Remember the maxim: The answer to free speech we find unpleasant, bad speech, is always more speech.
The AP reports that a 21-year-old Russian “developer of a school-shooting video game is vowing to continue selling it online as parents of slain children and other mass shooting victims work to get the game wiped off the internet.”
“Active Shooter” is the game which is said to be a SWAT simulator and “lets players choose between being an active shooter terrorizing a school or the SWAT team responding to the shooting. Players can choose a gun, grenade or knife, and civilian and police death totals are shown on the screen,” according to the AP report.
The young Muscovite developer said on Twitter that his firm will not be censored and cited rights to free expression – rights that are protected here not in his Russian homeland.
Don’t run to government for action because you ultimately lose your rights to your expression the more such is done.
The tastelessness of people cannot and should not be regulated but that doesn’t mean that our right to free expression should be dormant in the face of bad speech or objectionable expression. It is not wrong to condemn and shame pornography and those who make and use it, it is simply speech, or expression opposite.
The same with this game, cop-killer rap lyrics, and so much more. If we are to counter such it will be through exercising the same right to speech and expression but doing so with more and louder voices in an open society.
Don’t run to government for action because you ultimately lose your rights to your expression the more such is done.
“Active Shooter” video game and the tastelessness of people
The AP reports that a 21-year-old Russian “developer of a school-shooting video game is vowing to continue selling it online as parents of slain children and other mass shooting victims work to get the game wiped off the internet.”
“Active Shooter” is the game which is said to be a SWAT simulator and “lets players choose between being an active shooter terrorizing a school or the SWAT team responding to the shooting. Players can choose a gun, grenade or knife, and civilian and police death totals are shown on the screen,” according to the AP report.
The young Muscovite developer said on Twitter that his firm will not be censored and cited rights to free expression – rights that are protected here not in his Russian homeland.
Don’t run to government for action because you ultimately lose your rights to your expression the more such is done.
The tastelessness of people cannot and should not be regulated but that doesn’t mean that our right to free expression should be dormant in the face of bad speech or objectionable expression. It is not wrong to condemn and shame pornography and those who make and use it, it is simply speech, or expression opposite.
The same with this game, cop-killer rap lyrics, and so much more. If we are to counter such it will be through exercising the same right to speech and expression but doing so with more and louder voices in an open society.
Don’t run to government for action because you ultimately lose your rights to your expression the more such is done.