What Does It Mean To Say That People Should Speak Freely On Social Media

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There is no question that free speech issued from social media platforms have spurred controversy. Many believe that people shouldn’t have the opportunity to speak freely via their social accounts. While others believe that goes against people’s constitutional rights and people deserve to speak freely. I happen to agree solemnly with the people against limiting their constitutional rights of free speech. As the 1st amendment grants every citizen the right to speak their mind, social media outlets count just as much and should not be prohibited. Twitter (a social media platform) serves as a global center where anyone with internet access can make an account and begin channeling their thoughts as tweets. Out of all the other social media platforms, …show more content…

Twitter does a fine job of creating that outlet for us to exercise that right. While I do agree that people should speak freely on social media, I do believe that just like our laws, there should be limits to how a person speaks freely. There is a point to where one’s exercise of their right is limited. If a person is speaking in a way that severely impacts another person or community, then that is hate speech and not free speech. In my eyes, free speech is only when a person can say what they want if it doesn’t abundantly cause grieve for others. For example, a person can go on Twitter and tweet “LeBron James new shoes are super-duper ugly.” This tweet is a hasty critic, but it doesn’t affect anyone on a personal level. If someone one was to tweet something like “I hate LeBron James because he is a black…” then this would be considered hate speech because it displays a strong disapproval that would affect the directed person and others significantly. Now the great thing about Twitter and many other social media outlets is that they have policies to prohibit speech that is considered “hate” and not “free. “ In conclusion, social media platforms should not limit people from free speech because it would be unconstitutional. Rather restrict people from hate speech because the constitution does not abide to