The First Amendment Becker, P. J., Byers, B., & Jipson, A. (2000). The contentious american debate: The first amendment and internet-based hate speech. International Review of Law, Computers & Technology, 14(1), 33-41. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/213408025?accountid=34899 In this essay it discussed the debate over what constituted hate speech and whether or not such speech is protected by the American First Amendment. The article talks about the unique speech used on the internet and the attempts to limit or censor topics available on the internet. This paper discussed these First Amendment issues as they apply to racialist and hate speech on the internet. Hate speech used to be limited to flyers, newsprint, posters, leaflets, pamphlets, books, but with growth of the Internet, tens of millions of people have access hate speech messages every day. According to the Supreme Court First the First Amendment itself did not force us to do anything about hate speech, but the Amendment came to protect hate speech because we choose to interpret it that way. This article described hate speech as; speech that inflicts emotional damage and contains inflammatory comments meant to arouse other individuals to cause severe social dislocation and damage. The problem with trying to stop hate speech on the internet is that people may still be able to access information that is illegal in their country, from a web site hosted in other countries. Since the First Amendment forbids the U.S Government from restricting speech on the internet service providers have the right to ban certain WebPages that has hate speech on them. The article boiled down to the First Amendment covers the freedom of hate speech on the internet.
Jennifer, J. H. (2007). Defending the first: Commentary on first amendment issues and Cases/Speech rights in america: The first amendment, democracy and the media. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 62(2), 222-225. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/215287196?accountid=34899 This article talks about books that go over some of the Court cases over the past years that deal with the First Amendment in the media. Two of the biggest arguments that set the stage for First Amendment cases were the cross-burning cases R.A.V. v. St. Paul and Virginia v. Black as well as the KKK case Brandenburg v. Ohio. Some of the people the writer talks about also thinks that most legal scholars consider Tinker to be the landmark case, when in fact decisions regarding student rights in public schools had been decided long before then, beginning with the Jehovah's Witnesses' cases. The article argues that the First Amendment has failed to protect the rights of individuals in favor of media corporations. For example, the writer says that "Democratic communication requires that citizens possess the resources and means to exercise their speech rights in the actual media"(Jennifer Jacobs Henderson, 2007). But in all reality the way that traditional media forms such as TV and the daily newspaper are losing audiences at a very quick pace. It seems that the new "actual media" are the multitude of digital media expressed through the Internet, to which more individuals have access than ever before. The media landscape is not changing. It has already changed and will continue to change. She says that the Internet has already shown the promise of promoting citizen participation in the First Amendment.
Spotzer, I., & Walker, A. (2002). First amendment rights: Freedom to speak; freedom not to speak. Managerial Law, 44(5), 3-12. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/196367260?accountid=34899 In this article the writers talk about The First Amendment protecting the right to freedom of speech and how this protection has been