freedom of expression social responsibility

I feel that Singapore should strike a balance between freedom of expression and social responsibility.

If freedom of expression is practiced without exercising social responsibility, then certain religions and cultures might be offended by others’ views and this could lead to unhappiness which may even escalate to riots. Take for example the Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad. Suppose that Singapore had published these insulting cartoons in her newspapers. I can bet that there would be mass protests and anger from the Muslim community here. There could even have been large scale fighting. That is why it was smart and responsible of Singapore to withhold publications of the pictures and only report the occurrences in Denmark that upset Muslims worldwide. In this way, the press reports the events and this ensures that freedom of speech is preserved and also, social responsibility is upheld when what is reported is checked to ensure that it is not offensive to anyone. Essentially, social responsibility and freedom of expression come hand in hand in order to protect democracy and at the same time avoid inciting the hate of people.

There would be a dilemma from people who hold extreme and far fetched views like the Holocaust did not happen. In this case, in order to uphold social responsibility, their views cannot be published at all but this would then constitute no freedom of expression. In this case, the only solution would be to hold private discussions in order to convince these people that the views they hold are wrong and to set their thinking right. This action happened a few years ago in Singapore too. Remember the group of teenagers who attended a camp and exalted Adolf Hitler by saying he was cool and saluting each other with the Nazi salute? Singapore chose to deal with this by not publishing their views that Hitler was a great guy that deserved recognition and respect. Instead, all the teenagers were taught of the atrocities that Hitler and the Nazis committed and they have since regretted their previous actions and no longer hold Hitler in such a high status. So, sometimes social responsibility can be upheld without totally obliterating freedom of expression. These far fetched views can be changed through counseling so that the person holds the correct views and in this case freedom of expression is not harmed.