|
My pure response to your initial question is that you need to qualify what you mean by limit. Should the government restrict speech at its source? No. Doing so would impinge on the right in a way that makes it truely unfree. Conversely, regulating types of speech that may cause harm, like yelling "fire", is a limit that can be applied after the fact. This kind of ex post facto limitation on freedom of speech could be abused in the same way as the former limitation. Ideally, the internet doesn't really exist as a body within any one jurisdiction. As many sovereigns are finding out, what is legal in one place is illegal in another. Consequently, the question becomes where is certain types of speech legal. The interesting thing about the internet is how pervasive it is in society. Its a universal connector, hampered only by language barriers. The complexities of regulating something so incorporeal as the internet mean from a pragmatic posistion we should avoid any regulation at all. From a purely social perspective, societies should not limit any speech, period. It should be up to the individual to determine what we do and do not want to be exposed to. The state of techonology being what it is, that is well within the capability of the everyman. Simply put, no, governments should not be in the business of regulating freedom of speech on the internet.
|