freedom of speech

Freedom of speech secures an important place in democracy. Everyone has the right to speak, express ideas and beliefs. But speech has never been free absolutely. It is limited when it conflicts with the values and rights. It is meaningless to speak on the things that do not have relevant evidences or can’t be justified. There are laws against the offensive speech. Freedom of speech also referred as the freedom of expressions is the right to put forth the ideas, beliefs or expressions until it doesn’t harass anyone. Freedom of speech is the key tool of media ad there are various laws to protect the freedom of press. This freedom is sometimes misused. An anonymous media known as Wikileaks has been accused of releasing irrelevant and incorrect information. Such information sometimes proves devastating to people, organizations or countries.
These days Media is using the freedom of speech as a weapon. Instead of providing the right information to the public media is exploiting its right of freedom of speech. In this time freedom of speech seems to be considered as freedom to offend people. Media is directly attached to general public. People tend to believe on anything they watch in TV or newspapers. This thing proves dangerous, because media shows us the things they want us to see. Literary Mark Twain once said, “There are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press” (Noble, 2011). It means the media does not always play a positive role, sometimes public has to suffer because of media. News media is the vital part of the society so it should provide the correct information to the public following the right of freedom of speech.
Wikileaks is an anonymous media originated in 2006. It has disclosed some documents which are found to be false. Being a faceless media it can’t be sued into court for its false information and there can’t be a debate with Wikileaks people regarding their fallacies. A media should have identity so that for any false information its journalists can be held responsible. They must have put their professions, reputations and whole career on the stake for the originality of the information they published. From Julian Assange’s comment it is clear that Wikileaks thinks itself doing the journalism (Noble, 2011). But the work of Wikileaks is antithetical. Their releases have affected the world economy and international diplomacy. Wikileaks has been unable to provide sufficient evidences about the publications it has made. “Collateral murder” video of wikileaks made a shockwave throughout the world (July 2007). There is the assassination of the Iraqis ad Reuter reporters shown in this video. Some people has doubted the authenticity of this video and called it a modified video. Apart from this Wikileaks has released some documents that have been inappropriate but dangerous for various people, relationships and countries. Its anonymity saves it from confrontation and takes away the right of the person facing the consequences, to challenge it.
Public believes what it see. Whatever is broadcasted on television, radio or printed in newspapers, people tend to believe it, because general public does not care about the evidences. They totally rely on the news media for information. They have blind faith on news media. This is where the power of media is misused. Firms like Wikileaks take advantage of this thing and make false publications without having sufficient evidences. This ruins the delicate image of people. These firms exploit the freedom of speech. Where media has faces it has restrictions. Censor board is the barrier for unauthentic news and publications. Internet has wide approach and it is good to reach people anywhere in the world. Wikileaks takes advantage of internet. Being faceless it is unrestricted and far away from the approach of censor board.
News media has both the negative and positive sides. Somewhere it fights for the truth and rights of public and sometimes hides the facts by exploiting their rights. It is all about the use of freedom of speech. I think the media should not be faceless. It should be transparent and be able to hold responsible for any irrelevant broadcasting or publication. If media can be held accountable people has the chance to have dialogues with the respective publisher where they can argue and present their explanations. Wikileaks should stop its antithetical practices and publishing the content without sufficient evidences.

References
Nobel, J. (2011). Wikileaks, canadia media and democaracy. (pp. 666- 672). Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd.
Keyes, C. (2010, 12 08). Wikileaks has damaged operations. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/07/wikileaks.damage/