PROTECTION VS FREEDOM OF SPEECH
“People do have a right to be bigots. In a free country people do have rights to say things that other people find offensive or insulting or bigoted” Attorney- General George Brandis
Over the past couple of weeks there has been a lot of talk and debate around the Abbott Government’s plan to fulfil an election promise and introduce legislation to repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. The first of the laws to be introduced into parliament will be the laws that make it unlawful to offend and insult people because of their race.
Although I 100% believe that people should be entitled to free speech as a basic democratic right, I also believe that a line needs to be drawn from a legislative point of view in order to protect people from racial abuse and hatred. I don’t think that there is any democratic merit in allowing that sort of abuse and there is just absolutely no place for bigotry or racism in our society. It is a tricky one though! I still think that people have the right to express whatever opinion they may have, but if in a hate/racist nature, such opinions should definitely not be condoned or defended.
This sort of leads me to the idea of cyber-bullying and ‘drama’ as explained by danah boyd in ‘It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens’. There has been a lot of hype in and panic in the media lately regarding social media and the supposed increase in cyber-bullying and trolling as a result of these sites. What danah talks about dismisses this idea of an increase in bullying, but a heightened visibility. What she does say though, is that the heightened visibility can significantly increase the emotional duress of a bullying incident. The idea of ‘trolls’ and the debate as to whether or not they should be monitored is also discussed- particularly on the subject of maintaining freedom of speech.
Again the idea of protection/tolerance vs. freedom of speech is asked.