Right of free speech

[Viveka]

This may be of use in exploring the topic, especially of Right Speech as the Buddha taught, versus free speech.

Right speech and free speech: Prof Leslie Green at U Chicago Law School

Indu & Gamini from Indonesia kindly shared this with me today. It addresses an issue of urgent contemporary importance, the relation between free speech and right speech. On the speaker: The description on Youtube: Freedom of speech protects speech that is, for example, offensive. But having the right to offend does not give anyone a reason to offend others. How we should speak is a matter for the norms that govern speaking, not the norms that govern responses to speaking. It is a matter …

This issue has been discussed many times on the forum. There are many good threads about it if you do a search. Here are a couple more

Suttas about right speech and listening

Dear Sister and Brothers in the Dhamma, I was wondering if somebody can suggest some suttas that confirms that we should not indulge in listening to speech that is wrong or divisive and not just avoid using wrong speech. Thanks for your help. Thanks

On moderation and right speech

In response to @Mkoll, I’ll say a few words about moderation, and invite our moderators to input if they like. When I was first thinking about setting up this forum, I knew that moderation would be key. Discourse was specifically developed as a platform to encourage constructive dialogue, using design features learned from previous generations of forums. But there is only so much that can be done at a technical level. We need to take personal responsibility for what happens under our roof. For…