Eight Values of Free Expression

 I have never heard of the eight values of free expression before research. However, these are all the ideas of our fundamental freedom of speech and are important whether we realize it or not. This textbook titled, "Free Speech on Campus", states an amazing reason why free speech is important with this quote, "First, freedom of speech is essential to freedom of thought because a person cannot develop an independent point of view about the world unless he or she is exposed to different ideas about what is important and what beliefs are most meaningful, and is permitted to converse with others about their experiences or thoughts. " 

Here are the eight values of free expression:

1. Marketplace of Ideas
2. Participation in Self-Government
3. Stable Change
4.  Individual Self-Fulfillment
5. Check on Governmental Power
6. Promote Tolerance 
7. Promote Innovation
8. Protect Dissent 

My thoughts

After reading and learning more about each value and the importance behind each one, I found a few that I felt resonated with me personally. The first one is "individual self-fulfillment". This value can be understood when looking at C. Edwin Baker. This value is the idea that free speech allows everyone to express themselves and their identity. I grew up as a very creative individual, and the thought that I could not have the freedom to express myself scares me. The second value I felt close to is "promote innovation". This one relates closely to the one I just mentioned, "individual self-fulfillment". This value shares how communities can promote their citizens to be creative and find interesting and new ideas. I feel like these are so important when looking at the growth of a nation. Without creativity or allowing people to make new inventions, ideas, etc., a society will never grow or learn. 

As a society today I feel you see each and every value used to some of its fullest potentials. Whether it is protesting, making a post on TikTok, or creating clubs at schools. We see individuals using their freedoms every day. Some of the values that I feel we see most today have to be individual self-fulfillment, checking on government power, and protecting dissent. We already discussed what individual self-fulfillment is, but when looking at our society and how we use it it is so important. Social media and technology have become huge in our society and I feel their purpose and use will only grow. Online people can express themselves, their ideas, their thoughts and opinion, news, and more. It is incredible to think how it has changed. Checking on the government is something you can see daily at this point. When before it wasn't seen as much. Checking on the government is exactly how it sounds when citizens use their freedom of speech to check in and express their thoughts to the government. Again, you see this in a lot of social media platforms. Lastly, protecting dissent is protecting the idea that no matter how weird or unpopular someone's opinion may be, they are still allowed to share it and have the right to disagree with the government. 

Why should we be worried?

Twitter. After Elon Musk bought out Twitter we discovered some dark truth behind censorship. This article written by Jon Hersey explains how Twitter has been working with the government to censor certain journalists and political members, but then exposing others more. We should care about this as the government is disregarding our freedom of speech and all of the values I just shared with you are at risk because of this. As I said before, social media is going to only grow, and knowing that the government can be working with CEOs of social media platforms to silence certain individuals is scary. We should be calling the government out on its actions and sharing this information with everyone. Let us protect our freedom of speech and its values as well.