The First Amendment and 8 Values of Free Expression

 The First Amendment 

The First Amendment states "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." 

This gives Americans the freedom from religion, of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. The most important thing the first amendment protects, is your freedom to criticize the government.

The 8 Values of Free Expression

• Marketplace of Ideas (aka Discovery of Truth)
• Participation in Self Government 
• Stable Change (aka Safety Valve)
• Individual Self-Fulfillment (aka Self-Actualization)
• Check on Governmental Power (aka Watchdog Role)
• Promote Tolerance 
• Promote Inovation 
• Protect Dissent 

            

Check on Governmental Power

In my opinion, the most important value is check on governmental power which goes along with the First Amendment's freedom of the press. "Freedom of the press enables citizens to learn about abuses of power — and then do something about the abuse at the ballot box if they feel so moved. We, along with the press, are part of the check-and-balance system to restrains government power and abuse of power." 

If there is one thing that our generation relies on, it is social media. On average, Americans spend 2 hours and 27 minutes a day on social media. About half of U.S. adults say they get their news from social media "often."  What most Americans don't know is recently the government has been trying to censor what we see on social media. 

A popular social media platform, TikTok, has recently had "false information" flags on videos that talk about politics and other controversial issues. If you click this flag is says something along the lines of "fact checkers have flagged this video for misleading information." 

A recent article in the Washington Post states "TikTok said in its most recent "transparency report" that government authorities had asked it to remove or restrict more than 400 videos or accounts last year." The theory is that government has actually been putting these "false information" flags, or making TikTok put these flags on post they don't want Americans to see. 

Additional flags like this one has also been added to TikTok when trying to share a video that has been flagged.  

An article from TechCrunch states "TikTok this morning announced a new feature that aims to combat the spread of miss information on its platform. In addition to removing videos that are identified to be spreading false information, as verified by fact checking partners, the company says it will now also flag videos were fact checks are inconclusive."

If the government is in fact trying to limit what we see online and what we can post, it is a violation of the first amendment's freedom of the press. It is our duty as Americans to call the government out on things like this and criticize them on things that we don't agree with. The theory of Check on Governmental Power helps explain this issue of censorship on social media going on right now.