Social media platforms have become indispensable channels for public debate, and yet they are now rarely seen as an out-and-out benefit to democracy. Rather, they are more likely to be seen as transmitting fake news, conspiracy theories and hate. Fears are also growing that private tech companies are exercising too much power over – and […]
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law Guest Editors: Jacob Mchangama, Executive Director, Justitia (Denmark), Executive Director of the Future of Free Speech. Natalie Alkiviadou, Senior Research Fellow, Justitia (Denmark) & The Future of Free Speech Scope of our Special Issue: Opinions, facts, truth, and impossibility are continuously being expressed through languages and other semiotic […]
Once democratic freedoms are snatched away, can they be clawed back? David Kaye – Professor of law, University of California, Irvine; former UN Special Rapporteur on protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Jacob Mchangama – founder and executive director of the Danish freedom of speech organisation, Justifia; host Clear and Present Danger: a history of free […]
… Even as free-speech campaigners in rich democracies offer support to those fighting censorship in poorer, less free places, their own governments are providing the would-be censors with cover, even inspiration. Germany’s Network Enforcement Law (Netzdg), passed in 2017, is meant to protect readers from fake news and hate speech by requiring social-media platforms to […]
After seemingly endless announcements heralding the arrival of the Facebook Oversight Board (FOB) over the past 18 months, the board has, at last, released its first batch of decisions… “Lawfare recently published an analysis of how long it takes legal systems to come to decisions in hate speech cases: In many places months pass, if […]
REPORTS 2020 How the German Prototype for Online Censorship went Global – 2020 edition In October 2020, Justitia released the update of the 2019 report on the impact of the German Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) around the globe. The 2020 version found that a total of 11 new countries have followed the German template, whether […]
Donald Trump. The CEO of My Pillow, Inc. Some 70,000 accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory that claims a Satan-worshipping cabal is secretly running the world and abusing children. The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. What do these all have in common? In recent weeks, they’ve all had their Twitter accounts suspended permanently or temporarily […]
On March 15, 2019, Brenton Tarrant logged on to 8chan and posted a message on a far-right thread to spread the word that he would be livestreaming an attack on “invaders.” Around 20 minutes later, Tarrant entered a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, with an automatic weapon and a GoPro camera. Tarrant livestreamed on Facebook […]
Within days the most powerful man in the world had been permanently cut off from communicating directly to his more than 120 million fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter. After years of providing oxygen to the political guerrilla tactics of Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey finally decided that fanning the flames of […]
On the 1st of December, Facebook Director of Governance and Global Affairs Brent Harris published a blog post announcing the first cases the newly constituted Oversight Board will consider. The announcement was a long time coming; it took Facebook two years to develop the Board, and since, both the company and the Board have been criticized for its slow progress…. […]