Media Law Post #3

Ryan Smith

When talking about the 8 values of free expression, a lot of the different values stood out to me, to the point that I couldn’t just choose one as the focal point for me. When reading each of the 8 blurbs and trying to think of them in a certain context, one that screamed out at me was social media. What once started as simply a way to connect with others online has become a cesspool of exclusivity, double-standards, and mob mentality.


This is going to be a handfull, let’s start off with Value #6: Promote Tolerance. In recent years, people on social media have become so incredibly closed-minded to the point that they can never change their mind on anything, it’s actually sad. The people claiming to best the most inclusive people are actively taking away freedom of speech, which meshes well with Value #4. I understand being against people using slurs, but people will find a way to complain about anything someone has said nowadays. Using blanket terms like “hate speech” detract from lessons that can be learned of why people used that language in the past and why it’s considered inappropriate. People are expected to be absolutely perfect and if you get one strike, you’re out. It might come as a shock, but humans are not perfect. I guess there may not be any room for Value #3 anymore either. One of my favorite quotes of all time is actually from a video game released in 2007 that says “People are probably the dumbest creatures alive” and it’s something I will always remember. Nowadays anyone’s life can be ruined in an instant because someone said something about them. Now granted sometimes the person in question did something horrible such as any type of sexual misconduct and they deserved what was coming to them, but the one thing that angers me more than anything else in this world are false allegations, which perfectly fits with Value #1. John Milton said “when truth and falsehood are allowed to freely grapple, truth will win out. And the grappling makes the truth even stronger”. Unfortunately in this day and age, because of social media, this statement is ironically false. Real perpetrators will get what they deserved, but the high majority of the time, the public will only pay attention to an allegation and take it as gospel, and when false allegations get proven as false, nobody pays attention to the response and that person’s image is smeared forever because of the person slimy enough to create a false allegation, but also the people participating in mob mentality and just going with what everyone else thinks instead of being a judge of character and thinking for themself “Our system is not supposed to be one of mob rule”. Behaviors like these completely get rid of the idea of self-improvement and give off the mentality that if you screw up once, you’re bad forever. This ideology is not only extremely unhealthy, but also incredibly immature.

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