On the morning of Sunday, July 2nd, Donald Trump tweeted a doctored video of him wrestling WWE CEO Vince McMahon, with McMahon's face replaced with the CNN logo. This video was not originally from Donald Trump or any of his staff, but from a 15 year old reddit user (u/HanAssholeSolo), whose sole intent in making the video was satire and did not advocate for violence against journalists from any company. CNN, however, took this GIF to not be a funny meme but rather to be hate speech against their reporters. They took time to discover the identity of this redditor, and threatened him with the information they found. If he did not apologize and remove all of his posts, "CNN reserve[d] the right to publish his identity."

While Han's post was free speech, and did not incite any violence or harm towards any American, CNN's action was different. While it is legal to dox someone, (although morally it can be considered stalking), it is illegal to release their information publicly or blackmail the victim with the dox. This is all in line with Schenk v. the United States, which stands to this day to limit free speech when it can cause harm to America and its citizens (the classic example includes yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater).

Personally, I am very liberal, but I think that every American citizen must recognize these grave faults no matter what side they land on. We need to take action now when many people are aware of this problem so it doesn't happen off our radar again. Let's protect free speech and recognize that memes are often meant to be edgy, but have never induced violence. Memes may be able to save Stefan Karl, for example, a star of the children's TV show "Lazytown," from his pancreatic cancer. Memes have saved lives, they are powerful, for sure, because they are purely controlled by the masses. Let's make sure it stays that way, and that big interests and money can't silence the voice of the people.