Freedom of Expression Justifications Challenges in the Cyberspace

The internet and social media have created an opportunity, be it a pretext or a moral urge, to challenge the very legitimacy of free speech as we know and respect it. The challenge to traditional free speech justifications is of crucial importance for our understanding of democracy. The free flow of ideas has the potential to restrict democracy, more than ever. (But the more you protect democracy by restricting “troubling” speech, the less democracy you will have.) The article reviews speech theories in the social media context. Consequentialist and non-consequentialist (deontological) justifications are reviewed they yield different levels of protection and the scope of free speech varies depending on the theory. The decentralized structures of the web enable the activity of enormous masses of speakers and interactive listeners. Compared to the television age this promises a more popular and populist democracy. The discourse is more popular and personal too, with vulgar consequences. Today we face a different, probably more fundamental, challenge coming from the internet and social media, which allow ordinary private communication to reach a large audience, often with the power of images. This new challenge may tempt even the unwilling legislator and the judge to go beyond the axiom that speech is a fundamental individual right. And the rethinking occurs in a world of heightened sensitivity. The heightened sensitivities of those hurt by internet and social media filth or simple unflattering presentations and criticism mobilizes them to build up evidence of the harms of free speech. It is in this speech-hostile environment that a process of regulatory rethinking begins. The article rejects the reintroduction of interferences which were applied in broadcasting in the days of spectrum scarcity. But this does not solve the problem of large-scale offensive speech which is confronted by many people who feel vulnerable and take offense personal and also of widespread vulgar, fake and directly or structurally harmful speech (discriminatory speech. An increasing number of scholars, politicians and internet users see offensive Internet expression as “low value” speech, unworthy of protection. Such devaluing of speech encourages increased censorship and reduces the freedom of valuable speech. A general regulatory power imposed on the service providers or applied directly by the state will affect all opinion formation online, as political opinions are formed in private encounters. Private opinions of citizens do matter in a fundamental way for the political structure of democracy.