Freedom of Speech

Your Name
Subject and Section
Professor’s Name
May 11, 2021
Final Examination
Essay A
One of the greatest debates regarding the importance of free speech is how ‘free’ should address be. This contemplates the idea that despite the Constitutional right granted to us by the First Amendment, there seems to be a thin line between what should lie within the ambit of the Constitution and what is constitutive of an abuse.
Interestingly, studies show a varying and significant pattern regarding the viewpoints in this debate between the American generation. For instance, in one of the surveys done by the Pew Research Center, it was shown that around 40% of millennials “between the ages of 18 and 34 think offensive statements made about minorities should be federally regulated”, while 58% of the same population defended the constitutional right of the First Amendment. Although this might show that free speech is still favored by the majority, what is surprising is that the importance given towards the said constitutional right is even higher for previous generations, with the Silent Generation, Boomers, and Gen X showing about 12%, 24%, and 27%, respectively.
In light of this, I believe that the results of this study are a reflection of the combination of the products of progressive Civil Rights movements and the increasing “sanction” towards those who violate that established social norms. Let me discuss with you what I mean by each of these.
On the one hand, I believe that the increasing preference towards censoring offensive statements about racial minorities has been one of the Civil Rights movements that are continuously happening until today. With the advent and continued dominance of social media, anti-racist sentiments have increased their reach, responsiveness, and effectiveness altogether. Take, for example, Social Media Movements such as the #BlackLivesMatter and #StopAAPIHate, both of these were able to provide an appropriate, and quick response against hate crimes happening towards African Americans and Asians compared to previous “offline” movements were ‘critical mass’ is needed before it could even generate sufficient public attention CITATION Bla20 \l 1033 (Blain). Other studies also show that this process of obtaining critical mass has significantly increased due to the surge in social media consumption during the COVID-19 Pandemic CITATION Cha201 \l 1033 (Chatterjee).
In other words, this increasing effectiveness and reach of civil rights movements, which is one of the reasons millennials these days support partial censorship against hate speech compared to absolutely free speech.
On the other hand, another important reason why more millennials chose speech regulation compared to absolute free speech is the increased possibility of ‘social sanction’ compared to before. This embraces what Millennials these days call “Cancel Culture.” Before the advent of social media, individuals receive minor sanctions towards hate speech for as long as they are not violative of the rights of others. Although saying racial slurs was seen as an act of immorality, the process of punishment (i.e., imprisonment) is only given agai...