By Ashkhen Kazaryan Each June, Pride Month turns our public spaces into sites of celebration and remembrance. But Pride is not just a cultural event; it is a constitutional exercise. At its core, Pride embodies the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment: speech, assembly, press, and petition. Expressive acts of defiance wrote the history of […]
Photo Credit: Palácio do Planalto By Mario Sabino If there were a serious discussion about freedom of expression here, it would be inevitable to look at the book Free Speech: a History from Socrates to Social Media , by Danish lawyer Jacob Mchangama, the most notorious defender of freedom of expression on the international stage. […]
By Joan Barata The Brazilian Supreme Federal Court ( STF ) formed a majority to substantially change Article 19 of the Internet Civil Rights Framework — a rule that defines the responsibility of platforms for user content in the absence of a court order. The decision reflects growing pressure from government officials for laws that would force platforms to […]
By Anam Baloch Free speech isn’t just ink on parchment in Pakistan’s constitution under Article 19, but it is the very essence of democracy in states. With the emergence of the internet, we’ve witnessed a nexus between the ‘online and offline’ and now speech as we see it has also become digital. As users of […]
By Gürkan Özturan As the Future Free Speech project released its latest report, the findings on Turkey paint an interesting image. Turkish society seems to predominantly have a strong sense of support for freedom of expression, in principle. Yet experiences lived in the country deeply contradict this support, as the reality shows that freedom remains […]
Photo Credit: Frankie Fouganthin By Jacob Mchangama In 1793, Thomas Paine launched a furious assault on Christianity with The Age of Reason. “What is it the Bible teaches us?” he asked. “Rapine, cruelty, and murder.” He didn’t stop there. “What is it the Testament teaches us? — to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman […]
Photo by Gage Skidmore In memory of David Boaz (Vanderbilt Class of 1975), former Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute, The Future of Free Speech is honored to receive a generous gift that will further its mission to promote and protect free expression worldwide. Mr. Boaz, author of The Libertarian Mind, was a strong […]
By Gabby Miller — By the numbers: The Future of Free Speech, an independent think tank at Vanderbilt University, kicked off its comments arguing that conservative voices — including accounts, influencers and news sources — outperform on social media platforms. “From engagement metrics on Facebook to favorable algorithmic treatment on X (formerly Twitter) … the […]
By Ashkhen Kazaryan Key Takeaways The First Amendment protects people’s, corporations’ and other legal entities’ free speech rights from government restriction, but no court has found that AI programs themselves have the same free speech rights. AI-generated content is generally afforded the same First Amendment protections as content created by people or corporations and other […]
By Jacob Sullum [ . . . ] The FTC’s authority under Section 5 “does not, and constitutionally cannot, extend to penalizing social media platforms for how they choose to moderate user content,” Ashkhen Kazaryan, a senior legal fellow at the Future of Free Speech, argues in a comment that the organization submitted on Tuesday. “Platforms’ content […]