As 2024 comes to a close, The Future of Free Speech team wants to thank you for your unwavering support. Together, we’ve achieved incredible milestones this year. Here’s a look at what you helped make possible.
Download Our 2024 Year In Review
The Global Free Speech Summit
This year, we were thrilled to host the inaugural Global Free Speech Summit at Vanderbilt University, where leading experts and influential voices from around the world gathered over two days to tackle today’s most urgent free speech challenges.
Dissidents shared powerful stories about fighting back against oppressive regimes, authors and journalists explained why a robust culture of free speech is vital to an open society, and academics and policy experts weighed in on growing threats to free speech from both governments and Big Tech.
Impact
This year, you helped bring free speech into the spotlight. We shared groundbreaking research, vital insights, and lasting perspectives that matter.
Warning About Free Speech in Europe
The “Brussels Effect” was on full display this year when the former European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services sent a letter to Elon Musk. It warned that a planned interview with Donald Trump hosted on X might violate the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) by spreading “harmful content.”
We swiftly joined 17 civil society organizations and free speech experts in an open letter sounding the alarm that any attempt to weaponize the DSA against legitimate discourse and political speech poses a serious risk to open democracies around the world.
Raising these concerns about the DSA’s far-reaching threats to freedom of expression has been one of our major objectives this year. Senior Fellow Jordi Calvet-Bademunt has spear-headed that effort with a DSA Enforcement Tracker, a regular DSA round-up, and expert commentary on the issue at Tech Policy Press.
Jordi has also raised free speech concerns about the AI Act, the EU’s novel attempt to regulate generative AI platforms with similarly vague requirements to prevent “systemic risks.”
We have also been tracking the real-world effects of other European laws like the DSA, which oblige online platforms to remove “harmful” content or face steep fines. In a new report, we found that legal speech made up a staggering percentage (between 87.5% and 99.7%) of comments deleted from social media pages in France, Germany, and Sweden.
You can read more about the implications of this report in Tech Policy Press commentary by Executive Director Jacob Mchangama and from Senior Fellow Natalie Alkivadou in the journal Information & Communications Technology Law.
Combating Hate Speech with Counterspeech, Not Censorship
A report we released last year found that hate speech bans were the second most common form of speech restrictions adopted in open democracies between 2015 and 2022. While fighting intolerance and hatred might sound like noble goals, Jacob Mchangama warned in a Wall Street Journal essay that Scotland’s new overly broad hate speech law threatens the very minority voices it aims to protect.
Writing about a case before the European Court of Human Rights in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, Natalie Alkiviadou argues that criminalizing hate speech risks undermining democracy and fundamental rights by circumventing essential safeguards of legality, necessity, and proportionality, potentially fostering intolerance and empowering extremists to claim victimhood.
Our Focus on Solutions
At the heart of our work is finding effective solutions to address harmful speech without censorship.
Our Counterspeech Toolkit for Online Hate Speech provides practical strategies for combating harmful speech without censorship, empowering individuals to respond effectively. In addition to the Russian translation released this year, we will soon have toolkits available in Hindi and Urdu, extending their global reach.
By the end of 2024, we will have conducted 5 Counterspeech Trainings in English, Spanish, and Russian, training over 200 participants from across the globe on effective ways to fight hate speech without undermining freedom of expression. In 2025, look for even more global counterspeech trainings.
We also presented our counterspeech efforts in two workshops at the 2024 Oslo Freedom Forum.
Promoting a Free Speech Culture in the AI Era
The AI era has brought new opportunities but also serious challenges for freedom of expression. Earlier this year, Jacob Mchangama joined Vanderbilt University’s Jules White in TIME Magazine to warn about how strict AI guardrails threaten access to information.
We also released a report on how six major AI chatbots frequently refused to generate content about controversial subjects, falling short of international human rights standards. Jacob and Jordi Calvet-Bademunt wrote about this report in a syndicated column for The Conversation. Jordi also urged GenAI developers to prioritize free speech and access to information at Tech Policy Press.
We also hosted two public symposia on AI and free speech with the Center for Democracy & Technology in Brussels, Belgium in March and Washington, D.C. in June, where experts discussed how these emerging technologies and new regulatory policies were reshaping how we communicate and obtain information in the digital age.
Pushing Back on Elite Panic About AI, Disinformation, and Fake News
With over half of the global population voting in elections in 2024, fears about the effects of foreign disinformation, fake news, and AI deepfakes reached a fever pitch among public officials, think tanks, and media outlets.
When California passed a bill to ban deepfakes about political candidates, Jacob Mchangama wrote at MSNBC about how we should avoid granting governments the unprecedented power to determine truth, especially since the deepfake apocalypse predicted by elites never materialized in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere.
Some countries, including open democracies, have attempted to ban “fake news.” Natalie Alkiviadou raised several free speech concerns about legislation in Cyprus that carried a prison sentence for disseminating “fake news,” namely that it would create a chilling effect on freedom of expression and media freedom. Natalie alerted both European and international media and civil society organizations to spotlight the risks of such measures. Parliamentary discussions about the bill have since been postponed.
Our Focus on Solutions
At Persuasion, Jacob highlighted Taiwan’s innovative, community-driven initiatives to combat disinformation—empowering citizens to identify and isolate false narratives without government overreach or censorship.
To further support these efforts, we launched our Disinformation Toolkit in six languages to help individuals and organizations counter false information online through strategic counterspeech techniques.
Looking Forward to 2025
Survey: The Future of Free Speech Index 2025
In an update to our groundbreaking 2021 survey, “Who Cares About Free Speech?”, we will explore how attitudes toward free speech have changed across 33 countries. We hope to uncover whether the global decline in free speech comes from governments or public demand, providing insights to guide advocacy and test new ways to boost support for free expression around the world.
Distributed Content Moderation Prototype
CWe are working with Analysis & Numbers to create a tool that empowers Facebook group admins, media outlets, and organizations to filter harmful content while giving users more control over moderation, avoiding heavy-handed censorship.
The Freequalizer
We are fine-tuning an AI-powered app that helps users respond to online hate speech with personalized counter-speech. By analyzing offensive posts and using the user’s values, writing style, and a database of hate speech patterns, the app generates tailored, effective responses to promote thoughtful and respectful online dialogue.
The Global Free Speech Summit 2025
Next fall, we will co-host the 2nd annual Global Free Speech Summit with Vanderbilt University. Participants and attendees will focus on how free speech can foster resilient solutions to many of our global problems. Stay tuned!
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