Almost all of us want to be able to express our opinions freely, without fear of punishment, and in general this should be protected. The only reason to prohibit speech in a democracy is if it harms others. It cannot be acceptable to restrict speech solely because it questions or criticizes leaders or political groups. On the other hand, we have already made some speech punishable (libel, slander, inciting riot, advocating overthrow of the government by force, human stampede), and we may wish to seriously consider extending that to include other harms that speech can cause. There is concern among parents about on-line bullying, for instance, where speech can in some cases lead to emotional problems or even suicide in children (although this is likely only in participants who are already unusually emotionally vulnerable). Some young people want to be protected from speech that upsets them (“safe spaces”). Many people prefer not to listen to a great deal of profanity in others’ speech, though while this would be offensive, it is generally not harmful.
For the sake of having healthy and meaningful dialogue among citizens that will strengthen our democracy, I believe that the appropriate compromise at the moment on the issue of free speech is to allow all speech except that which directly aims to harm and which a “reasonable person” would perceive correctly to be potentially directly harmful to many others. Many times, there are alternatives to censoring speech. Parents can protect children from on-line bullying by not allowing them to use the internet outlets involved or by giving their children more emotional support. People can group or gather only with others who will not speak in ways that upset them (although that will unfortunately tend to create groups in society who cannot talk to each other). People can stop using internet outlets where they are hearing too much profanity. Currently our internet outlets are private companies who will only change if enough users walk away from them. If we had government social media outlets, then government would be setting and enforcing standards.
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