Free Speech
| Author | Jeffrey Wilson |
| Pages | 1013-1017 |
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In the United States, freedom of speech is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the highest law in the land. This law protects what individuals say, what they write, and their right to meet freely with other people in just about any forum: clubs, demonstrations, organizations, and rallies. This cherished protection applies to everyone in the United States.
The advent of the Internet and the huge variety of data it makes accessible has been hailed by free speech advocates as an incredible boon to the United States and the world. On the other hand, the notion that such a vast array of speech can be disseminated so easily and broadly, all without any restrictions or review, concerns and offends many individuals and groups. Some groups have called for an array of content regulations and restrictions, for example, legislative initiatives that would force electronic communications providers to censor the material they distribute or to deny access to various potential users. On the other side of the debate, there are concerns that such regulation contravenes the protections of the First Amendment, ultimately providing control at the cost of free speech.
The Internet poses certain challenges to traditional First Amendment law. Some groups assert that the Internet should be allowed to regulate itself. These groups assert that government regulations would lag behind the rapidly developing technology. Even so, there have been many attempts to regulate the Internet, and these have frequently raised legal questions and challenges.
To use television or radio airtime, get ideas published in a newspaper or magazine, or use traditional types of communications media to share thoughts with thousands or millions of listeners, people must first obtain the approval and assistance of publishers and broadcasters. But, such concerns are not as relevant in cyberspace. On the Internet, people can publish themselves, and their messages are instantly distributed around the globe. Through the Internet and the World Wide Web, individuals now possess an unprecedented degree of freedom regarding the words and images shared with others.
The urge to regulate new communication technologies is certainly nothing new. Practically every new technological communications development has been subjected to the same legislative fervor for
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review in its earliest days. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court has traditionally vigorously supported First Amendment rights, the Court has been some-what inconsistent when it applies the First Amendment to providers of mass communications. A typical maneuver is for the Court to find differences in the characteristics of the new medium that it uses to justify different treatment in the First Amendment standards that apply to it.
Previously, radio and television broadcasters encountered similar problems. In the early days of radio, there were calls for restricting broadcasting only to persons licensed by the federal government, and only on the frequencies and at the times assigned to them. Laws such as the Radio Act of 1927 required broadcasters to censor obscene and profane language from their programs. At the same time, the Radio Act purported to prohibit the government's control over the content of broadcasts. In the 1940s, radio broadcasters asserted that such regulations violated their First Amendment rights. But the Supreme Court cited the difference between radio and other forms of communication because it is not available universally. This difference, the Court found, made radio subject to government regulation. One of the consequences of such regulation has been less stringent First Amendment protection for providers of mass communications media. This restricted view dominated legal discourse on the subject for the second half of the twentieth century.
Similar to the legislative and regulatory challenges prior communications media providers endured, there are as of 2002 numerous appeals for legislation and regulation of electronic media. Current events outside the communication industries have also driven the impetus to regulate. For example, after the Oklahoma City bombing, some groups demanded that government control Internet sites on which individuals can learn about making bombs. Following a Carnegie Mellon study on Internet pornography and a subsequent Time Magazine article that brought the...
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