| 1 |
Who is censoring or punishing your speech? |
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It's the government. |
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I don't think it's the government. |
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| 2 |
Are you sure your speech isn't being censored or punished by a government actor? Public school officials are considered government actors. So are courts, law enforcement officials, public housing authorities, and government-created corporations like Amtrak. |
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Now that I think about it, it's the government! |
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It's really not the government. |
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| 3 |
Your speech is not protected by the First Amendment, since the First Amendment only limits government actors, not private actors. However, there may be other sources of law, such as contract law, tort law, or employment law, that would allow you to seek relief in court. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act makes it illegal for employers (private or public) to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. It also makes it illegal for an employer to retaliate against someone because they complained about discrimination. So if you were fired by your private employer for, say, mentioning your religion, or reporting that you experienced racial discrimination, you may have a legal claim. It just wouldn't be a First Amendment claim. To learn more about your First Amendment rights, check out our First Amdendment FAQs |
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| 4 |
What did you say (or write, or post, or publish)? |
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Something threatening. |
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Slander or libel. |
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Something that led to lawless disorder. |
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I convinced someone to commit a crime. |
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Viscious insults. |
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I lied under oath. |
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I blackmailed someone. |
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Something obscene. |
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Child pornography. |
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I copied someone else's work. |
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None of the above. |
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| 5 |
Was it a <em>true threat</em>--a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence? Or were you just exaggerating? True threats are not protected by the First Amendment, but the legal definition of what constitutes a true threat is somewhat unclear. The Supreme Court has said that a statement can be a true threat even if the speaker had no intent of actually carrying out the threat, what matters is that the speaker intended to place his victim in <em>fear</em>, of bodily harm or death. So is a threat a <em>true threat</em> if the speaker subjectively intended to intimidate or threaten the recipient? Or is it a true threat if the recipient of the threat reasonably believed it was a threat? Different courts have different ways of approaching this assessment so the answer to this question might depend on where you are. |
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Alright, I made a true threat. |
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I was just exaggerating! |
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| 6 |
Slander and libel are both types of defamation--false statements that harm anotherâs reputation. Libel generally refers to something you wrote, while slander refers to something you said. Who did you defame? |
http://www.newseuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/media.jpg |
A public figure, like a politician or celebrity. |
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A private figure. |
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| 7 |
Are you sure it was obscene? Depictions of nudity, and many depictions of sex, do not qualify as obscene. The actual legal definition of obscenity follows these guidelines set up by the Supreme Court: <ul><li> Would the average person, applying contemporary community standards, find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest (meaning a morbid, degrading and unhealthy interest in sex),</li><li>Does the work depict or describe, in a clearly offensive way, an act of sexual conduct?,</li><li>Does the work, taken as whole, lack any serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value?</li></ul>Based on the legal definition of obscenity, did you say something obscene? |
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Yes. |
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No. |
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| 8 |
The First Amendment does not protect speech that leads to imminent lawless action. This kind of speech has to be directed towards a specific person or group, it has to be a direct call to commit <em>immediate</em>, lawless action, and there must be an expectation that the speech will in fact lead to lawless action. But if your statement was more generalized (i.e., 'people should rise up one of these days'), it would not fall into this category of speech. Based on this definition, did you say something that incited imminent lawless action? |
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Yes. |
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No. |
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| 9 |
Hate speech is speech that offends or attacks people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, disease, or other traits. The First Ammendment offers fairly broad protection to offensive, repugnant and hateful speech. Regulations against hate speech imposed by a government actor (like a public university) are often found unconstitutional when they are challenged in court. There are some exceptions to the First Amendment's protection of hateful speech. If the hate speech is seriously threatening or would lead to imminent lawleses disorder, it will not be protected. The First Amendment also does not protect 'fighting words.' These are words 'that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.' This is a very narrow definition. Words that cause offense or emotional pain are <em>not</em>, fighting words. They have to do more than that in order to fall into this unprotected category of speech. Since 1942, Court hasn't found the 'fighting words' doctrine applicable in any of the hate speech cases that have come before it. Did your hateful speech incite an immediate breach of the peace? |
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Yes. |
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No. |
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| 10 |
Child pornography is not protected by the First Amendment.To learn more about your First Amendment rights, check out our First Amdendment FAQs. |
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| 11 |
Blackmail attempts are not protected by the First Amendment. To learn more about your First Amendment rights, check out our First Amdendment FAQs. |
http://www.newseuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/law-speech.jpg |
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| 12 |
Solicitations to commit crimes are not protected by the First Amendment. To learn more about your First Amendment rights, check out our First Amdendment FAQs. |
http://www.newseuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/law-speech.jpg |
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Perjury is not protected by the First Amendment. To learn more about your First Amendment rights, check out our First Amdendment FAQs. |
http://www.newseuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/law-speech.jpg |
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| 14 |
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Your speech may be protected by the First Amendment. |
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| 15 |
Your speech may be protected by the First Amendment. But wait! Are you a government employee, and is your speech being censored or punished by your employer? |
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Are you a government employee, and is your speech being censored or punished by your employer? |
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Are you a public school student, and is your speech being censored or punished by your school? |
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Are you in prison? |
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I am not any of these things. |
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| 16 |
That can be a complicated situation. But essentially, if youâre a government employee, and your speech is related to your official duties, then the government can discipline you for your speech just as any employer can. But if you were speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern, your speech is protected by the First Amendment. Were you speaking pursuant to your official duties? |
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Yes. |
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No. |
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Public school students do not lose their constitutional rights when they walk through the schoolhouse doors. But two legal principles limit their rights. First, minors do not possess the same level of constitutional rights as adults. Second, the government generally has greater power to dictate policy when it acts in certain capacities, such as educator, employer or jailer. A school's interest in educating students in a safe environment can sometimes outweigh freedom of speech. Did you say something at school or at a school-sponsored activity that substantially disrupted the school environment or invaded the rights of others? |
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I did. |
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I did not. |
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I did, but I wasn't at school! |
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| 18 |
Congratulations! Your speech is protected by the First Amendment. (But remember that this game is for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're planning on filing a lawsuit against the government actor that censored or punished your speech, please contact an attorney in your area).To learn more about your First Amendment rights, check out our First Amdendment FAQs. |
http://www.newseuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/freedom.jpg |
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You've indicated that you were speaking as a private citizen, not as an employee. Were you speaking on a matter of public concern? |
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Yes, it was a matter of public concern. |
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Not really. |
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Does your interest in commenting on this matter of public concern outweigh your employer's interest in regulating your speech? |
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Absolutely. |
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Probably not. |
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| 21 |
Sorry. The First Amendment does not protect your speech. To learn more about your First Amendment rights, check out our First Amdendment FAQs. |
http://www.newseuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/no-speech.jpg |
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| 22 |
Was what you said a substantial factor in whatever penalty (termination, suspension, etc.) you received from your employer? |
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I believe that it was. |
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To be honest, it was probably more because I was a terrible employee. |
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Unless your employer can prove that they would have taken the same action against you if you hadn't spoken, your speech is protected by the First Amendment. Congratulations!(But remember that this game is for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're planning on filing a lawsuit against the government actor that censored or punished your speech, please contact an attorney in your area). To learn more about your First Amendment rights, check out our First Amdendment FAQs. |
http://www.newseuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/freedom.jpg |
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Whether your school can punish you for speech you made off-campus (such as something posted to Facebook) is a complicated and unsettled legal question. The Second, Seventh, and Eighth Circuits have found that schools can punish off-campus speech if it was 'reasonably foreseeable' that the speech in question would reach the school community. Similarly, the Fourth Circuit has found that a school can sanction your off-campus speach if there is a 'sufficient nexus' between the speech and the school. For example, when a student created a website ridiculing other students, the Fourth Circuit concluded that she knew that a negative dialogue would take place that would disrupt the school. Other Circuits haven't established clear guidelines for when schools can discipline off-campus speech. You can use the cases and articles linked here as a jumping off point for your own research.To learn more about your First Amendment rights, check out our First Amdendment FAQs. |
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If you said or published something false that harmed the reputation of a <em>public</em> figure (such as a politician, celebrity, or business leader), they will have to prove that you acted with actual malice (meaning that you knew the statement was false, or you acted with a reckless disregard for the truth) in order to succeed in a lawsuit against you. |
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I said something false, and I knew it was false, or at the very least recklessly disregarded the truth. |
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I said something false, but I didn't mean to, and wasn't trying to recklessly disregard the truth. |
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I told the truth! |
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If you said something false and harmed the reputation of a <em>private</em> figure, that person will have to prove that you acted negligently in order to succeed in their lawsuit. That means that they will need to establish that you acted with negligence when making your statement (meaning that you didn't take reasonable care to find out the truth, i.e. you didn't do your research or fact-check). |
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I said something false and acted negligently. |
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I said something false but I wasn't negligent--I did my homework! |
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I told the truth! |
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Prisoners do not have the same level of rights as normal citizens. The Supreme Court established that when a prison regulation infringes on an inmate's First Amendment rights, it's constitutional as long as the regulation is reasonably related to a legitimate and neutral interest of the prison. In deciding this, the court will consider:<ul style='color:white'><li>Whether the regulation is applied in a neutral manner, without regard to the content of the expression,</li><li>Whether the regulation leaves open alternative ways to express yourself,</li><li>Whether accomodating your free speech rights would negatively impact other inmates, guards, and the prison's resources,</li><li>And whether there is an alternative to the regulation that would not restict your rights as much. (The existence of easy alternatives can show that the regulation was an âexaggerated responseâ to prison concerns.</li></ul>For more information about prisoners' First Amendment rights, the Jailhouse Lawyer's Handbook is an invaluable resource. |
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Copyright law creates property rights for the creators of certain works. If you copied another person's writing, speech, art, music, or choreography without permission, that person can sue you for 'trespassing' on their property. (And then the court, a government actor, can order you to stop your copyright infringement and impose financial penalties on you.) Copyright law limits free expression in order to give people an incentive to create more expressions. If you could freely copy someone else's work without paying for it, there would be no incentive for anyone to create new material. Why take the time to create a product if you will receive no reward? However, overly rigid copyright laws would reduce the public's access to information. Copyright law attempts to resolve this tension by distinguishing between <em>expression</em> and <em>ideas</em>. Copyright law does not protect the ideas, facts, methods of operation or scientific principles contained in an author's expression. This information is considered public. However, it does protect the author's particular way of expressing ideas and facts. Additionally, copyright law has an exception for 'fair use' of someone else's expression. Courts weigh four factors when they're determining whether your copying of someone else's work to create your own work was 'fair use.' First, they look at the purpose of the work you created. If the new work was created to make a profit, that generally leans against a finding of fair use. However, just because your work has a commercial purpose does not mean that the work is not protected by fair use. Parodies are a good example. Many parodies have been accorded a fair-use privilege even though they were created for commercial profit. Second, they consider the 'nature of the copyrighted work.' Generally, works of fiction tend to receive more protection under this factor than works of nonfiction. Third, they ask how much your new work takes from the copyrighted material. Usually the more material taken, the less likelihood that the copying is considered âfair use.â Finally, the courts will ask whether your new work has harmed the commercial value of the copyrighted expression. |
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I copied someone else's ideas and facts, but not their expression. |
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I copied someone else's expression, but I think it would fall under the 'fair use' exception. |
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I copied someone else's expression, and to be honest, I don't think it was 'fair use.' |
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