We should respect and protect people more than the abstract idea of free speech. “Cyberbullying and online harassment have been growing rapidly in the United States which have caused the rapid increase in suicide rates”, reported by Cyberbullying Research Center . Offensive online content should not be an issue because it is a situation that should not even exist, so before the problem of online harassment grows it should be stopped and we should protect the people being affected from the online discourse. We should respect and protect people being bullied because by allowing bullying to happen, we are promoting it. People need to think of the next generation and realize the example being set in front of them. The culture that people live in now is setting the wrong example of of the use of the internet and it is making the next generation more vulnerable to public shaming. Pao and Lewinsky take the approach of fixing the problem of online harassment instead of tolerating it. Pao uses facts from Pew Research to show a statistic on online bullying. Pew Research stated that, “Fully 40 percent of online users have experienced bullying, harassment and intimidation” (Pao). Online bullying and harassment can lead to mental health issues and suicide. Teenage suicide due to cyberbullying is the number three killer of teens in the US and a total of 4,600 people commit suicide each …show more content…
Lovett mentions the First Amendment regarding freedom of speech in his article, “The First Amendment protections have always put a great deal of responsibility in our hands: not only to respect the power of our own speech, but also respect that same power in the hands of the people we despise” (33). Lovett means that everyone has the right to freedom of speech no matter what they are saying and protecting people affected by online harassment and getting rid of it, invades the First Amendment rights. Tolerance is an important essential everyone should have. Being attacked online could certainly build tolerance in people but the problem is no one knows how much tolerance someone could handle until they hit their breaking point. Building tolerance can make people tougher and builds how sensitive one can become. Even though Lovett’s belief of tolerating online offensive language is valid, it overall fails to be convincing because people are still being affected negatively by online harassment and it is a negative outcome overall. The problem of online public shaming will not be fixed by tolerating the situation because people will not get the message that online humiliation is wrong. With protecting the people being affected by online public shaming, it will send a clear message to the online attackers that they will not