Freedom of Speech

Machiavelli once said in his writings on how principalities should be ruled that you should let the people speak but not act. So in the end of the day you don’t see harm you are still in charge, and the people say what they want to say. However this doesn’t work that well. Lets give an example why. Think of a movie theatre, filled with people and one man has an idea of a funny joke. He shouts out that there is a bomb. What do you think will happen? People are going to be running towards the doors. The high probability is that a lot of people are going to get trampled, and people will be hurt or will die even though there was no bomb going off. Moreover the next time the same phrase is said people will pay much less attention to it, regardless of who said it. So what is the better approach here? Letting the man exercise his freedom of speech however wrong it is, or taking matters into our own hands and not letting that man shout out preventing people from dying, and even if there is a bomb telling it to people in a controlled manner not letting the situation get chaotic. Which brings us to the question why is freedom of speech prevented in the first place. It is because the authority wants to maintain control. If freedom of speech is not controlled it is likely that ultimately it will be used in such a way that will create chaos. Whıch ıs something that the authority does not want. So on this point we see that freedom of speech has two sides the authority and the people. The authority wants to keep freedom of speech limited for the benefit of maintaining control. The people however have multiple sides. First there is a group of people who don’t know whether or not they actually have free speech but are mad when they are acknowledged that it is being taken away from them. Secondly a group that is constantly in demand of it. Lastly a group of people that will ultimately misuse this freedom and damage society. In all these different cases should the authority be limiting free speech on a case by case basis? No, that would be an inefficient spending of resources . So what should the authority do limit it completely, not limit it at all, partially limit it? Well we can’t find every single person who has a motive for shouting out there’s a bomb in the room. But we can’t punish everybody buy limiting their freedom because of others. In the end of the day ultimately what happens is partially limiting everybody so that we have at least some sort of small guarantee. But until those who misuse freedom of speech are stopped this is one of the best solutions possible.