General Chat

I was looking earlier at the US First Amendment ( re the US citizen test)

edited by me as it is US referenced (legal cases etc):

Categorical exclusions to United States First Amendment right to free speech are

Incitement to crime

Fighting words... incitement to immediate violence or defamation.

True threats

Obscenity. It is speech to which all the following apply: appeals to the prurient interest, depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (This is usually applied to more hard-core forms of pornography.)

Child pornography

Invasion of privacy

Intentional infliction of emotional distress

All of those seem reasonable to me to protect the rights of others to live without threat.

As Teresa has said freedom comes with responsibilty. That might be a responsibility to 'make every effort' to ensure one gets all the facts right before publication.

In personal terms I may not agree with someone's opinion, and if I could I would (LOL I do!) try and offer my own views to counterbalance it, preferably with some 'proof' .

couldnt of put it better myself TW

I suppose everything we say is open to interpretation, or misinterpretation sometimes, as there are always the poor sensitive souls who think it's about them, or a dig at them, when it's actually not. But that shouldn't put us off saying what we feel should it? None of us would say anything to anyone if we all thought...oo someone might take that a different way to what was meant... AT the end of the day, it's their problem, not the person voicing their feelings.

not always true do we really have freedom of speech
somebody somewhere will always think
that freedom of speech is about them
when maybe its just not about nobody at all
but somebodys true feelings

Yes I know...another debate :-D

I was just wondering if there are various interpretations of the term 'freedom of speech'.

To me, it means the right to have an opinion and voice it. It also means the right to disagree with another opinion.

With that freedom comes responsibility of course and as long as it isn't defamatory, libellous or slanderous, personal or just downright nasty, freedom of speech is a right all of us have.

What do you think?