The limits of free speech-If any.

[GoreBag]

I don't think free speech should have limits. I also don't think child porn is speech and its proponents should cease hiding behind the moniker. Porn's porn's porn.

[TinCow]

People should be free from governmental regulation of their statements and expressions in public places unless it endangers personal safety or national security under a strict-scrutiny style evaluation.

Otherwise, if you don't like it, don't listen.

Slander, libel, etc. aren't limitations on free speech. They are simply ramifications if you use your right to cause various harms. A limitation would be something forbidden by law.

[Kanamori]

Are there any systematic ways you decide when the ramifications accomplish a limitation?

[TinCow]

Are there any systematic ways you decide when the ramifications accomplish a limitation?

Sure, when it's criminalized.

Freedom of Speech only applies to governmental interference. That's why these forums can be moderated and Stalinized as much as the admins want without fear of legal action. The government has certain limitations placed upon it that determine when it can interefere in the public's right to free speech. Those limitations are extremely strict and generally only apply to national security and obscenity (which is different from indecency in the legal world).

Everything beyond that is regulated by the civil courts, which have no relation to criminal activity. In those courts you pay when you unfairly screw up other peoples' lives and society decides you owe them. That's a big difference from a limitation on speech.

For the government, they don't care if anyone actually WAS hurt. If you said it, you're guilty. In the civil system, generally you can say what you want, you just have to pay if you injure some and lose in court. Many of us commit slander on a regular basis, but since no one decides to sue us for it we don't even notice.