What happened to free speech?

Free speech involves civilised manner of humanity & not directly or indirectly abusing someone's mother, father, sister & any loved one or open character assassination out of imagination at the name of joking, fun or otherwise without any responsibility. Everyone has some private matters, one's own asset or property related accounts, trade secrets & similar matters , not involving any crime at all , if disclosed, can create heavy losses & prestige. Freedom of speech doesn't mean deliberately talking those things in public akin to openly insulting cannot be accepted. People should be respected that is needed. Freedom doesn't mean hitting below the belt & searching other's weaknesses. People must be reconciliatory & not confrontationalist. End result must be solution of problems & not messing up.

It sounds like you do not understand what 'free speech' means.

Free speech means that you have the right to speak however you want in public places.

However - free speech does not mean that you can say anything you want on private property. Yahoo owns the computers that these messages are posted and have the same property rights as anybody else.

Just as you can throw somebody out of your house for saying things you do not agree with - Yahoo can throw you off their servers for violating their guidelines.

Free speech is one thing but what most reports come from readers are for those who give insults or hateful opinions with no consideration or respect to others. Give no respect and one will get the same in return. Give intelligent and reasonable questions looking for facts or honest opinions for answers then a person should not have any issues. Give out hateful comments and only desire similar opinions then the report bug may visit.

If you actually read the bill of rights you will see that the freedom of speech is there to protect you from the government. In other words you can't be punished for disagreeing with the policies of the government and voicing your disagreement.

The community guidelines and Y/A standards are very clear; obviously, I do not know what comments of yours were deleted (question or answer) but some of the rants posing as questions and answers that I see on here are absolutely slanderous.

A rule of thumb that I was taught many years ago in school (when education was actually practiced) was "your rights end where my nose begins".

"Free Speech" means you won't be jailed for expressing your opinion, so long as it doesn't do harm (the classic example is shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, sparking a panic in which people are injured).

Yahoo is under no obligation, especially on a free service, to provide a pulpit for other people's speech. I certainly don't agree with all of Yahoo's decisions regarding what stays and what goes... but it's their dime, so they get to set the rules.

"Free speech" is in the round file along with $2.00 a gallon gasoline and Internet Ethics.

Welcome to life. Freedom is Speech is only what the liberals want it to be. Look around, double standards are EVERYWHERE! It sickens me.