The Chilling Effect

 The “Chilling Effect”

Overview 

This “chilling effect” is a concept used to censor publishers. The direct definition of the chilling effect defined by thefire.org is “The chilling effect refers to a phenomenon where individuals or groups refrain from engaging in expression for fear of running afoul of a law or regulation. Chilling effects generally occur when a law is either too broad or too vague. Individuals steer far clear from the reaches of the law for fear of retaliation, prosecution, or punitive governmental action.” Many vague laws will use the chilling effect because people are unsure of where their speech will cross a line. This does fall under a huge misconception about the chilling effect, though. It is not used in all vague laws, just select ones to ensure that the first amendment is not being broken. This effect often leads to court cases due to the matter of people not fully understanding what they can say or how much, which we will dive into a bit deeper later in this post. 

The chilling effect began in the mid 1900’s by Shauer. Shauer believed that the “chilling” was due to imperfections in the law. The way that this plays out is that people have a fear of their words being punished, though they should not legally be punished for their words under the first amendment freedom of speech. 

Overbreadth Doctrine

When speaking on the chilling effect, it is not often spoken about without its sister term “overbreadth doctrine”. The overbreadth doctrine is when "a law, regulation, or set of rules made by the government is too vague”, or overbroad. Typically, when the overbreadth doctrine is in use it is no accident. It’s usually for indirect emphasis on a topic.

In addition, it's another way that the government can practice censorship when they are unable to do anything else while also impacting protected and unprotected speech. This meaning, the “line” to be crossed with a person's freedom of speech can be difficult to depict when the broadness is a factor. Having broadness is a loophole many people attempt to use but the government still finds their own ways to stop this from being used considering they, like the chilling effect, have no way to monitor without breaking a person's freedom of speech. 

Court Cases Using the Chilling Effect

There are several cases where the chilling effect was put into place in court. The first of many important cases is the Weiman vs. Updegraff case. This was a case where voices were fighting against teachers having their own free/ fun speech in the classroom. This was something heavily fought because the only reason some students do enjoy school is because of the personality the teachers will bring to education. Without that, students are left with boring lectures about topics they have no interest in. 

Another case was the Reno vs. ACLU case. This took place in 1996-1997 and it was ruled that “the communications decency act was an unconstitutional restriction on free speech”. This was a huge issue considering there was a danger in censoring “the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed”. 

Conclusion

Learning about the chilling effect and how it impacts the government in a not-so-beneficial way is an intriguing approach to take when learning about freedom of speech. There are not many places in the law where the government does not have full control of all situations, but this is a gray area for them which will make society wonder if this is something that should be taken advantage of more in times of need or whether this should be abolished due to the danger of certain people getting away with the things they say.