The Moral Discourse of Free Speech: A Virtual Ethnographic Study

Freedom of speech has long been considered an essential value in democracies. However, its boundaries concerning hate speech continue to be contested across many social and political spheres, including governments, social media websites, and university campuses. Despite the recent growth of so-called free speech communities online and offline, little empirical research has examined how individuals embedded in these communities make moral sense of free speech and its limits. Examining these perspectives is important for understanding the growing involvement and polarization around this issue. Using a digital ethnographic approach, I address this gap by analyzing discussions in a rapidly growing online forum dedicated to free speech (r/FreeSpeech subreddit). I find that most users on the forum understand free speech in an absolutist sense (i.e., it should be free from legal, institutional, material, and even social censorship or consequences), but that users differ in their arguments and justifications concerning hate speech. Some downplay the harms of hate speech, while others acknowledge its harms but either focus on its epistemic subjectivity or on the moral threats of censorship and authoritarianism. Further, the forum appears to have become more polarized and right-wing-dominated over time, rife with ideological tensions between members and between moderators and members. Overall, this study highlights the variation in free speech discourse within online spaces and calls for further research on free speech that focuses on first-hand perspectives.