Has freedom of speech gone too far?

Question

Why is it that people use this site for sexual comments? Am I the only one that feels this is inappropriate behaviour when there are MILLIONS of sites that are made for that? Why this one? I can't even let my kids use this site anymore!

Answer 1

I absolutely do believe freedom of speech has gone to far. I stumbled across this website when I was on the Yahoo website so I registered because I needed to ask a question, but I'm 15 and I saw the other questions, it was totally repulsing and stupid. I use better grammar than some of the adults. Anyhow, I believe you can have freedom of speech with restrictions. People say anything they do is protected by freedom. Well no, you have limitations on what you can and can't do and can and can't say. If you said, "I hate this country _____" on national television, there would probably be severe consequences with your actions. I used to report people, but it seems like it's too much of a hassle and even the threatening answers never get deleted by Yahoo when I report them. There could be a Yahoo Answers for ages 10 and under, 11 - 15, 16 - 21, 22 - 37, 38 - 53, and 54 and over. You need to break it up because some content is just way too inappropriate. God bless you.

Answer 2

absolutely. I have a 16 year old son and I monitor everything he does on line. I fear he will be on this, so far so good. People don't care what they say or what kind of pics they use. One girl is standing there in a bra and panties, yeah I don't need any more problems with this type of stuff, teens go through enough as it is. Why can't people just be clean, try to help where they can and have fun and not at the expense of poor children? What is this world coming too?

Some of these answers are garbage. It is not being a prude and why subject children to more of this. They will learn and probably already have, they see some of this stuff and it is ok. We wonder why teenage pregnancy is so high, UHM I wonder. People need to get a life and use sites that are made for their trash.


dp

Answer 3

Well, this has nothing to do with freedom of speech as it is defined in the First Amendment.

The first amendment says, "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."

Basically, as far as speech goes, the *government* cannot limit your expression of opinions. The company Yahoo! is, of course, not the government, and if Yahoo! so chooses, could prohibit users from posting sexual material, without any legal ramifications.

The Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines in fact state, "YOU MAY NOT POST CONTENT (or links to content, including photos):
...
5. that contains profane, obscene, vulgar or sexually explicit language."

If you see such content you can report the asker by using the "Report Abuse" link. Of course, there is way too much sexual material and it is not practical to try and report every single instance.

Also, in my opinion, there are valid sexual questions to be asked, and hopefully they are appropriately categorized. I don't know if Yahoo! takes the age of a user into account when picking from which categories it will show recent questions on the first page, but maybe it should.

All the same, this actually has nothing to do with freedom of speech. In my opinion, freedom of speech, again, the guarantee that the *government* cannot limit our expression, can never go too far.

Answer 4

No, freedom of speech hasn't gone too far. What's happened is that morality, decency and consideration have been chucked out the window. As far as Yahoo is concerned, they should be making more of an effort to enforce the posting guidelines. I, too, get disgusted at some of the questions on here. I don't let my kids use the computer except for schoolwork.

Answer 5

I have to agree with all of the above, freedom of speech cannot go to far. What everyone seems to forget is that neither can good manners. I do not consider my freedom of speech compromised when I suit my language and my topics to the place and company. There are plenty of places on Yahoo for adults to talk about, search for and indulge in sex and sex talk. An answer board especially one NOT given to sex is not the place for sexually explicit talk. This is not a hard concept. Everyone here expects their colleagues at work to control their language - and do not look on this expectation as an infringement of their first amendment rights. Good manners do not "control" free speech, they keep us from unintentionally hurting the people around us.

Answer 6

I agree with you. It's not really that the freedom of speech has gone too far though. It's more that Yahoo! needs to monitor what's being posted here better. I for one, get annoyed also, when I go into the Food & Drink category and find a question from someone asking about "How do I..." and then it turns out to be about sex when you open it. And even worse... is when they turn out to be 13!!!

Answer 7

Has freedom of speech gone too far?? Stupid Question. How about I ask you this. Has your right to the pursuit of happiness gone too far? I mean you do things in your pursuit of happiness that I would probably think inappropriate. No, it hasn't gone too far. Keep your kids off of the site then. That's would be your responsibiliy as a parent

Answer 8

its nice to know u got kids. freedom of speech can never go too far, tis just that we have to be reasonable about what we say in relation to the next man or woman.

Answer 9

Yes. The Bill of Rights was written to limit the federal government, not to give people unlimited freedom. Despite what people think, freedom of speech should have limitations. If it didn't, any action could be justified by it making nothing illegal and destroying law itself.

For example:

Many people believe that the freedom of speech includes the freedom to express yourself, and in a sense it does. You have the freedom to express yourself in the manner of Speech, words, and writing, not by what you watch, buy, wear, do, experience, feel, etc. If it included those terms and many others that have been instituted by federal courts across the nation, then if it was my desire to express myself through the avenue of murder what would make that wrong? Laws? Has not the Constitution overrid many laws?

Also, let's say I wanted to express myself by purchasing full automatic weapons with armor piercing rounds. What would make that wrong? I want to express myself by shooting guns, and only guns that are full atuomatic and ultra-high velocity.

The list could go on and on, but last example. What if I wanted to express myself by killing myself? And yet we try to prevent suicides. But I want to express myself and the freedom of speech says that I can. No! that is ludicrous.

The freedom of speech does not give you the right to express yourself in any way other than speech or words. It has limitations. The Constitution was not written to say what the government and people couldn't do, but what they could. And we can express ourselves, according to the freedom of speech, through speech and words. The other freedoms are the same way. If we do not limit them somewhere, anything is possible.

We must go back and look at the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the Constinution. It is not to be interreprated in any other way other than that.

Now that we have established that the freedom of speech DOES have limitations, then let us look how those limitations could apply to speech and words.

For example:

If I had the freedom of speech to say or express whatever I wanted in speech and words, then I could go into a school to pick up a child, and on my way in, just start dropping the F bomb as many times as I wanted. If they try to stop me, then I just say, "Excuse me! I have the freedom of speech under the first amendment." That is asinine! If you believe that freedom of speech can't be censored, then you are crazy out of your mind.

Example 2:

What if I was a newspaper journalist, and I wanted to show my complete hatred of Bush. My newspaper is a newspaper of great influence across the nation and is sold in many public places, and I hope to motivate people to hatte Bush as well. So I write an article which is just one big paragraph of me cussing out Bush in as many ways as I can. And I title the article "F*** BUSH" in big, capital letters. I put the article on the front page and then sell in many public places across the nation where many, many people can see it, including children. Now no one has to buy my newspaper, but they still see that horribly vulgar phrase on the front.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH HAS LIMITATIONS. If you still don't believe so you are obstinate, fatuous fool!

As for what people do on this site, Yahoo has to be the one to govern that. Read the Answers Rules of Conduct, and see if it has anything to say about rude comments that you have seen. And Yahoo can't catch everything on their own, so report abuse where necessary. The internet these days is getting worse and worse, and until we find a reasonable solution, I suggest that you continue to limit your kid's time on the web.

Best of luck to you!

Answer 10

No limit to freedom of speech.
But here is a good question, why should what your kids see, restrict my ability to express my self. Why should your kids inhibit my freedoms?
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