Washington Post: Brigitte Macron Cyberbullying Case Puts Fringe-Right Claims on Trial

By Sammy Westfall The Macrons are fighting the defamation claims in France’s criminal courts. “While France prioritizes reputation protections, the U.S. champions a national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be ‘uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,’” said Jacob Mchangama, executive director of the Future of Free Speech think tank at Vanderbilt University, […]

Echo24: We Look At People Like Idiots: About Freedom of Speech and Hate

By Adam Růžička “Hate is hatred – no one should be exposed to it,” said European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. The fight against hatred is growing in Europe, but critics point out that sanctions are both ineffective and threaten freedom of speech. We discussed the topic with Natalie Alkiviada, a leading expert on […]

Salon: Efforts to Avenge Charlie Kirk’s Death Have Fallen Apart Everywhere — Except Where It Counts

By Russell Payne Organized right-wing doxxing efforts have evaporated in the month since the killing of Charlie Kirk, the former head of Turning Point USA, leaving questions about where all the data went. In the six weeks since Kirk’s death, most of the right-wing efforts to avenge his death — except the ones in the […]

The Guardian: ‘Legacies Condensed to AI Slop’: OpenAI Sora Videos of The Dead Raise Alarm with Legal Experts

By Niamh Rowe The legal question Consigning the ghosts of celebrities to haunt Sora for ever might feel wrong, but is it legal? That depends who you ask. A major question remains unresolved in internet law: are AI companies covered bysection 230, and therefore not liable for the third-party content on their platforms? If OpenAI […]

Washington Post: In Europe, Hate Speech Isn’t Free Speech. Some in D.C. Hate That

By Karla Adam and Kate Brady But behind Washington’s finger-pointing lies a difficult debate that is roiling many European countries: Have governments gone too far in curbing free expression when it comes to hate speech and intentional misinformation — including political propaganda and election meddling by foreign adversaries — or have they built more responsible […]

CNN: Trump’s Free Speech Backflip Was 250 Years in The Making

By Zachary Wolf Trump’s complete turnabout on speech is indicative of the contradictions and ironies in the bedrock principle of the American liberties in the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment. While Trump came to office promising to restore free speech, particularly on college campuses and on social media, he’s now engaged in a […]

Broadband Breakfast: Legal Experts Warn FCC’s Brendan Carr Edging Toward ‘Coercion’

Legal scholars and free speech advocates warned Wednesday that Federal Communications Commission Chairman BrendanCarr ’s increasingly vocal interventions in broadcast content decisions were edging toward coercion. [ . . . ] Ashkhen Kazaryan, senior legal fellow for the Future of Free Speech, cautioned that “jawboning,” or political pressure on media, was not confined to one […]

USA Today: Free Speech Is Facing Threats in The US and Beyond. Here Are The Pressure Points

By Angele Latham, BrieAnna J. Frank, Taylor Seely, Stephany Matat, and Cate Charron NASHVILLE − There’s turmoil over the state of free speech in America. The issue took center stage as free speech advocates, lawyers and experts from around the world convened recently at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Conversations at the Global Free Speech Summit, […]

WCGU: Supporting Free Speech Requires Protecting Opinions You Strongly Disagree With

By Mike Kiniry The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of […]

Blaze Media: Free Speech Is A Core American Value

By Kevin M. Spivak One-sided censorship A decline in support for free speech and an increase in support for violence to suppress opposing views go hand in hand in authoritarian regimes. According to a recent report from Vanderbilt University’s the Future of Free Speech project, over the past decade, the number of countries limiting speech […]