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Journal of Free Speech Law: "Intimate Privacy's Protection Enables Free Speech," by Prof. Danielle Keats Citron (Virginia)
Just published, at 2 Journal of Free Speech Law 3 (2022), as part of the "Non-Governmental Restrictions on Free Speech" symposium; the Abstract:
The protection of intimate privacy isn't at odds with free expression. At times, we prioritize one value over the other, but, more often, intimate privacy is an essential precondition for self-expression. Intimate privacy allows us to experiment with ideas, identities, and love. It secures space for us to figure out who we are and who we want to become. It frees us to forge close relationships. Intimate privacy enables us to trust others with our innermost thoughts, feelings, and past experiences so that we can come to know them, and they can come to know us. Mutual self-revelation is at the heart of love. The fight for intimate privacy is the fight for free speech.
This short essay highlights intimate privacy's significance for free speech. I explore how intimate privacy violations undermine the ability to engage in self-expression and to forge close relationships. I end with a high-level overview of empirical studies that I have been conducting with Jonathon Penney and Alexis Shore. Our preliminary findings suggest that the protection of intimate privacy—both in law and in the policies of social media platforms—inculcates trust necessary for victims to speak.
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This is the ONE reason why I could support something legally identical to gay marriage (as long as it wasn’t called “marriage”).
There is a need for intimate privacy and Western culture has long respected it — perhaps too much at times (e.g. domestic violence being a family matte) but there absolutely is a need for it to be respected.
The other issue is the question of if society consists of families with the FAMILY UNIT then relating to the government, or if society consists of individuals with each individual relating to the government, independent of whatever family arrangement exists.
This is why women initially couldn’t vote — the FAMILY cast one vote, and voting in town meetings was (and still is) public. So the husband cast the vote, and even if she wasn’t sitting next to him at the time, the wife was told how her husband voted. (The women would gather and decide how their husbands would vote, and usually they did.)