CristianP
Member
What Happened to Free Speech Online?
Free speech has been a fundamental principle in democratic societies, but as we have progressed as a society it seems like free speech has been put on the back burners and instead we worry about keeping everyone happy.
The truth is you cannot ever make everyone 100% happy and society is a place where compromise is necessary, that means that you will have conflicting opinions with other people. As such you might not like things that other people are saying, but just because you think it is wrong does not give you the right to disable that person from voicing their opinion.
This seems simple in principle but it has seemed in recent times that if you go against what the Canadian government says, they deem your view as harmful to society, which can be classified at both end of the extreme. But as a society it is our job to critically think about what is being said and to filter out what information is actually worth your time versus someone just spewing hatred. That is what makes us human, our key separation from other animals is out ability to use critical thinking skills, so if we take peoples ability to need to use these critical thinking skills are we enabling the population or disabling them?
I just think that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and even if that is a harmful one I think it should be in the hands of the people to deal with them accordingly, by using things like reporting them to their employer or by cancelling them. But allowing the government to infringe on our right to Free speech is outrageous and no matter if you agree with the persons opinion or not it should outrage you as well.
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