Study On The Freedom Of Internet Speech And Its Limitations

Freedom of speech as one of the basic rights of citizens has been studied by numerous thinkers in the era of the Enlightenment from 17 century to 18 century. Those thinkers have elaborated on the connotation and significance of the freedom of the speech, which has gradually become one of the citizens’basic rights. Besides, every country has also strengthened the protection of the freedom of speech in the judicial practice. With the rapid development of science and technology, there emerges a new propagation medium—retwork, which have broken the monopoly of traditional media in the freedom of speech and provided an unprecedented freer and broader platform for citizens’personal viewpoints concerning public affairs or expressed in the public places. However, although the network has brought more vitality for citizens to speak freely, the network’s anonymity, rapidity and convenience features result in a common phenomenon of the abuse of freedom of speech. Therefore, it’s urgent necessary for scholars to research the reasonable limitations of the freedom of internet speech.From the domestic and abroad legislative researches, it’s common to see that all countries have taken measures to limit the administration and regulations concerning the freedom of the internet speech. The common law countries mostly take a legislative model of industry self-regulation, with little administration and intervention of the government, such as the British industry self-regulation under the guidance of government. Compared to the common law countries, civil law countries has taken a more strict administration on the network speech and mostly take a specific legislative model on the compulsory administration, such as the specific legislative law about the freedom of the Internet speech in Germany and South Korea. In addition, the responsibility regulations of publisher and information communicators in German and the real-name registration system in South Korea also provide a model for our country.Although the networks’interactivity, immediacy and rapidity features have broaden the channels of the freedom of speech, and, to some extent, have promoted democratic legalization process, just as a saying goes, "every coin has two sides", these features have brought a common phenomenon about spreading bad information and malicious rumors, slandering other people, and violating the public rights, which have become increasingly prominent in recent years, such as the "Qin huohuo Case", "Zhang jiachuan Case", " The first Microblogging Case", etc. These cases reflect the fact that improper practice of the free internet speech will harm the rights of other people and the public interest, which deepen the conflict between the freedom of internet speech and the individual rights, or the public interest. Therefore, the reasonable limitations of freedom of internet speech, and effective supervision over freedom of speech are the good measures to protect freedom of internet speech and to guarantee a harmonious internet environment.Because freedom of speech concerns each individual’s interest, the limitation of the freedom of internet speech can prevent the abuse of rights, and protect the rights enforcement. In order to curb the abuse of freedom of internet speech, on the one hand, it is necessary to strengthen self-discipline and moral guidance; strengthen the moral and legal publicity, which enhances citizens’ability to discriminate between right and wrong information on the network; and to make use of technical measures to filter the bad information on the network in order to create a healthy network environment; On the other hand, it is necessary to improve the legislation of the network speech freedom, defines its principles and consequences of the damage benchmarks, clears responsibilities, specifies the punitive measures, discriminates between good negligence and malicious spreading, makes difference between minors and adults remarks regulatory boundaries, develops a legal regulation system about tempering justice with mercy、proper supervision、 combination of the teaching and punishment, which promotes remarks expressed orderly and the healthy development of the industry.The exercise of any rights has limitations, which is also applied to the freedom of internet speech. Under the background of the internet age, the limitation of the freedom of expression, not only protects the real freedom of speech under the constitution, but also emancipates the public from prisoner-like state, which develops the people to be rational, and makes them to express their views freely, with respecting other people’s rights, the society’s orders and the society’s good morals.