Eight Vales of Free Expression

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
― John F. Kennedy

I found the lecture on the Eight Values of Free Expression especially interesting. Because you can apply it to so many past and modern-day political and societal events domestically and internationally, the value that particularly resonated with me is The Marketplace of Ideas.

The marketplace of ideas is the value that all opinions should be able to be shared. This idea is beneficial because that means that even the bad ideas must be shared, thus bringing out the truth. The bad ideas will make the good ideas stronger. People have the right to voice their opinion and not be silenced by the government; it is not up to the government to decide which view is better or worse. It is up to the people. 

United States Citizens must advocate for their right to be heard. In our ever-increasing digital age, the prevalence of censorship can often be overlooked by the general public. Allowing the free flow of ideas from all outlooks is beneficial to every party to ensure comprehensive understanding and let everyone's voice be heard. This can help prevent the herd mentality plaguing our country with single-stream misinformation. If this type of censorship continues, the distrust civilians have in the United States government will only strengthen. This censorship was alarmingly apparent when media outlets began to investigate and report on the Hunter Biden scandals that were censored and covered up by Twitter in late 2022. 

As Elon Musk took over Twitter, making striking corporation-wide shifts almost immediately upon taking control of the company. One of Musk's most controversial actions was releasing Twitter files on political events that the corporation had otherwise covered up. Twitter released information on Hunter Biden to the public at this time. On December 2nd, 2022, Titter shared internal documents with Matt Taibbi, showing glaring violations of the first amendment. These documents had information about the Democratic National Convention working directly with Twitter to delete and censor accounts and posts that shared negative information about the Biden campaign. These records included instructions from the DNC on what needed to be removed from Twitter. 

This information that was released also contained information about Hunter Biden's laptop. It highlighted the Biden family's scheme with China and Ukraine that ultimately made the family millions of dollars. It has also been revealed that there were members of congress involved with the censorship scandals. This is in complete violation of the Bill of Rights, because no government official can rig the election or censor information from the public. Had this information not been censored, it could have dramatically altered the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. This is just one case of the government partnering with private companies to block information from the general public. It is alarmingly prevalent with the topics of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict as well. It is our right as American citizens to allow free flowing ideas; thus allowing the people to decide which view is correct, without interference from the government.