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Freedom of speechthe right to express opinions without government restraintis a democratic ideal that dates back to ancient Greece. In the United States, the First Amendment guarantees free speech, though the United States, like all modern democracies, places limits on this freedom. In a series of landmark cases, the U.S. Supreme Court over the years has helped to define what types of speech areand arentprotected under U.S. law.

The ancient Greeks pioneered free speech as a democratic principle. The ancient Greek word parrhesia means free speech, or to speak candidly. The term first appeared in Greek literature around the end of the fifth century B.C.

During the classical period, parrhesia became a fundamental part of the democracy of Athens. Leaders, philosophers, playwrights and everyday Athenians were free to openly discuss politics and religion and to criticize the government in some settings.

In the United States, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech.

The First Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rightsthe first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. The Bill of Rights provides constitutional protection for certain individual liberties, including freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.

The First Amendment doesnt specify what exactly is meant by freedom of speech. Defining what types of speech should and shouldnt be protected by law has fallen largely to the courts.

In general, the First Amendment guarantees the right to express ideas and information. On a basic level, it means that people can express an opinion (even an unpopular or unsavory one) without fear of government censorship.

It protects all forms of communication, from speeches to art and other media.

While freedom of speech pertains mostly to the spoken or written word, it also protects some forms of symbolic speech. Symbolic speech is an action that expresses an idea.

Flag burning is an example of symbolic speech that is protected under the First Amendment. Gregory Lee Johnson, a youth communist, burned a flag during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas to protest the Reagan administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in 1990, reversed a Texas courts conviction that Johnson broke the law by desecrating the flag. Texas v. Johnson invalidated statutes in Texas and 47 other states prohibiting flag burning.

Not all speech is protected under the First Amendment.

Forms of speech that arent protected include:

Speech inciting illegal actions or soliciting others to commit crimes arent protected under the First Amendment, either.

The Supreme Court decided a series of cases in 1919 that helped to define the limitations of free speech. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917, shortly after the United States entered into World War I. The law prohibited interference in military operations or recruitment.

Socialist Party activist Charles Schenck was arrested under the Espionage Act after he distributed fliers urging young men to dodge the draft. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction by creating the clear and present danger standard, explaining when the government is allowed to limit free speech. In this case, they viewed draft resistant as dangerous to national security.

American labor leader and Socialist Party activist Eugene Debs also was arrested under the Espionage Act after giving a speech in 1918 encouraging others not to join the military. Debs argued that he was exercising his right to free speech and that the Espionage Act of 1917 was unconstitutional. In Debs v. United States the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Espionage Act.

The Supreme Court has interpreted artistic freedom broadly as a form of free speech.

In most cases, freedom of expression may be restricted only if it will cause direct and imminent harm. Shouting fire! in a crowded theater and causing a stampede would be an example of direct and imminent harm.

In deciding cases involving artistic freedom of expression the Supreme Court leans on a principle called content neutrality. Content neutrality means the government cant censor or restrict expression just because some segment of the population finds the content offensive.

In 1965, students at a public high school in Des Moines, Iowa, organized a silent protest against the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to protest the fighting. The students were suspended from school. The principal argued that the armbands were a distraction and could possibly lead to danger for the students.

The Supreme Court didnt bitethey ruled in favor of the students right to wear the armbands as a form of free speech in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District. The case set the standard for free speech in schools. However, First Amendment rights typically dont apply in private schools.

What does free speech mean?; United States Courts.Tinker v. Des Moines; United States Courts.Freedom of expression in the arts and entertainment; ACLU.

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Freedom of Speech - HISTORY

How does the First Amendment right to free speech apply to speakers who have been invited by student groups to speak on campus?

As a public institution of higher education, NC State is committed to fostering free speech and the open debate of ideas. NC State is prohibited from banning or punishing an invited speaker based on the content or viewpoint of his or her speech. University policy permits student groups to invite speakers to campus, and the university provides access to certain campus venues for that purpose. NC State cannot take away that right or withdraw those resources based on the views of the invited speaker. Only under extraordinary circumstances, as described on this page, can an event featuring an invited speaker be canceled.

Once a student group has invited a speaker to campus, NC State will act reasonably to ensure that the speaker is able to safely and effectively address his or her audience, free from violence or disruption.

Although NC State cannot restrict or cancel the speech based on the content or viewpoint of the speech, the university is allowed to place certain content- and viewpoint-neutral limits on how the speech can take place. These limits can be based on the time, place and manner of the speech.

What are time, place and manner restrictions?

Courts have long recognized that public educational institutions have the right to impose certain restrictions on the use of their campuses for free-speech purposes. Content- and viewpoint-neutral restrictions on the times and modes of communication, often referred to as time-place-manner restrictions, are common features universities implement to ensure that they can continue to fulfill their mission while allowing free expression to occur. Simply put, this means that the when, where and how of free-speech activity may be reasonably regulated if such regulation (1) is scrupulously neutral (in other words, it must apply to all speech, no matter how favored or disfavored) and (2) leaves ample opportunity for speech in alternative areas or forums. The right to speak on campus is not a right to speak at any time, at any place and in any manner that a person wishes. The university can regulate where, when and how speech occurs to ensure the functioning of the campus and to achieve important goals, such as protecting public safety.

Examples of acceptable time-place-manner restrictions include permit requirements for outside speakers, notice periods, sponsorship requirements for outside speakers, limiting the duration and frequency of the speech and restricting speech during final-exam periods.

The need to consider time, place and manner regulations is the reason the university requires students to work with the administration when setting up certain events, as opposed to students scheduling and creating the events on their own without university input.

Can NC State cancel a student-sponsored event if the administration or the campus community disagrees with the speakers views?

No, NC State is prohibited from canceling an event based on the viewpoint of the speaker.

If it is known that an event with a speaker may lead to physical violence, is that legal grounds for the university to cancel the event?

In general, NC State cannot prevent speech on the grounds that it is likely to provoke a hostile response. Stopping speech before it occurs due to the potential reaction to the speech is often referred to by courts as the hecklers veto and is a form of prior restraint. Prior restraints of speech are almost never allowed.

The university is required to do what it can to protect speakers and prevent disruption or violence. Although the university is committed to fulfilling these obligations, if despite all efforts by the university there is a serious threat to public safety and no other alternative, an event can be canceled. NC States primary concern is to protect the safety of its students, faculty and staff. NC States Police Department makes security assessments with input from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

How does NC State respond to hate speech?

NC State is dedicated to fostering free speech in an environment where members of our community can learn from one another and where all are treated with dignity and respect. The university vigorously opposes and denounces all forms of hateful speech. The university encourages faculty, staff and students to use their free-speech rights, consistent with federal and state laws, to condemn hateful speech and to help create opportunities for the campus community to understand and learn from these actions. Students who encounter hurtful or offensive speech are encouraged to reach out to university administrators, including the Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity (OIED), or to make a report to the universitys Bias Impact Response Team (BIRT). More information about responding to acts of intolerance may be found at the OIED and BIRT websites.

How does NC State ensure the safety of the campus community in light of freedom of speech?

NC State balances its commitment to free speech with a commitment to safety. Individuals who threaten or commit acts of violence or other violations of law may be subject to arrest and prosecution by law enforcement, as well as disciplinary sanctions imposed by the university.

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Free Speech | NC State University

Federal law imposes criminal penalties on any person who "encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law." On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that asked whether that federal law should be struck down for restricting speech that is protected by the First Amendment.

The case is United States v. Sineneng-Smith. Evelyn Sineneng-Smith, the operator of an immigration consulting firm in San Jose, California, was convicted in 2010 on several counts of illegal "encouragement." Her lawyer, Mark Fleming, told the justices that the federal law itself should be wiped from the books.

"This is a statute that uses very broad words. It uses them in the context in which all they can do is ban free speech," Fleming argued. "The result is that vast amounts of truthful and accurate and heartfelt speech that's in no way related and much less integral to any actual crime is subject to five years in federal prison. I would submit that the First Amendment is wisely designed to protect us from just this kind of law."

Several justices seemed potentially open to the merits of that argument.

"What about a charity?" Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Deputy Solicitor General Eric Feigin. "A charity provides food to someone who's in the country unlawfullyit's designed to provide food for people who can't get it elsewhere and they know that the people taking advantage of that are here unlawfully?"

Feigin conceded that such a charity might find itself on the receiving end of unwanted federal attention. "To the extent that a charity were doing something that violated the plain terms of the statute," Feigin answered, "that amounted to givingeffectively giving money to people toor something that is the equivalent of money to people with the purpose that those people reside in the United States unlawfully, that might violate the statute."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a point similar to Kavanaugh's. "I read 'encourage or induce an alien to come, enter, or reside in the U.S., knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law,'" Sotomayor told the deputy solicitor general, and it "seems to me" that all sorts of constitutionally protected speech and activity would be in trouble. "The hospital that's treatingan illegally present child with a disease, the church who provides worship to illegal aliens," both of these real-world examples, Sotomayor pointed out, "would be a violation of the statute."

Justice Neil Gorsuch raised another First Amendment concern with the government lawyer. "What do we do about the fact that most applications, maybe not all, but most applications here of the underlying conduct would be civilly punished?" Gorsuch asked. "And here you wish to criminally punish the speech."

In other words, while it is merely a civil offense to be unlawfully present in the United States, the federal law at issue makes it a criminal offense to encourage or induce such unlawful presence. "I could be reckless in my speech in encouraging somebody [to remain in the country illegally] and wind up a federal criminal even though the underlying violation is merely civil. Isis that the gist of the government's position here?" Gorsuch demanded. "Normally, in the criminal law," Gorsuch observed, we "don't allow punishment for speech greater than the underlying conduct itself. That would seem to be a basic First Amendment value."

A decision in United States v. Sineneng-Smith is expected by June.

Excerpt from:
Supreme Court Weighs Free Speech and the Right to Encourage Illegal Immigration - Reason

The UK government recently announced a new plan to regulate social media companies such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The proposals give the governments media regulator, Ofcom, extensive powers to tell tech giants what speech they must suppress and to punish them if they dont.

These proposals seem long overdue. Just consider the case of YouTube. Once celebrated for its videos of wedding engagements, graduation speeches and cute cats, its darker corners have been used to display televised beheadings, white supremacist rallies and terrorist incitement. Facebook and Twitter have been similarly abused for nefarious ends.

Surely, the argument goes, it is fitting and proper to hold profiteering social media firms partly accountable for the harms caused by the content they platform. Simply relying on these firms to self-regulate is not enough.

But unless the governments proposals are dramatically revised, they pose a significant risk to two fundamental political values: freedom of speech and democracy.

Start with the risks to free speech. The current proposal stems from an Online Harms White Paper published in April 2019, which unhelpfully outlines two kinds of speech to be regulated: harms with a clear definition and harms with a less clear definition.

The former category focuses on speech that is mostly already illegal offline and online. So, for example, extreme pornography (for example, videos depicting rape) and speech which incites terrorism fall into this category. Yet the second category is nebulous precisely because it concerns speech that is mostly already legal such as so-called trolling, disinformation and other extremist content (though the white paper offers few examples).

Under the proposal, social media companies will be tasked with a duty of care requiring it to restrict the distribution of both kinds of content with Ofcom to serve as judge, jury and executioner.

It is the second, more nebulous category that should trouble the defenders of free speech. If it is perfectly legal to post certain speech online if there is good reason to permit citizens to engage in, and access, certain expression without fear of penalty why should such speech then be subject to suppression (whether in the form of outright censorship or reduced dissemination)?

There may be rare cases in which an asymmetry can be justified for example, we wouldnt want to punish troubled teenagers posting videos of their own self-harm, even though we would want to limit the circulation of these videos. But with respect to content propounded by accountable adults the majority of the speech at issue here symmetry should be the norm.

If certain speech is rightly protected by the law if we have decided that adults should be free to express and access it we cannot then demand that social media companies suppress it. Otherwise we are simply restricting free speech through the backdoor.

For example, take the category of extremist content content judged to be harmful despite it being legal. Suppose Ofcom were to follow the definition used in the governments Prevent strategy, whereby speech critical of British values such as democracy counts as extremist. Would social media companies be violating their duty of care, then, if they failed to limit distribution of philosophical arguments challenging the wisdom of democratic rule? We would hope not. But based on what we know now, its simply up to Ofcom to decide.

Recent reporting suggests that, with regard to legal speech, the final proposal may simply insist that social media companies enforce their own terms and conditions. But this passes the hard choices to the private companies, and indeed simply incentivises them to write extremely lax terms.

This leads to my final concern, with democracy. As a society, we have hard choices to make about the limits of freedom of expression. There is reasonable disagreement about this issue, with different democracies taking different stands. Hate speech, for example, is illegal in Britain but broadly legal in the US. Likewise, speech advocating terrorism is a crime in Britain, but is legal in the US so long as it doesnt pose a high risk of causing imminent violence.

It is instructive that these decisions have been made in the US by its Supreme Court, which gets the final say on what counts as protected speech. But in Britain, the rules are different: the legislature, not the judiciary, decides.

The decision to restrict harmful expression requires us to judge what speech is of sufficiently low value to society that its suppression is acceptable. It requires a moral judgement that must carry legitimacy for all over whom it is enforced. This is a job for democracy. It is not a job for Ofcom. If the UK decides that some speech that is presently legal is sufficiently harmful that the power of the state should be used to suppress it, parliament must specify with precision what exactly this comprises, rather than leaving it to be worked out later by Ofcom regulators.

Parliament could do this, most obviously, by enacting criminal statutes banning whatever speech it desires Ofcom to suppress (incorporating the relevant loopholes to protect children and other vulnerable speakers from prosecution). On this model, social media companies would be tasked with suppressing precisely specified speech that is independently illegal, and no more. If the government is not prepared to criminalise certain speech, then it should not be prepared to punish social media companies for giving it a platform.

The government is right to hold social media firms accountable. A duty of care model could still work. But to protect free speech, and ensure that decisions of the greatest consequence have legitimacy, the fundamental rules about what speech may be suppressed must be clearly specified, and authorised, by the people. Thats what parliament is for.

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Free speech in the UK: it's the business of parliament, not Ofcom, to judge what is ok to publish - The Conversation UK