Saturday, 6 November 2010

Freedom of speech vs ethics

In this country, we enjoy the rights of freedom of speech. So if someone researches something surely they have the right to then publish their findings? but the Question i want to pose is where is the line between breaching ethics and freedom of speech?

Ross

11 comments:

  1. "According to the Freedom Forum Organization, legal systems, and society at large, recognize limits on the freedom of speech, particularly when freedom of speech conflicts with other values or rights. Limitations to freedom of speech may follow the "harm principle" or the "offense principle", for example in the case of pornography or hate speech. Limitations to freedom of speech may occur through legal sanction or social disapprobation, or both." (Wikipedia, 2010)

    The quote might be from Wikipedia, not always the most reliable of sources, but in this case i think they have a valid/true point. We have a freedom of speech to a point, this point is when we start to cross the line of personal rights and legal rights. We have the right to say anything that we want but many ethics are against us publishing information that is going to harm or change the life of someone that has said the information.

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  2. follow up with the daily mail, look at the cristiano ronaldo case from printing lie's about his private life. how can an editor allow that to be published??

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  3. They can get it published as its just gossip, its not information. Well its not the same type of information that you will be collecting if you go through and make questionnaires ect

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  4. but yet they openly admit it as a total lie? how is that ethical?

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  5. Its not ethical in the sense of being ethical, but it does not break the ethical conduct as its not research undertaken

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  6. Many of the publishers are clearly publishing information for pure entertainment for their readers so as long as the information is not personal I don't think ethical standards are being breached.

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  7. "There are also laws within publishing that state that whatever you publish has to be based on fact and cannot solely be the opinion of the researcher." Brought up in Jamie's Topic about laws and regulations, clearly shows why newspapers can state and print basically what they wish about people... THE INFORMATION IS NOT FACT, even if it ends up being true

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  8. yet how is this allowed even if it is harmfull to the subject, hence people suing for damages?

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  9. The reason why its allowed I have no idea and would take some researching into why people can publish general what they want

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  10. I personally feel that if worded correctly so that it will offend as few people as possible then pretty much anything can be published. You can not stop people saying what they feel, but the publishers should control the manner in which certain work is written. If it is written in a way which offends it should not be published.

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  11. I think Dean has hit the nail on the head with

    " if worded correctly so that it will offend as few people as possible then pretty much anything can be published "

    Freedom of speech means you can say anything you like (within reason) so you can't stop people from publishing work, but they will try to do it in away that does not hurt or target a large group of people

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