{"id":555,"date":"2023-06-02T20:03:39","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T20:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/the-first-amendment-free-speech-and-freedom-of-speech\/"},"modified":"2023-06-02T20:04:28","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T20:04:28","slug":"the-first-amendment-free-speech-and-freedom-of-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/the-first-amendment-free-speech-and-freedom-of-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Amendment: Free Speech and Freedom of Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Video<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The First Amendment: Free Speech and Freedom of the Press (Sam)\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mvD_CZssdhY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Written Component<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the constitution, the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights protects Americans freedom of speech. When the Bill of Rights was written in 1789, the American colonies had recently revolted against British rule. Previously, the British Monarchy had controlled the press and saying bad things about the British crown was a crime one that could be punished by imprisonment or death. However, in writing the Constitution, and adapting it with the Bill of Rights, the founding fathers attempted to enshrine important ideals of democracy \u2014 that people should be free to say what they wish and the press should be able to criticize public officials \u2014 with the First Amendment. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is important to note that this does not apply to private companies, employers, or landowners. While the amendment refers only that Congress may not restrict freedom of speech, the Supreme Court has ruled that this applies to the entire Federal government. Moreover, in the case of Gitlow v. New York (1925) the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment also restricts the power of states and local governments. The protections of the First Amendment are not unilateral, however, and there are a few hotly debated exceptions of when free speech is, or is not, protected. Government officials, for example public school teachers, can be punished for certain kinds of speech not endorsed by the government. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Filters not based on the content of a message but rather can be based on some other quality such as noise or other kinds of disruption are sometimes not restricted, like in the case of Turner Broadcasting Inc. v. FCC (1994) but this is on a varying case by case basis. Finally, the Supreme Court has ruled that the government can restrict \u201clow\u201d speech. Defamation, threats, obscenities, and misleading advertising all constitute \u201clow\u201d speech that the government regulates. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Supreme Court is extremely loath to use \u201clow\u201d speech. For example, the 1978 case of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">was one of the most controversial decisions in the history of the United States Supreme Court, wherein the judges defended the freedom of a neo-Nazi group that aimed to demonstrate in Skokie, Illinois. The NSPA argued that the Illinois Supreme Court violated the free speech clause of the First Amendment by restricting their right to protest. Today, the First Amendment is still a matter of hot debate. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An example of an important issue regarding the modern day application of the First Amendment arises from campaign donations in politics. The Supreme Court has held that political contributions are \u201cspeech\u201d and are thus protected by the First Amendment. That said, the Supreme Court has ruled the government is allowed to regulate contributions if there is a risk of undue influence in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and in McConnell v. The Federal Election Commission (2003) the Court ruled that the government could regulate corporation\u2019s spending on political expenditure. All in all, these issues of free speech and the questions of what kinds of expression the government should, and should not, restrict extend into the present day and can have serious ramifications on everyday life, elections, and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the constitution, the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights protects Americans freedom of speech. When the Bill of Rights was written in 1789, the American colonies had recently revolted against British rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4634,"featured_media":524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,177,147,151,175,239,241,146,604,680,240,19,678,679],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amendment","tag-and","tag-first","tag-first-amendment","tag-free","tag-freedom","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-of","tag-sam","tag-sam-worthington","tag-speech","tag-the","tag-the-first-amendment-free-speech-and-freedom-of-speech","tag-worthington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4634"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}