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What do you think freedom of speech is? This question is far more complicated than you might think. Some will tell you freedom of speech is the right to say whatever you want but the fact is that freedom of speech isn’t quite that simple; if it was that simple there wouldn’t be so many lawsuits over what is found in print, on television, and on the Internet. So what is free speech and what are its limits?
Free speech is the freedom to speak without censorship of limitation. It is also known as freedom of expression which means that it is not only verbal speech but also anything that receives or imparts ideas or information. Now the unfortunate part is that freedom of speech is not available in every country and some countries do provide censorship issues to their citizens. The only time that it is usually challenged is when it comes to “hate speech.”
Hate speech refers to any sort of speech that might disparage or hate on another race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. Many countries, for instance, will not allow their citizens to give public speeches or provide works of literature to their citizens if it’s against their government or it slanders a national religion. This isn’t the case in all countries, but it does happen a bit. The issue with hate speech is that it is subjective. For instance a government might be communist but a person might publish a book where the main character has his life ruined by communism. The government could find that this is hateful speech and refuse to print or sell the book in that country. This is a more common occurrence than you would think.
The rules of freedom of speech are very dependent on the country and it does not mean the freedom to say and write whatever you want.