By Peggy Sastre INTERVIEW — What if censorship were our natural state? From ancient Greece to AI, the Danish lawyer and human rights specialist analyzes the improbable survival of freedom of expression. Freedom of expression has one major flaw: it also benefits the people we despise. Hence this feat: praising it for ourselves, then declaring […]
By Jordi Calvet-Bademunt With the U.S. midterms approaching, about 1 in 5 voters has asked AI chatbots about elections and politics, a recent survey found. But many voters may not know that governments around the world increasingly shape what chatbots can say. And because many tech companies apply the same policies worldwide, the answers American […]
By Jacques de Saint Victor ESSAY — In Free Speech, the Danish jurist and essayist Jacob Mchangama investigates 2,500 years of liberty and its many enemies. In 1644, the English poet John Milton, the celebrated author of Paradise Lost, published one of the finest pleas ever written against censorship and in favor of freedom of […]
By Natalie Alkiviadou Political discourse increasingly unfolds within digital environments structured by algorithmic recommendation systems, viral dissemination mechanisms, and engagement-driven visibility metrics. Platforms such as TikTok do not merely host political and social debates; they shape their circulation, amplification, and public impact. Further, the speed and scale of dissemination in algorithmically mediated environments exceed those […]
By Jacob Mchangama Earlier this month, Amnesty International asked Britain’s charity regulator to review the status of 117 organizations whose views on sex and abortion it dislikes. It received the public thrashing it deserved. But the threatened libel campaign now being bankrolled against it risks converting a victory for counter-speech into a cautionary tale—one in […]
By Natalie Alkiviadou On 8 July 2026, the European Parliament adopted a Resolution on the Impact of the 1974 Turkish Invasion on Cypriot Women and Girls and the Crimes Committed by Turkish Forces and Consequences on Gender Equality. The Resolution acknowledges that Cypriot women’s experiences of violence during 1974 are “often being excluded from official historical, […]
By Philipp Fess Saxony’s Justice Minister Constanze Geiert is calling for an end to insulting politicians. She argues that protecting Chancellor Merz is hardly justifiable to the public. The law against “insulting a monarch” is once again under scrutiny. Telepolis had already reported on the visit of UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression Irene Khan in […]
By: Jacob Mchangama At this year’s Munich Security Conference, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed Europe’s “long tradition in freedom of speech.” Then she drew a redline. “We are very clear with digital sovereignty . . . that what is forbidden offline is forbidden online,” she added. Von der Leyen’s maxim would have […]
By Jacob Mchangama Irakli Miladze, a food courier in Tbilisi, spent long shifts dodging not only the weather, but also fines for using bus lanes. They were the same bus lanes that government officials sped down in their fancy vehicles with impunity. In late 2022, Miladze did what citizens in a modern democracy are supposed […]
By Rym Momtaz, ed. The battle over free speech has taken center stage since U.S. Vice President JD Vance accused Europe of censorship. From travel bans to social media regulation, especially around the Israel-Palestine conflict, are liberal democratic governments weaponizing free speech? [ . . . ] Natalie Alkiviadou Senior Research Fellow, The Future of […]