Eight Values of Free Expression

Eight Values of Free Expression 

The Eight Values of Free Expression are important to having the freedom to express your opinion. One of the eight free expressions that resonated with me the most was promote tolerance. Promote tolerance resonates with me the most because we see it a lot nowadays on the internet and social media where people get into trouble for hate speech. For example, in the NBA this season, Kyrie Irving got in a heap of trouble for sharing anti-semitic material on Twitter. Irving then was suspended by the NBA and the Brooklyn Nets for five games and he couldn't return unless he met six conditions. The conditions included, apologizing and condemning the film he promoted, make a 500,000 donation anti-hate causes, complete sensitivity training, meet with Jewish leaders, and meeting with the owner of the team to get a better understanding of everything. Irving not only was not allowed to play NBA games unless the conditions were met, but he he also lost his endorsement deal with Nike from the event. 

Although I believe that promoting tolerance is an important value of expression, I also believe that the individual self fulfillment is just as important. Individual self fulfillment is important because it helps people to create their own identity and just be themselves instead of conforming to other beliefs and opinions. I believe in people having their own views and opinions and not being condemned for having those certain views or beliefs. Anymore there is way too much hate over people with different beliefs and too many people trying to make others conform their views to their own viewpoint. Individual self-fulfillment is a crucial thing that I feel like has almost went away from this generation. It seems like people can be afraid to believe in what they actually believe because they don't want to be different or of opposing opinion. 

Promote tolerance is one of the values I see commonly in everyday life. In this generation, social media is a platform used by a lot of people, but there can be forms of punishment, if you say something harmful or use hate speech towards someone. Over social media it becomes evident that people say anything because they're behind a screen and feel like they won't get punished, but they're wrong. Typically, now people can face  punishments for words said online, which will hopefully lead to them not using hate speech again. Promoting tolerance can also be used in other ways as well. For instance, you can see people on TV shows get "cancelled" for comments or get talked about in a negative way on social media. Promoting tolerance is important for people to learn what's right and what's wrong. Even though we have the right to freedom of speech, there's just certain things that you should avoid saying or there will be a form of punishment. These punishments are enforced to show people what is acceptable behavior and what isn't. If the behavior is unacceptable, then there will be some sort of penalty or punishment.