Yaswanth Kumar Rayapati

Right to Free Speech

September 22, 2025

After Charlie Kirk's murder, there have been a lot of discussions happening around FREEDOM OF SPEECH. These discussions have involved AG Pam Bondi's rhetoric against hate speech and the Left's rhetoric regarding the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel's show. I will try to unpack all of these in this blog.

Charlie Kirk was an admirer of free speech. Some people loved him and some people hated him. If you actually watched his videos, he never came across as harmful. The main reason behind his rise to fame was his events on college campuses across the United States, where he'd openly debate with students on a multitude of topics: pro-choice vs. pro-life, gun rights, the right to free speech, the Islamization of the West, gender fluidity, H1B visas, etc. Like everyone, he was entitled to his own opinion, and he respected others’ entitlement to have their own opinions as well.

BUT WAS HIS SPEECH HATE SPEECH? Sure, free speech is not absolute. Both the First Amendment in the US and Article 19(1)(A) in India include reasonable restrictions on free speech. These restrictions are limited to cases where someone is threatening another person or inciting violence against them. If I say, “I don’t believe in the ideology you believe in,” that’s not a violent threat. The concept of HATE SPEECH has been used to slit the throat of FREE SPEECH for a while now. People have been canceled because they don’t subscribe to the idea of gender fluidity. People have been canceled because they said they don’t want trans women to enter women’s washrooms. People have been canceled because they said they don’t like trans women participating in women’s sports. If someone is exercising their RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH, they should be allowed to do so as long as they are not inciting violence. Democratic ideals across the world depend on the RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. Charlie never incited violence against anyone. He always talked to everyone with love. He had his right to free speech. And of course, his speech was not hate speech. The concept of HATE SPEECH is bullshit.

AG Pam Bondi, in a recent interview about Charlie Kirk, said there should be restrictions against HATE SPEECH. This is not the way to honor a martyr. Charlie Kirk, when he was alive, had tweeted: “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.” And that’s what keeps democratic ideals running, my friends. As expected, AG Bondi faced backlash for what she said.

And coming to the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel’s show - there are two stories circulating. Some say the show was canceled by ABC and some say it was canceled by the FCC. Sure, his speech about Charlie Kirk’s death was ugly. But he has his own opinion, and there’s nothing legally wrong with that. If the FCC weighed in on this and got the show canceled, I think they were wrong in doing so. But if ABC canceled the show for whatever reason, I am no one to comment on it - it’s his employer, and they can do whatever they want internally. The plummeting viewership numbers (which are public now) could have been a reason too, while the ugly speech became a catalyst for canceling the show.

To summarize: there’s free speech, there’s ugly speech, there’s weird speech. All of it is protected by democratic ideals. There’s no legal standing to cancel free speech. Only when someone incites violence do governments have the legal standing to act against them. Let’s protect free speech, because it’s the foundation on which our democratic rights rest.

PS: A lot of people might question my blog citing Charlie’s views against Indian H1Bs. Charlie was entitled to his own opinions against H1Bs. His POV came from being an American watching Americans lose jobs to Indians. I assume he was worried about the low-wage working class of America being replaced by the low-wage working class of India, not the high-skilled working class. Nevertheless, I have my own views, and he had his own views - and we are both entitled to them.