On-line exercise and Report on Hate Speech

On-line exercise and Report on Hate Speech

JOB 1

One of the most contemporary issues facing the world today especially in the area of cyberspace is the regulation of hate speech which has been widespread on the Internet without infringing on the long established fundamental right to freedom of expression and without causing what has come to be known as Internet censorship.

This paper shall inform the discourse as to whether regulation of hate speech on the Internet suppresses the right to freedom of expression and thereby results into censorship on the Internet. Internet shall be discussed alongside the major tenets of free speech/freedom of expression. How to strike a balance between freedom of expression and regulation of hate speech on the Internet in order to avoid internet censorship forms the underlying thesis in this paper and is core to the discussion. The debate shall be limited to whether regulation of the Internet (including regulation of hate speech) should be kept to the minimum in order to empower individuals to make up their own minds on important issues which increases the likelihood that they will become active participants in democracy as opposed to regulation of the Internet which may result into total curtailment of freedom of expression on the Internet and thereby create Internet censorship. The deliberative rationale for freedom of though and discussion or expression is a special case of a more general defense of basic liberties of thought and action Mill offers.

A good human life is one that exercises one's higher capacities; a person's higher capacities include her deliberative capacities, in particular, capacities to form, revise, assess, select and implement her own plan of life. Cyberspace which has the heralded characteristic of erasure of distance. Cyberspace, like many communications and transportation technologies before it in significant ways eliminates and therefore equalizes distance which hitherto was a big barrier to effective communication a necessary prerequisite to the democratic process. Adjacency, except that there is no street to cross, the lack of direction and continuinity in cyberspace means that there are no fixed places that lie between any other two; nor is the environment of one place affected much by any other. There are no neighbours in cyberspace and, therefore, no blockades, no loud noise bothering you from the disco next door, and no neighbour's tree dropping fruit on your side of the fence. Fixity, having built an information superhighway without sidewalks, we can still add them on without displacing either the roadway or the places abutting it. There are several limitations to freedom of expression on the Internet. Though touted by many as the new technological environment to promote cyber democracy and the freedom of expression, the Internet has several bottlenecks in relation to itself as a technology and the regulations governing it that may severely limit freedom of expression.

The assumption that the Internet will be used as a tool for the promotion of democracy and freedom of expression are both premised on ...