Its become quite evident that people today are losing the fundamental understanding of the premise and correct use of freedom of speech so I wanted to quickly just throw this out there to enlighten people how the common use of it and the social and moral responsibility people have when use freedom of speech.
Its a pretty simple concept and I will keep it short and sweet with this:
When exercising of these rights of freedom of speech it carries with it “special duties and responsibilities” and may “therefore be subject to certain restrictions” when necessary “or respect of the rights or reputation of others” or “or the protection of national security or of public order (order public), or of public health or morals”.
Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute, and common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, sedition, incitement, fighting words, hate speech, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labelling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury.
Using D4 as an example here, you can’t hide behind the use of freedom of speech to incite hate or disrespect towards the employees of the company by harassing them on a personal level that could create them mental health issues OR compound ones they already have, this falls under the dignity part.
Also, just to put this out there, people are much more likely to read your posts and respond in a constructive way with you if you put effort into it. Simply raging against the machine does no one any favors and a lot of the time, what you are trying to convey becomes stained or lost in the text due to the fact that there is no emotion behind text so its hard for some people to comprehend and understand what a lot of people mean, so we as humans can only go off the tones set in the text.
When you want to give feedback, some things to consider:
Where did you get your information?
Is it trustworthy?
Have you fact checked the information?
Have you experienced it for yourself?
Is it my own opinion or someone else’s emotionally perceived pressure I am taking on?
Once you have worked this out and formed a post/thread, take the time to re-read over it a few times and don’t hit enter straight away. Sometimes not hitting enter for an hour or two and coming back to it after the raw emotions from things have settled makes a big difference in how your posts and threads are received and how people will respond, keeping in mind that some people are simply incapable of critical thinking and debating in a constructive way, its unavoidable, how you carry yourself in those responses is how you chose to have yourself reflected upon.
Now to conclude, I’m not saying things should be completely void of emotion. We want people to be passionate and enthusiastic around things, but constructive is key to making a good solid points and arguments based on factual information.
I hope this helps some of you in being constructive not just here or on social media outlets, but these simple things can be applied in many work places and parts of life all around the world.