United States free speech exceptions

Exceptions to free speech in the United States are limitations on the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and expression as recognized by the United States Supreme Court. These exceptions have been created over time, based on certain types of speech and expression, and under different contexts. While freedom of speech in the United States is a right protected by the constitution, these exceptions make that right a limited one.

Restrictions that are based on people's reactions to words include both instances of a complete exception, and cases of diminished protection. Commercial advertising receives diminished, but not eliminated, protection.

Along with communicative restrictions, less protection is afforded for uninhibited speech when the government acts as subsidizer or speaker, is an employer, controls education, or regulates the following: the mail, airwaves, legal bar, military, prisons, and immigration.

The Supreme Court has held that "advocacy of the use of force" is unprotected when it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action" and is "likely to incite or produce such action". In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Court struck down a criminal conviction of a Ku Klux Klan group for "advocating ... violence ... as a means of accomplishing political reform" because their statements at a rally did not express an immediate, or imminent intent to do violence. This rule amended a previous decision of the Court, in Schenck v. United States (1919), which simply decided that a "clear and present danger" could justify a congressional rule limiting speech. The primary distinction is that the latter test does not criminalize "mere advocacy".

In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974), the Supreme Court decided that there is "no constitutional value in false statements of fact". However, this is not a concrete rule as the Court has struggled with how much of the "speech that matters" can be put at risk in order to punish a falsehood.

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