' Freedom of Speech in a Digital Age: Ramifications for Hyperbolic Rhetoric and Free Debate | MTTLR

Freedom of Speech in a Digital Age: Ramifications for Hyperbolic Rhetoric and Free Debate

The ability to talk without fear of governmental repercussions is a crucial element in the ability of states to serve as laboratories for democracy. Without free debate, the voices of “we the people” become muffled and our local and federal governments are rendered inadequate representatives of our evolving needs.

The issue of freedom of speech in our digitized world ought to be at the forefront of our constitutional concerns. So much of our daily interactions occur online. Individuals read articles from news sites and voice their grievances via their Twitter and Facebook accounts. Such grievances often give rise to heated debates, sometimes over inane issues (like whether the trend of naming children after inanimate objects should somehow be a violation of free speech), and, most importantly, over social issues that need awareness and action.

But how does Freedom of Speech really work in our modern era, where people often update their statuses or make posts that are easily taken out of context and read without the writer’s intent in mind? What happens if an individual, angry and hurt by a politician’s repeated failure to address an issue she considers of paramount importance, takes to her Twitter account and posts: “God, I’m going to KILL Politician X for overlooking the safety of our local mothers and children!”

In the United States, it is a federal crime to truly threaten another person with violence. Clearly, such speech is not protected by the First Amendment. But is our hypothetical distraught citizen’s Twitter post just hyperbole, as is much of what’s found on the internet, or is it a true threat of violence?

What counts as a true threat of violence in our digital era, and how we should go about identifying it, is now before the Supreme Court. As of now, the answer is unclear. Once the Supreme Court weighs in with it’s decision, we could find our beloved ability to speak our minds greatly limited to that which agrees with the government’s notion of propriety.

Elonis v. United States concerns the conviction of Anthony Elonis for making threats on Facebook by posting rap lyrics that threatened his ex-wife and a female-FBI agent. The issue before the Court is whether the First Amendment and Virginia v. Black mandate that in convicting a person of making a violent threat under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), there must be proof of subjective intent to threaten, or whether a “reasonable person” would understand the statement as rising to the level of threatening speech criminalized by 18 U.S.C. § 875(c).

The essential question is whether the true intent of the speaker should matter in conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 875 (c). In its deliberation, the Court should consider the nature of the medium and the audience in question. The Internet is full of overly passionate and haphazard heat-of-the-moment rhetoric. Sure, the speech of my hypothetical disgruntled Tweeter and Elonis may reasonably be interpreted as offensive. However, even obscenely offensive speech is protected by the First Amendment.

The Court’s decision on this issue will have an immensely important impact on how we express our thoughts and frame our arguments on the Internet. Should the reasonable person standard be promulgated, our freedom to joke, vent, and debate may be greatly regulated. My ability to say, “I would kill for a hotdog,” may be interpreted as a violent threat to the hot-dog vendor I frequent around the corner, and I may convicted as a felon even though I was simply expressing my desire for a hot dog. A criminal penalty for such an offense ought to turn at least on my intent.

I am of the opinion that Technology should be wielded by the people as a tool for expression, debate and progress, and not by the Judiciary as a means of speech regulation curbing our propriety. We ought to retain our right to emphatically, passionately, joking, or passive-aggressively express ourselves in our digital world.

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