor for the unique, indefeasible, permanent, natural right to think as you wish, to say what you think, to read what you please, to publish what you say, and to do all this without a government permission slip and without fear of government reprisal.

The freedom of speech is both a natural and a constitutional right. It is expressly guaranteed in the First Amendment. That amendment commands not that Congress grant the freedom of speech but that Congress is prohibited from infringing upon it.

From and after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, federal and state courts have applied the prohibition on congressional infringement to all governments — federal, state and local; and to all branches of those governments — legislative, executive and judicial.

When teaching law students the values of the Bill of Rights, I often began with a curious hypothetical. If the states ratified a constitutional amendment repealing the First Amendment, would the freedom of speech still exist in America? The short answer to that question is: Yes. The longer answer reflects that speech is not just a constitutional right. Because free speech comes from our humanity — a gift of our Creator — we have and can exercise this right whether it is reduced to writing and recognized by the government or not.

Moreover, every person employed by any government anywhere in the United States takes an oath of allegiance to the Constitution, which includes all of its amendments. You’d never know that from events during the past week.

Here is the backstory.

Last week, the State of Texas enacted a law requiring all state schools — from pre-K to graduate schools — to punish speech deemed by officials to be antisemitic. Also last week, the State of South Dakota did the same. The governors of both states proclaimed their desire to protect certain people from the use of words manifesting ideologies based on “intolerance.”

In Oklahoma last week, three FBI agents visited the home of a local activist to talk to her about her social media posts. She taped her encounter with them. When the agents revealed that they lacked a warrant, she asked them to leave. Good for her! She could have called the local police and reported three strangers with guns harassing her on her front porch! Her social media posts are none of the government’s business.

The Texas and South Dakota statutes also suffer from their publicly stated efforts to protect only certain discreet groups. That violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which expressly prohibits the states from isolating groups for special protection or for less protection.

Also last week, a justice of the New York State Supreme Court — that’s the trial court in New York — entered a gag order prohibiting former President Donald Trump from criticizing the daughter of the justice. The daughter is a fundraiser for Democratic clients who use the prosecution of the former president in their fundraising solicitations. The daughter has voluntarily entered the marketplace of ideas by her professional work, much of which is aimed at the former president.

Put aside the unseemly appearance of a trial judge signing an order to insulate his own daughter from political criticism by a public figure whom the daughter and her clients publicly criticize; these gag orders are direct assaults on the freedom of speech.

I recognize that I am an outlier here, as most judges who have tried high-profile criminal cases favor the limited use of gag orders to insulate jurors and protect witnesses from influences outside the courtroom.

But the fact remains that gag orders are a direct government assault on the freedom of speech. In Trump’s case, it is exquisitely unfair for the judge’s daughter to use the criminal prosecution of Trump as a fundraising tool while her father — the judge in Trump’s criminal case — has silenced Trump himself from commenting publicly about this.

What ever happened to the freedom of speech?

Each of these events is profoundly unconstitutional as they all amount to the government getting involved in the content of speech. The Supreme Court has ruled consistently since the 1960s that the whole purpose of the First Amendment is to keep the government out of the business of speech. Government may not favor or disfavor speech; and it may not evaluate the content of speech. Thus, it may not encourage or deter or punish speech.

If government could evaluate the content of speech and punish what it characterizes as intolerance or disinformation, we’d have no freedoms remaining. Government is the negation of liberty. It exists by stealing, prohibiting and compelling. Speech is the last bastion against the government’s totalitarian impulses. If the government could punish the speech it hates and fears or the speech its patrons don’t want to hear, we will have no freedoms remaining.

Why do we repose the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution into the hands of those who subvert them?

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court Judge, has published nine books on the U.S. Constitution. To learn more, visit  JudgeNap.com .

Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — First Amendment — Why is the First Amendment Important: Citizens’ Freedom of Speech

Why is The First Amendment Important: Citizens' Freedom of Speech

• Categories: First Amendment Freedom of Speech

About this sample

Words: 1158 |

Published: Feb 9, 2023

Words: 1158 | Pages: 3 | 6 min read

Works Cited

• Ann Schmidt. (2021, December 15). History of the Bill of Rights: The First 10 Amendments. Investopedia.
• Dahl, R. A. (2003). How democratic is the American Constitution? Yale University Press.
• Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971).
• National Archives. (2022, February 22). The First Amendment.
• Richard Lui of NBC. (2019, May 3). Why press freedom matters. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP1pSY8Xsx8
• United States Courts. (n.d.). First Amendment. https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/first-amendment
• United States Senate. (n.d.). The Legislative Branch. https://www.senate.gov/general/Features/Constitution_day/Constitution.htm
• Zick, T. (2017). The First Amendment in the Trump era. Oxford University Press.

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Guest Essay

Is This the End of Academic Freedom?

By Paula Chakravartty and Vasuki Nesiah

Dr. Chakravartty is a professor of media, communication and culture at New York University, where Dr. Nesiah is a professor of practice in human rights and international law.

​At New York University, the spring semester began with a poetry reading. Students and faculty gathered in the atrium of Bobst Library. At that time, about 26,000 Palestinians had already been killed in Israel’s horrific war on Gaza; the reading was a collective act of bearing witness.

The last poem read aloud was titled “If I Must Die.” It was written, hauntingly, by a Palestinian poet and academic named Refaat Alareer who was killed weeks earlier by an Israeli airstrike. The poem ends: “If I must die, let it bring hope — let it be a tale.”

Soon after those lines were recited, the university administration shut the reading down . Afterward, we learned that students and faculty members were called into disciplinary meetings for participating in this apparently “disruptive” act; written warnings were issued.

We have both taught at N.Y.U. for over a decade and believe we are in a moment of unparalleled repression. Over the past six months, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, we have seen the university administration fail to adequately protect dissent on campus, actively squelching it instead. We believe what we are witnessing in response to student, staff and faculty opposition to the war violates the very foundations of academic freedom.

While N.Y.U. says that it remains committed to free expression on campus and that its rules about and approach to protest activity haven’t changed, students and faculty members in solidarity with the Palestinian people have found the campus environment alarmingly constrained.

About a week after Hamas’s attacks in October, the Grand Staircase in the Kimmel student center, a storied site of student protests , closed indefinitely; it has yet to reopen fully. A graduate student employee was reprimanded for putting up fliers in support of Palestinians on the student’s office door and ultimately took them down; that person is not the only N.Y.U. student to face some form of disciplinary consequence for pro-Palestinian speech or action. A resolution calling for the university to reaffirm protection of pro-Palestinian speech and civic activity on campus, passed by the elected Student Government Assembly in December, has apparently been stuck in a procedural black hole since.

The New York Police Department has become a pervasive presence on campus, with over 6,000 hours of officer presence added after the war broke out. Hundreds of faculty members have signed onto an open letter condemning the university’s “culture of fear about campus speech and activism.”

Such draconian interventions are direct threats to academic freedom.

At universities across the country, any criticism of Israel’s policies, expressions of solidarity with Palestinians, organized calls for a cease-fire or even pedagogy on the recent history of the land have all emerged as perilous speech. In a letter to university presidents in November, the A.C.L.U. expressed concern about “impermissible chilling of free speech and association on campus” in relation to pro-Palestinian student groups and views; since then, the atmosphere at colleges has become downright McCarthyite .

The donors, trustees, administrators and third parties who oppose pro-Palestinian speech seem to equate any criticism of the State of Israel — an occupying power under international law and one accused of committing war crimes — with antisemitism. To them, the norms of free speech are inherently problematic, and a broad definition of antisemitism is a tool for censorship . Outside funding has poured into horrifying doxxing and harassment campaigns. Pro-Israel surveillance groups like Canary Mission and CAMERA relentlessly target individuals and groups deemed antisemitic or critical of Israel. Ominous threats follow faculty and students for just expressing their opinions or living out their values.

To be clear, we abhor all expressions of antisemitism and wholeheartedly reject any role for antisemitism on our campuses. Equally, we believe that conflating criticism of Israel or Zionism with antisemitism is dangerous. Equating the criticism of any nation with inherent racism endangers basic democratic freedoms on and off campus. As the A.C.L.U. wrote in its November statement, a university “cannot fulfill its mission as a forum for vigorous debate” if it polices the views of faculty members and students, however much any of us may disagree with them or find them offensive.

In a wave of crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech nationwide, students have had scholarships revoked, job offers pulled and student groups suspended. At Columbia, protesters have reported being sprayed by what they said was skunk, a chemical weapon used by the Israeli military; at Northwestern, two Black students faced criminal charges , later dropped, for publishing a pro-Palestinian newspaper parody; at Cornell, students were arrested during a peaceful protest . In a shocking episode of violence last fall, three Palestinian students , two of them wearing kaffiyehs, were shot while walking near the University of Vermont.

Many more cases of student repression on campuses are unfolding.

Academic freedom, as defined by the American Association of University Professors in the mid-20th century , provides protection for the pursuit of knowledge by faculty members, whose job is to educate, learn and research both inside and outside the academy. Not only does this resonate with the Constitution’s free speech protections ; international human rights law also affirms the centrality of academic freedom to the right to education and the institutional autonomy of educational institutions.

Across the United States, attacks on free speech are on the rise . In recent years, right-wing groups opposed to the teaching of critical race theory have tried to undermine these principles through measures including restrictions on the discussion of history and structural racism in curriculums, heightened scrutiny of lectures and courses that are seen to promote dissent and disciplinary procedures against academics who work on these topics.

What people may not realize is that speech critical of Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies has long been censored, posing persistent challenges to those of us who uphold academic freedom. Well before Oct. 7, speech and action at N.Y.U. in support of Palestinians faced intense and undue scrutiny.

Our students are heeding Refaat Alareer’s call to bear witness. They are speaking out — writing statements, organizing protests and responding to a plausible threat of genocide with idealism and conviction. As faculty members, we believe that college should be a time when students are encouraged to ask big questions about justice and the future of humanity and to pursue answers however disquieting to the powerful.

Universities must be places where students have access to specialized knowledge that shapes contemporary debates, where faculty members are encouraged to be public intellectuals, even when, or perhaps especially when, they are expressing dissenting opinions speaking truth to power. Classrooms must allow for contextual learning, where rapidly mutating current events are put into a longer historical timeline.

This is a high-stakes moment. A century ago, attacks on open discussion of European antisemitism, the criminalization of dissent and the denial of Jewish histories of oppression and dispossession helped create the conditions for the Holocaust. One crucial “never again” lesson from that period is that the thought police can be dangerous. They can render vulnerable communities targets of oppression. They can convince the world that some lives are not as valuable as others, justifying mass slaughter.

It is no wonder that students across the country are protesting an unpopular and brutal war that, besides Israel, only the United States is capable of stopping. It is extraordinary that the very institutions that ought to safeguard their exercise of free speech are instead escalating surveillance and policing, working on ever more restrictive student conduct rules and essentially risking the death of academic freedom.

From the Vietnam War to apartheid South Africa, universities have been important places for open discussion and disagreement about government policies, the historical record, structural racism and settler colonialism. They have also long served as sites of protest. If the university cannot serve as an arena for such freedoms, the possibilities of democratic life inside and outside the university gates are not only impoverished but under threat of extinction.

Paula Chakravartty is a professor of media, communication and culture at New York University, where Vasuki Nesiah is a professor of practice in human rights and international law. Both are members of the executive committee of the N.Y.U. chapter of the American Association of University Professors and members of N.Y.U.’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine.

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