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2.2 Assignment
Objective:
Instructions:
In your previous discussion and this week's text reading assignment, you have learned more about inductive and deductive reasoning. You have also been introduced to varying perspectives on the free speech debate, and it's time to consider your own perspective.
Using an inductive or deductive argument strategy, compose a paragraph or two in which you argue a unique point about free speech as it relates to a social media platform of your choice (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, or other relevant platform). More specifically, in this paragraph (or paragraphs), you should state an arguable claim, defend it with support (evidence: facts, observations, or expert opinion), and end on a conclusive note.
If you are struggling to identify a topic, you could use the following for inspiration: online hate speech, dark comedy, threats of violence, political agenda, fake news, cyberbullying, or anonymity (among others). This story about a famous "social media fail" might inspire your ideas too. Kendall Jones became headlines news when she posted photos of her hunts on Facebook for the public to see, and she received some serious backlash as a result.
As always, if you use an outside source to support your claim, please cite it in a Works Cited page.
Your paragraph(s) should be at least 300 words long.
Due: Wednesday, Week 2
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Deductive Reasoning: Free Speech Promotes Bullying
According to Denton (2018), free speech as protected by the First Amendment promotes bullying. The Amendment to a large extent protects both the good forms of speech and the bad. For example, when ACLU defended the right of Nazis to protest in the town of Skokie, Illinois, a city with about 40,000 Jews including about 7,000 survivors of the Hitler’s death camps, many argued the institutions was endorsing one group of the society to harass and bully the other in the guise of protecting their right to free speech. The Supreme Court of Illinois also approved the rights of the Nazis to protest and display offensive symbols including the swastika in the community dominated by the Jewish community. In its ruling, the Supreme Court argued that even though the display of the symbol was distasteful to the Jewish community and tormenting to survivors of the death camps, those reasons were not sufficient to deny the Nazis their freedom of speech and expression. The court argued that ruling against such a protest would be empowering some people to silence dissidents just because of their predilections.
In the current age, technology has become integrated into our lives; social media has become the most popular channel of communication and expression. Social media gives individuals an innovative channel of expressing their free speech. Thus, social media promotes a new type of bullying referred to a cyberbullying. Similarly to traditional forms of expression, the First Amendment protects free speech generated from social media channels. Due to this, instant messages and online chats have become the new pounding grounds, especially for teenagers (Dougherty, 2010).
According to studies, about half of all teenagers have been victims of cyberbullying at one time or another. In online, environments, bullies can use emails, texts, videos, or even audio to bully their victims. In some cases, people have created entire websites for bullying purposes. Numerous cases have been reported but in most cases, authorities can do nothing due to protections of free speech under the First Amendment. For example, in the case of Megan Meir who committed suicide in 2006 after a cyberbullying incident, the court acquitted the perpetrator (Denton, 2018). There is a need to rectify this and increase protections for our young ones. Every right comes with responsibilities; therefore, there is a need to devise a strategy to deal with this form of harassment without infringing on the right of teens to free speech.
Works Cited
Denton, M. (2018). Free Speech in the Digital Age. Greenhaven Publishing LLC.
Dougherty, T. (2010). Freedom of Expression and the Internet. Greenhaven Publishing LLC.
