Late in the evening on June 1, 2019, Walter Lübcke, a local German politician, sat on the terrace outside his house on the outskirts of Kassel when a man crept up on him, aimed a gun at his head and shot him just above his ear. The man, a neo-Nazi, had crossed paths with the […]
The German NetzDG law to counter illegal online speech has become a prototype for internet censorship in authoritarian states. The Commission’s proposal for the new Digital Services Act must avoid this template, write Jacob Mchangama and Natalie Alkiviadou. Jacob Mchangama is Director at the think-tank Justitia. Natalie Alkiviadou is Senior Research Fellow at The Future […]
Despite their opposing views, both US presidential candidates want to change how social media platforms operate. One system adopted by Germany is increasingly being discussed around the world as an option. The so-called NetzDG law has been emulated in countries including Turkey, Russia and Brazil with more than 20 other governments, including the UK, citing […]
The trend that Justitia pin-pointed, in our 2019 report on how the German NetzDG law has become a reference around the world, is continuing. Brazil is currently in the process of adopting a fake news law copying large parts from the German NetzDG law. Read more on BBC Brazil here. From the article: Tendo sido […]
In this piece by Raghav Mendiratta he looks into Twitter’s anticipatory Takedown of Tweets in India. On July 25, Twitter ‘withheld’ or disabled access to two tweets made by activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan. Prashant Bhushan had posted two tweets in the end of June, criticizing the Supreme Court and especially its current Chief Justice. Based on the […]
In this latest article for Rights!, Jacob Mchangama and Natalie Alkiviadou of Justitia provide a timely socio-legal commentary on Scotland’s controversial new Hate Crime Bill. The authors detail how vagueness of language and some alarming characteristics of this proposed bill are of serious concern to free speech and run contrary to existing standards under International Human Rights […]
…But Jacob Mchangama, the executive director of Copenhagen-based think tank Justitia who was consulted by Facebook about its vaccine approach, fears the fallout from mass deletions: “This may have long-term consequences for free speech when this virus is hopefully contained,” he said. Misinformation about other vaccines has rarely met Facebook’s threshold for risking imminent harm. Read the […]
Natalie Alkiviadou and Jacob Mchangama in Verfassungblog.de: There are also good reasons to believe that the current ‘censorship pandemic’ violates international human rights standards. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights has stressed that while COVID-related disinformation must be combatted, some governments are ‘using this imperative as a pretext to introduce disproportionate restrictions to press freedom; this […]
Das 2017 verabschiedete Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (NetzDG) verpflichtet soziale Netzwerke, innerhalb einer Löschfrist von 24 Stunden nach Eingang der Beschwerde „offensichtlich“ rechtswidrige Inhalte zu löschen (§3 Abs. 2 NetzDG), jeden weiteren rechtswidrigen Inhalt binnen 7 Tagen zu löschen (§3 Abs. 3 NetzDG) sowie halbjährlich über die entsprechende Beschwerde- und Entscheidungspraxis zu berichten (§ 2 NetzDG). Bei Nichteinhaltung […]
Scotland’s Hate Crime Bill is well-intentioned. But history shows us that censorship is no way to fight hate. ‘Nothing is more apt to surprise a foreigner than the extreme liberty which we enjoy in this country of communicating whatever we please to the public…’ Thus wrote Scottish philosopher David Hume in 1742, extolling free speech as ‘the […]