Freedom of speech? what speech?
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I don’t believe the concept of freedom of speech has been applied correctly anywhere. If we take a look at the universal declaration of human rights article 19 it clearly states “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion without interference and to seek, receive, and import information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
In a democratic society, freedom of speech is a crucial component whether a society is democratic or not can be defined by the factor of independent press and mass media. There is social media where people are free to speak their mind without the fear of it being deleted. Facebook banned an offensive Swedish breast cancer awareness video because after deeming its images offensive, How can medical information be considered offensive? People’s lives are not a game and there should be a line for medical ethics.
Unfortunately social media doesn’t belong to the users and their freedom of speech is limited. Defamation laws can be implemented which would affect a user’s freedom of press and freedom of expression. Liberals have been accepting the follow principle; the liberty of persons can be legitimately restricted or morally condemned if the actions cause serious offense to others (Ward, p166, 2011). As long as no harm is taking place then there should be no limit to freedom of speech.
Traditional journalism is the Fourth Estate that keeps an eye on the performance of actors in the state and society. Traditional journalism sometimes lacks great analysis and insight, whereas citizen journalists share positive stories likely to influence the civil society towards conflict resolution rather than accentuate hatred or violence. For example, Beirut Report and The Daily Star both covered the protests in the same week, but the blog focused on the protestors embracing the security forces after the standoff, saying that both sides are “in this together”, while the newspaper claimed that Lebanon is on the brink of chaos, emphasizing the violence and the clashes
We’re entering an era where traditional and citizen journalism complements each other, and the equal presence of both is important to have a balanced approach to news coverage. In Lebanon although bloggers post mostly about local politics, the audience have difficulties considering them as credible sources of information, and prefer to get their news from TV and print media. This means that there is still a long way to go for Lebanon to embrace all the benefits citizen journalism adds to traditional media.
Freedom of speech in social media should be changed. People’s daily lives are being used by the owners of the corporations, who are deleting posts that are harmless and keeping posts that are harming people’s reputation. It is hard to accept an authority figure dictating what we can or cannot say. However with better rules and regulations I think people will feel safer when posting on social media without the fear of it being deleted, harming themselves, or harming others.
http://www.beirutreport.com/2015/09/who-has-been-attacking-protestors-in-beirut.html
