Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: We Need Ongoing Monitoring of AI and Political Information

By Danaé Metaxa and Alex Engler Generative artificial intelligence (AI), and especially large language models (LLMs), is playing an increasingly substantial role in political discourse—for example, discussing political topics, answering legal questions, and relating election information to users. LLMs produce content that regularly reaches billions of people through chatbots and search engines, and a growing […]

Le Figaro: From Athenian Democracy to Social Media: When the Defenders of Free Speech Become Its Worst Enemies

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 […]

POLITICO: Meta Faces Pivotal Kids’ Safety Trial

A POLITICO piece about a high-stakes child-safety trial brought by red and blue states against Meta cites Ashkhen Kazaryan, who argues the judge’s decision could have far-reaching consequences for online speech. From the article “…Ashkhen Kazaryan, a senior legal fellow at the Future of Free Speech think tank at Vanderbilt University, cautioned against what she […]

Prosperity Institute: Reversing Britain’s Free Speech Recession

A new policy paper from the UK-based Prosperity Institute, “Reversing Britain’s Free Speech Recession,” cites The Future of Free Speech’s Executive Director Jacob Mchangama on the European Court of Human Rights’ record. In the paper, barrister Jon Holbrook traces the decline of free expression in Britain to decades of speech-restrictive legislation and proposes a draft […]

The Christian Science Monitor: Congress Weighs Kids’ Digital Safety – and Big Tech Accountability

By Caitlin Babcock On Monday night, the House of Representatives passed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act on a bipartisan basis, 267-117. The sweeping children’s safety package combines text from over a dozen other bills. Its provisions, among others, include blocking platforms from using children’s personal data for targeted ads and requiring AI […]

NOTUS: Americans Tell the Trump Administration to Back Off ‘The View’

By Jenna Monnin The FCC is reviewing whether “The View” qualifies for the equal-time exemption for its political interviews. News programs are exempt from federal law that requires equal time for political candidates’ viewpoints, and ABC says that its show meets the requirements as a “bona fide news interview program.” The comments, by and large, […]

Telepolis: Geiert Wants to Overturn Special Protection for Friedrich Merz

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 […]

Carnegie Europe: Taking the Pulse: Are Western Democracies Failing Free Speech?

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 […]

ASCL: The Diverging Interpretations Around the Legal Notion of Hate Speech: a Valuable Contribution By Natalie Alkiviadou

By Joan Barata [Editor’s note: this is a review of Dr. Natalie Alkiviadou’s new book, Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights (Routledge 2025)]. The notion of hate speech has always been a problematic legal artifact in international human rights law. Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides a […]

USA Today: FCC Seeks Warning Labels for Trans TV Content. How It Affects Viewers

By Angele Latham A free speech legal group in Nashville has pushed back on a recent Federal Communications Commission inquiry into television programming involving “gender identity” issues, calling the move constitutionally concerning. The Future of Free Speech, an international free speech advocacy think tank based in Nashville, filed comments responding to a recent FCC inquiry that debates whether current […]