MedLawLit Blog 5: Speech theories

 The marketplace of ideas does not hold much water these days. sure it might have been true back when it was first theorized, but today, in the age of the internet, the notion that the truth will win over lies is no longer true. The truth is whatever is shouted the loudest and whatever people believe it to be, even if that truth is blatantly false once put under the smallest bit of scrutiny. That is how conspiracy theories are spread. The sentiment is sound. Human being should be rational and sensible enough to recognize truth from fiction, but most of the time, that is not the case.

Individual self-fulfillment is something that everyone does at some point these days. It seems to me that these days, people identify themselves with whatever fandom they are a part of. They have their entire internet personas centered around one TV Show, movie, game, or comic. There are websites where these people gather to talk and build connections, some times even making life long friends. All because they dedicated themselves to one piece of media. This happened to me some years back. I played a videogame that I absolutely loved, gathered a group of like-minded individuals, and created a space where we could talk, interact, share our creations and share the works by other members of the community we were all a part of. And I made some really good friends along the way. This happens again and again with me and probably a lot of other people. Most of the time, people grow out of their obsession with a single piece of media, maturing out of it or moving on to something else. But fragments of their old obsession remain. Characters they created, friends they made, stories they wrote. Everything stays. Either within the individual’s heart or in the deep recesses of the internet.

The promote tolerance idea is a bit flawed in my opinion. Sure, everyone has the right to speak their mind, even if their minds are filled with rot and bile, but the allowance of hate speech only serves to beat those that the speech is directed toward down. One rumor, one incident, one slip up, and you could be inundated with hate and vitriol that you probably don’t deserve. All it does is demoralize and scare those on the receiving end. While under the constitution, hate speakers have the right to harass, cancel, and send death threats, we are under no obligation as onlookers to tolerate their toxic behavior