Is free speech important?

It is one of the most important aspects of our society; without it, good ideas may be suppressed and bad ideas may not be discredited.

lol snowflake

According to whom? I assume you mean anybody that disagrees with you. The echo chamber is bad enough without having it legally mandated according to whoever is in power.

To some extent, but mainly no.

Because of free speech, people are led to believe there are more than 2 genders.

And society accepted it

Of course it is. Free speech is one the most important freedoms in Western society.

'Offence' should not be a reason to restrict speech. Firstly, it's highly subjective. Secondly, nothing really happens to a person when they're offended. If something offends you, how you deal with that and how it affects you is your decision. You can either ignore it, cry about it, or say something back.

The only speech that should see any restriction and legal consequences would be things like libel and contempt. Lying, essentially. It's okay to espouse an opinion or joke, even if it offends, but lies can result in people losing money, jobs, or even being imprisoned.

That and credible threats/harassment. Just saying "Die b**ch!" as a random troll on the internet isn't really something that needs to be taken seriously. Just block/ban where appropriate.' But when things start getting real and credible, that's when Johnny Law should step in.

What's the difference between offence and libel? At what point is targeted offence and systematic rhetoric just "offence" and not libel?

And ironically lying is exactly what Brexiters and Trump did...

yes, free speech is arguably even more important than democracy itself in my opinion, because free speech *precedes* democracy. democray cannot function without it and free speech has advanced our civilisation more than democracy in my opinion. science, academics, technology, etc, could not develop without it, and religion's power over the state could not be weakened without it either.

I don't care how offensive somebody's mere words are
so long as they are not undermining my liberty and security, I don't give a crap
they could be a KKK, nazi, racist, communist, fascist, radical feminist etc for all I cared - I *don't* care.
so long as nobody is being threatened or directly harmed altogether, free speech is a good value
and free speech, on that basis, should NEVER be limited
to limit speech via law is the same as using violence to stop non-violence which is disgraceful
use words to combat words, not fists against words.
if you need violence and law to defend yourself and your reputation, you don't deserve a reputation in the first place

"Yudothis has a 1tb External HDD filled with kiddy porn"

The first could be considered slander and thus wouldn't necessarily be protected under free speech. This is an area I would say might justify some form of legal action depending on the situation. You can't just spread lies about people to hurt their careers and reputation.

Would be a difficult one. For a start, it depends what legal system you're talking about. In English law, the burden of proof for defamation is effectively on the defendant - all the claimant has to prove is that the speech in question is indeed defamatory. In most other countries, the claimant has to prove that the speech in question is both defamatory and false.

But more significantly for a case on something as abstract and even subjective as racism, a defendant wouldn't necessarily have to demonstrate that their statement was true, merely that it was justified. Which makes it pretty likely that as long as the defendant had some sort of coherent argument defending their position, that courts would likely see it as an opinion and find in their favour.

In other words, it's pretty hard to win defamation suit against someone calling you racist just because you object to the reasoning used to come to that conclusion. You'd only really have a shot if the statement had been based on particular evidence which could be shown to be at fault (and that the defendant ought to have known that). For instance, Frankie Boyle won a libel suit against the Mirror for calling him racist, on the basis that they'd presented some of his jokes clearly intended to parody racism as if they were sincere.

Yes, defamation can be a tricky one. But I for one would still like to see the media held more accountable for what they say about people.

This is why I've come to take things like libel so seriously. I've seen just how bad it can get and the damage it can do. Lies and misinformation spread around the web like a disease. An innocent person can become a villain in the eyes of the public overnight just because journalists, for example, would rather defame or spread innuendo and hearsay rather than report carefully and accurately.

Very well said. Freedom Of Speech is far more important than Democracy. If Democracy is lost it can be regained with the freedom to express it in words. On a personal a level, it's important for me to believe my freedom of speech was not granted to me by any government action. It's a " constituent part ", of my humanity.

You wrote," To limit free speech via law is the same as using violence to stop non-violence which is disgraceful." Excellent!

Free speech means that people can call you racist because of wanting to talk about immigration.

Free speech means people can express their support for the IRA or Hezbollah.

Free speech means people can make jokes on facebook about British soldiers being killed and say they deserve it.

Free speech means people can say that infidels should be beheaded and Israel should be wiped off the map.

Is free speech important?