Our View: Online speech is still free speech

Everybody gets sick and tried some time or other about the vulgar, negative tone of people who post things on Facebook.

It's depressing sometimes to see the negative attitude of some of the people who post comments on havredailynews.com, though most of the comments are interesting, intriguing and challenging. It's almost like you have to take the bad with the good.

There seems to be a high level of distrust by some Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation residents of the powers-that-be. That's to be expected. The last chair of the tribal council was sentenced to federal prison for embezzling tribal funds.

But from our experience, many of the reservation's elected leaders are hard-working, honest people trying to help reservation residents who have been the victim of every imaginable kind of discrimination.

We wish the level of civility were higher.

Just the same, we can't imagine a worse idea than the one proposed by tribal council member Stacey Small last week.

People who post false, harmful or threatening messages on social media could be charged, fine or even jailed.

Tribal Chairman Bruce Sunchild Sr. predicted that lawyers will find the proposal in violation of the First Amendment. We hope he's right.

The best solution to coarse speech is civil speech.

If people are spreading false rumors, the best response is facts.

Sometimes people feel that when people spread false rumors, the best thing is to deny the rumor mongers the decency of a response.

Wrong.

People should be encouraged to defend themselves and their views.

That is a far more successful retort than an effort to silence the critics.

Gagging people who hate only begets more hate.

Efforts to squelch speech will only bring more attention to the speaker.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Weak arguments will fall of their own weight.