Jon Lovett The Culture Of Shut Up Analysis

In the article “The Culture of Shut Up,” author Jon Lovett ponders the current state of public dialogue in the age of the Internet. Lovett is a Los Angeles based writer and a former speech writer for President Barack Obama (13). The author suggests that the internet, which provides for exceptional access to diverse public speech, will inevitably include speech that is offensive. Lovett’s opinion is that people must resist the urge to punish such speech, if people want to allow a range of voices to be heard and makes his argument majorly effective by using humor and providing popular examples of where people have been told “to shut up”.
The writer opinion is that protecting freedom of speech is now up to people of the Internet age. As institutional gatekeepers lose their power to control information, it becomes easier for self- appointed individual gatekeepers to step in. The common result is barbarous accusations and calls for an apology in response to online content. The authors
The Internet provides a growing platform for inaccurate, untrue and questionable information. On the upside, the miracle of Internet connectivity speeds peoples access to the information, knowledge and insights that contribute to humanities social and intellectual evolution. It also helps sweep aside information gatekeepers in positions of power whose “arrogant . . . unimaginative and shortsighted” approach to information has traditionally promoted their own interests and attitudes toward control (Lovett 16). Lovett states that “the right to free speech begins and ends with the First Amendment, but there is a vast middle where our freedom of speech is protected by our capacity to listen and accept that people disagree” (18). The First Amendment’s protections have always put a great deal of responsibility in the hands of the people and now they have more of that power