Are There Limits to Free Speech?

618 Words3 Pages
Are there limits to free speech? By creating WikiLeaks, did Julian Assange do something good or bad? TOK Essay Luisa Mandacaru As it can be seen in the title, this essay is about free speech and its limits. Using the duty-based theories as well as consequentialism and real life examples the essay will be developed with the means to reaching a conclusion. As we all know, in all countries where democracy is present, citizens have the right of free speech, where authorities do not censor words and ideas and everyone has the right of expression. In theory there are no limits, but in practice there are. Do you know the case of Julian Assange? Well, Julian Assange is now in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, as responsible founder of the WikiLeaks (a website based on “…the defense of freedom of speech…”). This case is perfect for this question because Julian is being victimized by publicly sharing what he knows, about the privacy of civilians. If the theory of free speech was applied, then, civilians would have their privacy and the right to interact and speak about any topic with any given opinion, and no such thing as spying personal conversations would ever had happened. And even if they did happen, Julian Assange would be more than in his right to publically express his knowledge of the issue. As the journalist Oliver Stone wrote, “Julian Assange did much for free speech and is now being victimized by the abusers of that concept.” Looking at the case study above in the perspective of Julian Assange, he created that website so that everybody else would gain knowledge of what was happening inside secret agencies, government... What he did can be justified using the Kantian duty-based theories, where he did what he thought everybody had the right to know, his intention was to aware; he was altruistic in the sense that what he did was fully for the benefit of
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