American Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences ISSN (E): 2832-8019 Volume 7, | Dec., 2022 P a g e | 39 www.americanjournal.org PROSPECTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE DIGITAL SPACE Oripov Hasan Abdivakhobovich Samarkand State University A B S T R A C T K E Y W O R D S The article examines the importance of digital technologies in the development of freedom of speech, the role of the digital revolution in the cultural life of a democratic society, and also analyzes the importance of freedom of speech in society. Freedom of speech, democracy, society, digital space, technology, culture. INTRODUCTION The Internet and digital technologies help people to look at freedom of speech from a different perspective. This is not because digital technologies radically change the idea of what freedom of speech is [1]. Rather, because digital technologies contribute to changing the social conditions in which people express their opinions, their positions on some specific issue that is important for development along the democratic path. As a result of changes in the social conditions for the implementation of speech, they reveal features of freedom of speech that have always existed in the background, but now have become in the foreground, have acquired a clearer expression [2,3]. The digital revolution presents freedom of speech in a new light, as before that the development of radio and television broadcasting technologies made fundamental changes in society. The digital revolution brings the features of the free expression system to the fore, reminding of the freedom of speech that has always been, but has now become more important and, therefore, more relevant to the political issues that citizens are currently facing [4]. LITERATURE REVIEW The digital revolution makes possible a wider participation of the population (especially those citizens who live in remote and hard-to-reach areas) in the cultural life of a democratic society, strengthens its democratization and interaction of various groups of civil society, which previously could not exist and implement its functions and tasks on a similar scale. At the same time, digitalization creates new opportunities for limiting and controlling the form of cultural participation and interaction [5]. Consequently, the digitalization of the democratic space forms a new, unique set of social conflicts over property rights, which relate to the right to distribute and access information, to control it. Based on this, the principle of freedom of speech is at the center of these conflicts [6]. The goal of freedom of speech is to promote a democratic culture. Democratic culture is more than representative institutions of democracy and discussion of public issues [7]. American Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences Volume 7, Dec., 2022 P a g e | 40 www.americanjournal.org The definition of the concept "democratic culture with freedom of speech" established by us is important – it is a culture in which people have a fair opportunity to participate in various forms of self-expression. This means that they function as full-fledged individuals [8]. Democratic culture within the framework of considering individual freedom of the individual, citizen, as well as within the framework of collective self–government in a democratic society is the ability of each person to participate in the production and distribution of cultural values, to have unlimited access to them (including historical archival materials). This makes it possible to increase the value of the values of freedom and individual rights, contributes to the expansion and strengthening of democratic foundations in social development [9]. Freedom of speech allows ordinary people – ordinary citizens to freely participate in the dissemination of ideas and in the creation of meanings, which, in turn, help them in their development as individuals, contributing to the awareness of true existential values and cognitive apparatus that promotes conscious development. Democratic culture is democratic in the sense that everyone — not only political, economic or cultural elites — have an equal chance to participate in the production of cultural products in the digital environment and in the development of ideas and meanings that make up them and the democratic communities and subcommunities to which they belong. People have a voice in the development of these ideas and meanings, because they are able to participate in their creation, growth and dissemination. Like democracy itself, democratic political culture exists in different societies to varying degrees. It is also an ideal that a democratic society can strive for. Freedom of speech protects people's ability to participate in the culture in which they live and promotes the development of culture in the digital political space. This is more democratic and is based on the personal participation of citizens, their unlimited involvement in the processes of self- government by the state at various hierarchical levels [10]. Freedom of speech in the digital space in the implementation of political culture is also interactive and appropriative. Interactivity is present because we are talking about speakers and listeners, who, in turn, exchange these roles when implementing the functions of political culture in the digital space. Speech is carried out between people or groups of people; individual speech acts are part of a larger continuous cycle, which is continuously expanding due to the peculiarities of digital technologies [11]. People participate in culture by interacting with others, influencing and influencing them through communication. This is obvious in the case when speech is aimed at persuasion, but it is true for any speech. Even when listeners don't like what others are saying, they are often influenced by it, since the information component has already been reflected. A person's familiarity with the content of speech, attempts to understand it, to convey it to understanding, constantly changes people, contributing to the development of society in the direction of democratization. The continuous participation of citizens in cultural communication, their consent and reaction to what is happening in society, assimilation and rejection of what the outdated format of political culture offers, modifies people, fills their existence with new, deeper meanings, humanizing them. Freedom of speech is largely appropriated because it relies on existing cultural resources; it is based on cultural materials that are already available. Dissenters rely on what they don't like to criticize it; artists, artists, writers, other representatives of creative professions borrow ideas, ways of implementation from previous examples of created works of art, and are based on artistic conventions; even casual conversation relies on common themes and expressions. American Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences Volume 7, Dec., 2022 P a g e | 41 www.americanjournal.org People participate in culture by relying on what they find in culture and innovating with it, modifying and converting it for their own purposes. Freedom of speech is an opportunity to do this. In a democratic culture, people are free to appropriate cultural elements that are at hand, criticize them, rely on them and create something new that will be added to culture and its resources. The idea of democratic culture reflects the inner duality of freedom of speech: although freedom of speech is deeply individual, it is at the same time deeply collective, because it is deeply cultural. Freedom of speech, according to Thomas Emerson, is a system. It is a cultural system similar to the political system. It is a network of people interacting with others, agreeing and disagreeing, criticizing and analyzing, imitating and inventing, supporting and praising. People exercise their freedom by participating in this system: they participate by interacting with others and creating new meanings and new ideas from existing ones. Even when people repeat what others have said, their repetition often carries with it a change in meaning or context. How people express themselves, compose music, create works of art, sing, they constantly add something to the cultural mix in which they live. They change, albeit imperceptibly, cultural conventions about what implies what is right and wrong, what is important and what is less important, how something is done and how it is not done. Through communicative interaction, through expression, through exchange, individuals become the architects of their culture, relying on what others have done before and shaping the world that will shape them and those who will follow them. And through this practice of interaction and appropriation, they enjoy their freedom [12]. CONCLUSION Thus, the protection of freedom of speech in the digital age will require a new class of cyber lawyers who understand the impact of technological design values of freedom of speech and can help shape regulatory solutions that promote technology, which in turn will help protect the values of free expression [13]. Freedom of speech is both individual and cultural. It is the ability to participate in a permanent system of creating culture through various methods and technologies of expression that exist at any given time. Freedom of speech is valuable because it protects important aspects of our ability to participate in the system of cultural creation. References: 1. Castells, Manuel and Pekka Himanen (Eds.) (2014). Reconceptualizing Development in the Global Information Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2. 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