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 […]
Coronavirus Has Started a Censorship Pandemic Governments around the world are banning fake news about the crisis—and cracking down on their critics while they’re at it. So writes, Future of Free Speech’s Jacob Mchangama and FIRE’s Sarah McLaughlin in Foreign Policy
More and more African countries have laws against online hate speech. In practice, however, these laws often lead to censorship. And a German law may have served as a model. …In any case, Ethiopia is poorly positioned when it comes to internet freedom. The country regularly scores very low in international rankings. The “Freedom on […]
In the face of relentless pressure from China, Taiwan may have figured out how to combat disinformation without undermining free speech. Read the full piece at The American Interest.
…Der dänische Menschenrechtsexperte Jacob Mchangama veröffentlichte im November eine Analyse der in den beiden vergangenen Jahren erlassenen oder vorgeschlagenen Internet-Zensur-Gesetze. Die Mehrheit stammt demnach aus Staaten, die Meinungsäußerung und Berichterstattung ohnehin schon stark einschränken. Verbotene Inhalte werden dort häufig nur schwammig definiert – zum Beispiel untersagt Russland das wissentliche Verbreiten „unzuverlässiger, sozial bedeutsamer Informationen“ und […]
Politicians and opinion-makers around the world often assume that there is a trade-off between civil rights and national safety, although the association is theoretically ambiguous. Different theoretical arguments support both a positive and negative association between freedom of expression and terrorism: Some hold that restricting the freedom of expression will hinder the coordination of terrorist […]