The importance of freedom of expression stands out as persons express their opinions or thoughts via expression to try to convey them from one to another. It also plays the role of expressing oneself towards their society. Giving utterance of certain opinions in public space sometimes makes others feel uncomfortable, especially in sensitive topics such as beliefs. Even when others feel this uncomfortableness, whether freedom of expression needs to be exercised to what extent is questionable. Of course, freedom of expression and speech is one of the indispensables, but should it truly be said that since everyone has the freedom of expression and it has to be protected, one can say anything one wants?

In order to protect the public interest, one can think that speech is subject to restriction. There’s been a discussion on the legal restriction of harmful kind such as hate speech. This is to implement regulation in society, which is what I consider as environmental perspective in the respect that policies regulating hate speech is placed outside human beings and try to secure safer environment for all groups of people in a community.

The world has been moving towards protecting the right to speech and express one’s opinion. On the protection of human rights, it often refers to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among the descriptions, freedom of expression is mentioned in the article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”(1). Among the articles of the Declaration which are devoted to protect the rights in universal scale, it is written as above that each one has the right to express their opinion.

From constitutional and conventional point of view, rights and freedom are not allowed unconditionally to be exercised. Some “constitutions acknowledge that basic rights, including freedom of expression, are legitimately subject to restriction”(2). Also, the article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights has the description that it “may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety”(3), and the article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that “Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law”(4).

While looking at the topic of free speech, in the US context, it is mentioned that “the First Amendment has a large cultural presence”(5). Among the amendments of the US constitution, the First Amendment is known as being related to freedom of speech: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”(6). The US has unique free speech culture which is defined in one of their constitutional amendments.

Freedom is one of the most important spheres that needs to be protected. In a society where diverse peoples live in, their different customs and preferences are not tolerated in the narrower sphere. Society cannot help but to see incidents and events happening in it, where people of different interests live together. Even if some people claim the importance of freedom of expression when an incident happens in their society, it is not regarded in the same way by other group of people. In this sense, the difference of context is what should be paid attention to more, or shared concept in communication among people. Shared sense can at least partly achieved by education or other means of communication.

Discourse wasn’t open before as we had some barrier of for example language and distance. After the emergence of the Internet, as regards language barrier, it can be easily translated by using some application on computer. The distance between persons is now virtually able to be close even if they are physically distant which causes conflict between persons. People living in far distant area face each other on the Internet causes conflict in some issues, if not facing that isn’t caused. Freedom and its characteristics of being contingent with others necessitate the feeling for others, but to what extent it is possible to presuppose those who see, from the standpoint of those who express is a further point of discussion.

Freedom one owns is the number and the width of the paths in which one acts. In the perspective of the architecture in which the access to expression is ensured among the citizenry, “Access to means of expression is in many cases a necessary condition for participation in the political process of the country”(7).

While noting the importance of securing the access to political participation, whether the restriction on the expression of citizens in the case of harmful speech should be tolerated is a matter which needs to be taken into consideration. Regarding hate speech, some promote the restriction on it, others do not welcome restriction.

From the perspective of the legitimacy of political decisions and the restriction on expression, one of the arguments is the legitimacy argument. Dworkin claimed that “if we intervene too soon in the process through which collective opinion is formed, we spoil the only democratic justification we have for insisting that everyone obey these laws, even those who hate and resent them”(8). On this argument, it is explained that “legislation that forbids one side from expressing its opinion to the public—its opinion, for instance, that blacks are inferior creatures who should be sent back to Africa—destroys that fairness. It deprives us of our right to enforce laws against those who have been denied a fair opportunity to make a case against their enactment”(9).

On the restriction of speech, what’s been in dispute is whether speech which is affecting negatively others should be tolerated or not. That is the case of hate speech or discriminating speech against certain groups of people. There are people on the side that any restriction on speech damages the legitimacy of democracy, on the other hand, restriction on the hate speech is inevitable given the negative effect on their community.

Even if the ways through which some can utter their discriminating speech to other racial group are prohibited by law, as far as other ways in which the access to express is secured for the citizens — citizens don’t have to use aggressive words towards others to claim their opinions —, it differs from the situation of the oppression of speech imposed on them. One is able to choose the way in which they speak of what they want to tell to another. It can be an offensive words or softened words depending on the way in which they speak. It is problematic that one intentionally chooses the offensive words to insult others, it has the cases that some unintentionally used words which the listener felt offensive. Given the harm that discriminating speech causes, the blockage of the path of that sort of speech can often be tolerated by those who advocate restriction on hate speech. However, it needs the consideration of the impact which restricting the expression of hate speech causes in relation to others before putting it in place. The problem of hate speech in society damages the dignity of people such as certain racial group. On dignity, while Waldron said that his use of the word “is not just a philosophical conception of immeasurable worth in (say) the Kantian sense of würde”(10), he views that “It is a matter of status—one’s status as a member of society in good standing—and it generates demands for recognition and for treatment that accords with that status”(11).

The argument of ensuring assurance in community has positive effect to some extent while the matter of how one perceives the symbols remains. In terms of “assurance”(12) which hate speech “aims to dispel the sense of assurance that we attempt to provide for one another, a sense of assurance that constitutes the social upholding of individual dignity”(13), the speech of the kind unstabilise the society. The “dignity-based assurance is a public good provided to all by all, and that unlike the benefit of street lighting it cannot be provided by a central utility”(14). The cooperation by each member in a community to create the environment in which their dignity is assured is an ideal democratic atmosphere it promotes. Apart from legal restriction, not always one has to exercise one’s right to express. People can choose not to say by having the freedom at their hand based on their rational decision.

To create the space that is secure for freedom of expression is the accumulation of efforts and could be accomplished, gradually expanding it.

Freedom of expression and art is what should be discussed. For example, for arts audience can interpret works in many ways. It enables people to take time in thinking about the contexts and the concepts. It is one of the interesting aspects of art that viewer enjoy thinking about the works profoundly and they may notice the different opinions from their first impressions. At the time of first glimpse, the information on the work that one has is limited, thinking of the background in the work, the viewer can expand the imagination on it and they may change their opinion. Also, at the beginning, what audience feel from the work is influenced by their previous life experience. It could be uncomfortable for some groups of people who visited to see it. Especially art works sometimes send their message sharply towards the world.

Having said above, it is agreed that freedom of expression should be protected. Securing places that artists can share their works and audience can get the opportunity to see them would enrich the experiences they can get in community. However, always claiming that it is one’s right to express sometimes deepens the confrontation with the groups of people who have different opinions.

The oppression on the speech of people have been historically what we have been caring for. It still is an important topic, but in liberal democratic societies where higher percentage of people share the common recognition that freedom of speech and expression should be protected, it may become a different level that one would be better to care about others as well.

In addition to the environmental perspective that, is located outside oneself, one implement and revise the policies put in practice in society, the inner part of oneself is what should be paid attention to.

Footnotes

(1) ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, United Nations, accessed 25 January 2023, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.

(2) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 13.

(3) ‘European Convention on Human Rights’, European Court of Human Rights, accessed 4 February 2023, https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf. François Héran refers to the same article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights in pp.12-13 of his book François Héran, Lettre aux professeurs sur la liberté d’expression, (Paris: La Découverte, 2021).

(4) ‘International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’, OHCHR, accessed 9 February 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights. Jeremy Waldron (2014) refers to the same article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in p.29 of his book Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014).

(5) Cass R. Sunstein, #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media, paperback ed. (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018), p. 196.

(6) ‘Constitution of the United States’, Library of Congress, accessed December 9, 2023, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/.

(7) T. M. Scanlon, The Difficulty of Tolerance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 22.

(8) Ronald Dworkin, ‘Foreword’, in Extreme Speech and Democracy, edited by Ivan Hare and James Weinstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p.viii.

(9) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), pp. 177-178. Waldron describes the legitimacy argument by Ronald Dworkin.

(10) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 60.

(11) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p.60.

(12) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014).

(13) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 166.

(14) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 97.