Freedom of speech

Is freedom of speech a double-edged sword?

I cannot help but wonder if our Human Right to express ourselves is also a great weapon for those who use it as an excuse for hate speech. We live in a modern world where we are, supposedly, able to speak our minds. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 19, everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Adibe describes freedom of speech as “the ability of people to speak their mind without censorship”. But what about the times when this opinion and expression involves harm against others?

Roosh V is the founder of a neo-masculine group called Return of Kings. This group has become famous for its controversial views and topics, such as encouraging men to move to ‘developing countries where women are easier to manipulate’. Lately the group has been in the news when the founder announced he would be organising meetings for Return of Kings worldwide in order to discuss issues such as the legalisation of rape. This, of course, caused the cities where meetings where going to be held to protest. About 80,000 signed a petition, wanting him banned from entering the UK, and a petition for stopping Roosh from entering Australia gained over 100,000 signatures in less than two days (Link).

Journalists have reported on how Roosh claims he was met with hostility and threats and how he ended up cancelling his meetings for his followers’ safety. This man and his supporters have trolled, harassed and given abuse to others online. Lindy West, an American feminist, has been continuously harassed by Return of Kings as they have ‘posted pictures of [her] children and have written sexually graphic poems about [her]’ (Link). Yet it is Roosh who calls out to the public to not harass him and his family when groups such as Anonymous reveal his home address.

The irony is astounding.

Roosh himself claims in an interview to have been misquoted and says he is not pro-rape. Yet in the same interview he compares women to cars, and how it would be the person’s fault if something happened to the car for parking it in the wrong neighbourhood. He is calling Bill Cosby’s victims liars as they evidently ‘wanted to be with him, only to 20 years later claim he hurt them’ (Link). Would he say the same of Jimmy Savile’s victims?

John Stuart Mill believed in unconditional freedom of speech, unless it caused harm to others. However, he did not believe hate speech could be harmful. He, clearly, lived before the time of World War II. Mill seems to view every person to be a rational being. Neither the 80,000 in the UK not the 100,000 in Australia seem to think Roosh a rational being. In fact, they view him as a threat. He is a potential harm to them.

History has taught us how hate speech can be physically harmful, such as for the Jews in Nazi Germany during WWII. And that is not even including psychological harm. If ‘harm’ is Mill’s only restriction of freedom of speech; where should the line be drawn? This is a modern society. Should hate speech be allowed without restrictions or regulations? Democracy entails everyone’s voices be heard, but should that come at the price of other individuals being put at harm’s risk? Roosh tries to defend his articles and books as satires Unsurprisingly it does not seem as if he has fooled many as he, in his works, brags of ‘sexual exploits’ of women who did not want, or could not, consent. Once again he has tried to justify his writings. He blames women for getting themselves into situations, and makes yet another comparison to cars. According to Roosh, legalising rape is equivalent of having laws for individuals to lock their cars in order to reduce car theft. It is victim blaming. College women in America are warned about the "Red Zone” (Link), a time when they are at a higher risk of getting raped. They are warned and told how to avoid rape by sticking together like a military force. One would wonder if the boys get any similar warnings. That is not to say men are not victims of rape. It is an unfair system, not matter how one looks at it. But what we are teaching people is how to avoid rape rather than ‘do not rape’.

 

It is freedom of speech and expression that allows me to write this. I’m allowed to express my views and thoughts, just as any other. Of course I believe my own line of thought to be a rational one, just as someone else would. But it the same freedom of speech that allows Roosh to preach about the legalisation of rape and his so called satires. Nagle (Link) ,a writer for the Irish Times, believes the whole Roosh situation should have been ignored rather than involving States to try and ban him. It is true that Roosh might just be another miserable sad man with radical views, living in his mother’s cellar, but what if next time it is someone with more influential powers and similar or even more radical views. What about someone such as Donald Trump…?