by Roger Crain

Created on: September 21, 2010   Last Updated: May 04, 2012

The basics concerning your right to freedom of speech are contingent upon these important factors:  Your right to privacy shall not be infringed upon as long as you don't disseminate information that  is of an offensive or pornographic nature to a third party.

For example, assessing lewd or pornographic images on websites as long as you are in the privacy of your own  home or apartment is your right in accordance to the freedom of speech provision of the first amendment.  However, if you habitually disseminate such information to a person who has become offended or  to a minor, then you not only forfeit your right to free speech, but you become a violator of the privacy rights of the person you have offended and you liabled yourself to swift and immediate prosecution.

Additionally, the privacy rights of the individual is gold; or, you can look at it this way:  "One man's rights end where another man's (rights) begins."  That is, when you have violated the privacy rights of the person's you have offended, your freedom of speech rights will come to an unequivocal and abrupt end; and thus, subject you to prosecution by a court of law.

Also, there is an implied message inherent in this violation of the offended person's privacy rights; that message, of course, warrants media control - how much control do you want to exert over the internet or how much control do you, the user, have?  In explaining that answer, it's important to look at the internet as a big book.  To control the internet all it takes for the print media and its sisters online publications is to keep supplying quality content to it via those websites.  That way, your privacy rights will remain intact, and you won't worry whether you're in blatant violation of a person's right to privacy.

Finally, understanding the basics of your right to freedom of speech is in knowing how varied a role censorship has taken in American society.  From the earliest days of the American Republic, certain information have been kept from the public eye in lieu of offending or perjurious information.  Furthermore, the banning of books that have been classed as "obscene" is further proof as to how freedom of speech works against such factors.  Freedom of speech is what give the pornographer the right to publish what he does.

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