Freedom of Speech

Ever heard of freedom of speech? A lot of people use it to defend the fact that they're spreading negative and offensive opinions. Let's say someone comes up to you and says, "I don't like you", to which you'd probably say, "That's not nice...". Then they could say, "Freedom of speech! I can say whatever I want!"

So what is freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech does mean that the government can't imprison you for voicing your opinion.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that other people can't tell you what you're saying is hurtful.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that there are no consequences to what you say.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you can say whatever you want about anything.

You're allowed to think whatever you want, and you're allowed to say whatever you want, but other people can call you out on it. Next time you want to voice your opinion, ask yourself why you need to. Is it going to help anyone, or just bring them down?

(I won't lie, this post was mostly brought on by negative comments I've been seeing in many Star Blog posts. You don't have to like every post, but if you don't have constructive criticism, keep it to yourself. Being negative isn't helping anyone, and many Starbloggers are young and still learning. If you think you can do a good job on the Star Blog, start your own blog; please don't hate on ours.)